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Projects 2013-1995
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| | | Multimedia Library and Museum Platform 2012 - 2014
| | | | Even venerable cultural institutions such as libraries and museums have to and want to keep up with the times. Their treasures gathered over centuries are being digitized, their most of their services and publications are digital anyway nowadays. We are used to search for books or to inform ourselves about an exhibition via the internet. The usual procedure is refining lists generated by search engines or "scanning" web pages in search of interesting bits.
What if the visit of a digital library or a digital exhibition would be more like talking to a librarian or a museum guide? Actually an enlightening experience inspiring us with new ideas?
In this research project, we are trying to achieve exactly this experience. Users interact with mobile-friendly, highly adaptive and responsive interfaces. Behind the scenes, a cloud-based service continuously analyzes search keywords, interaction behavior and the digital databases. It asks meaningful questions, presents relevant media and helps with navigation not only for finding what you are looking for, but suggests media and information you did not know they where interesting.
Partners in this project are: Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Darmstadt, Städel Museum Frankfurt, Software AG, mtG, nterra, House of IT.
The project is funded by grants by the LOEWE program of the state of Hesse, Germany (LOEWE projects HA-Projekt-
Nr. 320/12-10, 321/12-11, 322/12-12). |
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The Virtual Planetarium is an interactive installation in our 3D-Lab at h_da. Controlled by iPhone or iPad it allows visitors to travel through our solar system visiting planets and moons. Our 3D projection renders the experience stereoscopic and immersive. The project was developed as a student playground. I have provided the celestial mechanics, basic graphical rendering and camera control. The student contributions incorporate until now user interface, music, star background and real-time earth cloud coverage.
The project has been presented in public at our annual mediale* exhibition and at Ars Electronica festival 2010 in Linz, Austria as part of our exhibition "Expanded Interface".
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Presenccia, 2006-2007
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During my work in the Presenccia project at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
in Barcelona, our group constructed a test scenario for measuring
the feeling of presence in a virtual environment.
The experiment took place in UPC's CAVE placing the subject in a
simulated Jazz bar surrounded by virtual musicans and guests.
Suddenly a fire breaks out. After a while, the virtual characters
notice the fire and start to panic and flee.
During the experiment the subject's bodily reactions like galvanic
skin response, respiration and heart rate are measured. The recorded
data
was later evaluated to find out, if the subjects reacted as if the
scenario was real and to find out how to improve the scenario to provoke
an
even stronger reaction.
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Fraport 2015, 2005
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Fraport 2015 is a model of the Frankfurt Airport
including the extensions planned until 2015. A physical
model shows the airport, runways, train station and
nearby Frankfurt motorway interchange. When
observing the model though stereoscopic binoculars,
visitors see all the dynamic features of the airport
overlaid precisely to the physical model. Planes are all
over in the air, starting and landing on the runways
taxiing from and to the gates. Cloud layers are and
flight data are visualized. The plane motions are a result
of airport simulations performed by Fraport and
rendered in real-time.
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Space Debris, 2004-2005
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Space Debris is a VR installation developed at Cybernarium by order of
European Space Agency (ESA). It shows drastically the
growing problem of space debris and explains possible
solutions. Actual data of more than 9000 objects
orbiting earth where provided by ESA. Using a large 3D
screen as a display and a touch sensitive monitor as
input device, visitors can navigate though the animated
clouds of active and defective satellites, as well as
mission related objects (rocket stages, lost tools, and
other pieces of debris). Visitors can travel into the past
and understand the developments beginning in 1957.
Time travel is also possible to the future, where different simulation scenarios show how the
situation will evolve until the year 2100, depending on measurements of mitigation.
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Energized – The Interactive Flow of Electric Energy, 2004
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This installation was the first exhibit we developed at Cybernarium and at the same time our first multi-user
installation. It educates visitors how electric energy is
produced, transformed and delivered to households
and factories. Each of up to eight visitors plays the role
of an element of the energy network, such as power
station, transformer, factory or apartment building.
Players are tracked by an optical tracking system. When
players move, ‘their’ elements move simultaneously on
a large screen in the front. Electric lines snap in when
two matching elements are close and tear apart if they
loose contact. The goal of the game is to cooperatively
form a functioning network.
