Western Australia: Land and People

Jul 182002
 

Western Australian Museum – Western Australia: Land and People

Summary

An online exhibition exploring the relationships of people and place in Western Australia. This exhibition compliments the physical exhibition of the same name.

This online project had two major constraints: to be accessible to people with low bandwidth connections to the internet and to be relevant to adults and school children.

There is over 2 hours worth of content to be viewed in the online exhibition.

Media

This exhibition contains over 360 artifacts from the physical exhibition. The media provided to GMG included

  • high resolution scans of paintings, drawings and photographs
  • videos from within the physical exhibition
  • over an hour of curatorial commentary recorded especially for online presentation
  • 3D photographic studies of historical artifacts using QuickTime Object VR tools
  • over 80 pages of text rewritten for the online exhibition

Technology

The online presentation was built using Flash from Macromedia. GMG created custom media playing tools for the commentary and video segments. Special development of an Object VR player was included so that site visitors wouldn’t have to download the QuickTime player (which for PC users can be a significant download time).

A complete windowing system was developed so that individual artifacts could be downloaded separately when site visitors wanted to view content. The whole download philosophy is to give visitors a taste of what they are about to download, roughly how long that will take, and then when they have decided to view something we give them feedback on how the download is progressing.

GMG also developed a customizable guided tour. This element made use of all of the artifacts in the regular online exhibition, loading them is a specially curated order. The display of the elements is timed and paced so that viewers can listen to the audio, view the video and images, read the text and get a good feel for the content of the site. At any time the viewer can interact with the guided tour and it will stop to let them do what they like. When they are ready to continue, the guided tour will continue on.

Design

The design contains many fun elements: from the interactive menu system and animated windows, to hidden animation sequences that only the really curious will find. Some of the artifacts and pages have media presented in unique ways. For example there is a photo wall where the visitor can scroll along the wall and take “photos” of the artwork, displaying a larger photo. Some art has a special zoom in functionality. Some pages have background audio.

These elements all keep give the site a sense of freshness without being a continually new experience and without alienating the visitors.

Randell Street VR

Jan 302002
 

The Randell Street VR project forged the way to new levels of architectural walkthroughs.

What is it?

TrueVR is a service offered by GMG for creating 3D immersive environments of unsurpassed quality and flexibility.

We take your plans or CAD files and create 3D models for interactive display. Our artists then set lighting and décor for the building just as a professional photographer would. Programmers fine tune the way the environment behaves, while sound engineers craft the perfect auditory experience. Finally, the project is packaged and delivered for your clients to enjoy.

Much more than just 360 degree panoramas, TrueVR allows people to have free reign within your designs. Admire the outlook from a window, walk to a balcony for a view of the living space, relax by a fountain and listen to the early morning call of birds.

TrueVR requires no special hardware and runs on most desktop PCs and notebooks: great for CD distribution or internet delivery. Add a wide format TV, quality sound system, and a high end PC for an overwhelming experience of environment and atmosphere.

Benefits

Just as a scale model of a building is an invaluable tool for demonstrating the form and function of a proposed design, TrueVR gives an interactive impression of the ambience of space, light, and sound within and surrounding the building. More than this, TrueVR encourages people to become excited about a design by giving them unfettered access to the site. They explore the environment, learn about it and understand it. They take ownership of the design.

The only marketing tool that can outperform this one is the real building itself.

Flexible to alter, TrueVR gives architects the ability to deliver the same building with varying décor or lighting conditions, in any season.

All other media may also be generated from the 3D models: video, high quality images, and 360 degree panoramas.

TrueVR is powerful and robust enough to handle any size of construction.

Uses

Present concepts to clients or peers with an interactive, immersive demonstration of a project. Nothing else can deliver the same immediacy.

Communicate to an international audience with TrueVR tuned for on-demand delivery via your web site, or create a multimedia CD with high quality sounds, images, and geometry.

Build up a design library of sample spaces and environments to facilitate the requirements discovery phase of a project.

When you have had a range of buildings modelled, you have the opportunity to consolidate them into a virtual portfolio, an ethereal village of premium designs.

© 2011 Glasson Murray Group Privacy | Legal Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha