IMERSA 2013 Summit highlight video

Check out this video created by Derek Osterlund featuring the highlights of the IMERSA Summit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science last month featuring, speakers, workshops, and special events, including several live fulldome performances, one by SAT of Montreal, another by Signal to Noise and one featuring Mikey Fisher aka Mousterious with myself vjing in the dome.

 

Sky Survey...the story behind the artist.

This is a great story of the photographer, Nick Risinger, as he set up a complex array of cameras at various latitudes in order to stitch together the entire sky in one picture. The final image is a 5k pixel HD image of the sky which can be viewed in augmented reality or 360 degree panorama. What a great project, and a great lesson for my students who take the immersive landscapes classes. Anyways, here is his website: http://skysurvey.org/story/ And here is the actual photograph (There should be icons at the bottom of the screen to navigate the image): http://media.skysurvey.org/interactive360/index.html --Blake Kirschbaum (Astro 1010)

Moon Lust an augmented reality project at the Adler Planetarium

Moon Lust is a new augmented reality project which addresses issues of lunar exploration and habitation. The project was launched on June 21st, 2012 at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. Additionally, using mobile technology, they created mobile apps which allow exhibit attendees to participate in the 3D augmented mission using the free Adler WiFi network.

Turntable: virtual community of DJs

I found a new little way for students to learn some DJ skills in a live interactive setting. A new application called turntable allows people to dj live, and share music and ideas about dj music and culture. Its an interesting idea and could be used for students just as I suggested the use of Second Life or Open Wonderland. It allows people to choose an avatar, and sticker for their laptop. They can dj for a limited amount of time, with other users or djs live. A nice way to listen to new music, and also a great way to expand integrated music sharing technologies. I could see creating a music class where students use this technology to play and explore different music genres, theories, components, techniques, etc. I can see how parts of this application could be used in the course, however students would not learn to build or navigate in the virtual world using the turntable software like they do in Second Life or Open Wonderland. Additionally, ultimately there is greater opportunity for learning STEM subject through the integration of several different hardware and software integrations using Second Life or Open Wonderland, where the Turntable application is simple and therefore not as much control and diversity therefore limited learning, however still interesting and useful, and most likely very interesting to the target student groups.

Minecraft and Environmental Simulations at DiVE immersive Lab at Duke Univ.

Just over a month ago at Duke in the immersive lab, they had minecraft mapped in the immersive theater for live gaming. This is exactially what I was thinking about trying in the dome. Minecraft is being used in immersive education and they have just increased the immersiveness of this virtual world to the max, by utilizing the virtual world within the immersive theater. I am very impressed and would like to see this in the fulldome for educators soon. The possibilities are endless for this kind of technology in the dome. We already have the Unity game engine working in fulldome, its time to get the rest of this working in there too. DiVE is a six sided immersive theater at Duke used mostly for scientific visualizations. However, they do have a community outreach, where they open the lap to the public, sharing technology developed in the lab. They are interested in cognitive neuroscience research and education. This is something I would like to check out, and keep track of. DiVE Website: http://vis.duke.edu/dive DiVE Projects: http://vis.duke.edu/dive/projects Also check out this cool project that used the DiVE lab at Duke. Its from 2007, but it is very cool project and use of the lab. Virtual Forest Yields Clues to Climate at Duke University Ideas are beaming....one could create an immersive interactive game which teaches the gamer these issues. Would be so great to get students from local schools involved in collecting and using the data in these kinds of labs and visualization.

3D Cave at Cornell Medical School

Great video discussing the use of the 3D cave at Cornell Medical School and its role in education. Using Christie Digital technology, this is an amazing cave especially, most impressive is the live interactivity with realtime data processing. Unfortunately these labs are only known to exist in highly funded research facilities at universities and private or government labs. However, with recent technological advancements in hardware and software, these types of systems may soon be affordable allowing for greater adoption of immersive education.

Skills needed for Fulldome digital media studies

(Reposted from my other blog (Field Journal) I wanted to start thinking about what is important, what is needed, what is required, what is the most basic skills students need to work in the FULLDOME. How do these skills build on each other and how do they compliment the final outcome of digital media production for the fulldome? Computer Skills and basic Fulldome 101 Skills 360 degree immersive software/hardware, projectors, monitors, networking, imaging Photography Skills Students must be able to create content and produce this from the most simple and basic levels like photography and video, transforming their productions into advanced fulldome mastered works. Animation Skills Students must be able to create animation content for use in fulldome productions to dome master specifications. Audio for the Fulldome immersive theater Students learn to create immersive 360 degree surround studio mixed audio for their pieces, which will be very valuable when they create flybys in their immersive environments. Fulldome Standards What are the standards for producing content for a digital planetarium? What are the standards for movies, live performances, and productions. What standards should be considered when creating content for the fulldome. Fulldome Special Effects Advanced techniques in CGI imaging of photography and animation. Advanced techniques in lighting like HDR. Interactivity and Games in the Fulldome Working with Games and interactive components in the fulldome is here, now is the time to think about building classes that consider these components as tools for digital media production. With the gaming industry as one of the leading industries, it will be a matter of time before fully immersive games are produced for fulldome and other immersive theaters. Having game building skills will be very useful in the near future for this industry I believe. The Panorama below is from one of my Summer of 2012 Students (approx 15) in the Immersive Landscapes 2 Class on Spherical Photography for the digital dome. She learned to take all these photos, over 175 and stitch them together and prepare them for the fulldome in just four days. They worked really hard and the results were amazing!