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During the year 2001, while I was still working as a senior researcher
at Frauhofer Institute for Computer Graphics, an idea emerged:
So many interesting Virtual and Augmented Reality exhibits had been
developed and successfully presented in the recent years.
Why not exhibit them permanently and publicly? The idea became a
serious project aiming to found a spin-off company, the
Cybernarium. In order to boost
the foundation by a unique event showing off the
potential of VR/AR technology and proofing the
applicability of the technology a first public exhibition was
organized. In
January 2002, Cybernarium Days presented 15 VR/AR
exhibits at Darmstadt’s Centralstation; during 6 days
more than 10000 citizens visited the exhibition.
Although one had to stand in line up to four hours, a
questionnaire showed that more than 92% of the
visitors where satisfied. The Cybernarium Days created a tremendous press echo including all
major German TV networks and helped the successful foundation of Cybernarium GmbH. I led
the teams for software development and exhibition design as well as the exhibition
organisation.
The exhibition was repeated two times in 2003 with similar success. In 2004, the Cybernarium became a permanent
institution in Darmstadt.
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Augmented Man, 2000
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'Augmented Man' is an artistic Augmented Reality
installation realized on the occasion of 600th
birthday of
Johannes Gutenberg. It consists of a stereoscopic
projection fed by a stereo camera, acting as a virtual
mirror. Visitors see their reflection time-shifted by a few
seconds. Moreover the 'mirror' shows an additional
virtual person not present in the real auditorium, the
Augmented Man. He approaches the visitors and asks
questions of fundamental meaning answered
simultaneously by citations of famous scientists speaking from the off. Augmented Man is
controlled and rendered by software processing the images of the stereo camera and an
additional camera mounted to the ceiling. By this means, augmented man knows where the
visitors are standing and can be rendered correctly occluded by visitors closer to the mirror.
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Virtual Cathedral of Siena, 1999-2000
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The Virtual Cathedral of Siena has been developed as
an exhibit for the World Exposition Expo 2000 in Hanover,
Germany. The exhibit opens up new vistas of one of
the most beautiful gothic cathedrals. Guided by an
avatar, called Luigi, visitors roam through the interior of
the cathedral and learn about famous artwork of the
church. By touching a virtual book they select places of
interest and ask Luigi questions about art, history and
architecture of the current location. Luigi is rendered as
a real-time animated human figure in traditional
costume. He features a lively facial expression, lip-sync
speech and holds eye contact.
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IDEAL, 1998-2000
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IDEAL (Interaction Device Abstraction Layer) is a client-
server based system connecting VR/AR applications to
multidimensional interaction devices such as tracking
systems, data glove, spacemouse etc. It provides a
hardware-independent object oriented API. Novel
features are: Hot swap capabilities, optimal low-latency
communication protocols, concurrent access by multiple
applications and advanced calibration and testing
procedures. Until today IDEAL is a core part of IGD’s
VR system 'Virtual Design II' and in daily operational use in German automotive industry.
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Virtual Oceanarium, 1996-1998
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The Virtual Oceanarium is a 3D visiual simulation of
Europe’s largest aquarium, the Oceánario in Lisbon,
Portugal. I headed the research and development
activities for this project, performed by a joined team
between Portugal and Germany. The virtual aquarium we developed
consisted of five fish tanks populated with more than
1000 fish with simulated behaviour plus much more
static or pre-animated creatures. The Virtual
Oceanarium has been presented to the global audience
of the world exposition EXPO '98. My article in Communications of the ACM can be found here, a video by my Portuguese colleguages is available on YouTube.
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Astronaut Training Simulator, 1995
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The astronaut training simulator was developed during
my internship at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC).
Two VR systems, one running in Houston, USA, one in
Darmstadt at Fraunhofer-IGD, Germany where linked by an ISDN line for
communication. The participants shared a common
training environment depicting the Space Shuttle
docked to the Hubble Space Telescope. Each astronaut
was rendered by a space suit with a movable arm and
hand. Two astronauts situated at JSC and IGD
simultaneously controlled their avatars by HMD, data
glove and navigated with a spacemouse. Together they
trained the replacement of defective power supply by a spare part. The experiment has been
successfully replayed on SIGGRAPH’s Digital Bayou in 1996. Our publication in German Science Magazine 'Spektrum der Wissenschaft' can be found here.
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