Tag Archives: AR

PhD Opportunity: Audio-Augmented Reality

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PhD study opportunity* at the University of South Australia (in Adelaide, South Australia) https://unisa.edu.au/research/degrees/leveraging-audio-augmented-reality

“lead tourists around past & present live music hotspots & live music history locations of Adelaide with directed thematic or user-driven audio tours”

*Sorry, there are no degree fees for locals but there is also no scholarship funding attached to this one.

ISMAR workshop MrICHE

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#CFP I was invited onto the program committee for IEEE International Workshop on “Mixed Reality Implications on Cultural Heritage Experience (MrICHE)”.

The workshop will be held in conjunction with the International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR 2021, https://ismar21.org), 4-8 October 2021, Bari, Italy.

Submit: 4-8 page papers by 23 June! IEEE format. https://fcrlab.unime.it/calls/mriche2021 #ismar #culturalheritage #mixedreality #augmentedreality

Audio-augmented arboreality: wildflowers and language

Announcements, augmented reality, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, visualisation,

New article

Hafizur Rahaman, Michelle Johnston & Erik Champion (2021). Audio-augmented arboreality: wildflowers and language, Digital Creativity, DOI: 10.1080/14626268.2020.1868536 free for first 50 people:

Before colonization, there were over 250 languages spoken in Australia. Today only thirteen Indigenous languages are still being taught to children). Language has an important part to play in cultural maintenance and ‘closing the gap’ in terms of First Peoples’ cultural heritage, identity, and sense of belonging. In this work, we aim to develop an engaging and easy way to teach and learn the local Indigenous names of wildflowers using a mobile device. This paper presents the development of a phone application that runs on a local machine, recognizes local wildflowers through its camera, and plays associated sounds and displays associated text in the Noongar language. The prototype mobile application has been developed with MobileNets model on the TensorFlow platform. The dataset is derived from Google searches, while the sound files are generated from label text by running an apple script. UI and interactivity have been developed by using Vuforia and the Unity game engine. Finally, the Android Studio is used to deploy the app. At this point in time, the prototype can only recognize ten local flowers, with 85%∼99% of accuracy. We are working with a larger dataset towards developing the full application.

Free Workshop: 3D to Mixed Reality: From Regard3D to HoloLens (23.11.2018)

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3D to Mixed Reality: From Regard3D to HoloLens

(register on Eventbrite) Friday 23 Nov 2-4PM Curtin University Library Level 5

3D models adopted/generated from image-based modelling techniques are increasingly used in research, shared online, incorporated into digital archives, and developed as assets for 3D games and for Virtual Reality applications. On the other hand, various HMDs (Head-Mounted-Display) offer Mixed Reality experiences; help us to experience and interact with virtual environments and objects via gesture, speech, gaze, touch and movement. This workshop will demonstrate how to make 3D models from photographs with free and open source software (FOSS, Regard3D), how to import a 3D model to a specific Mixed Reality HMD (Microsoft HoloLens), and you will also learn how the HoloLens can interact with the 3D model in mixed reality.

We will be using the following software:

  • Regard3D
  • MeshLab
  • Unity3D
  • HoloToolkit

What to bring:

You can just register and attend the workshop. However, it is better to bring your own laptop/device, preferably with the following software pre-installed (installation may take an hour but is free of charge):

Please register to secure your place, and cancel your ticket if you are no longer able to attend, as places are limited!

hardware, software, simple coding

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Time for a quick update on recent tech offerings

new project 1: HMD Augmented Reality Heritage Trail study

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The following was a successful grant, funded by the Curtin Institute of Computation.

The program/research plan:

In 2016 the Chief Investigator (CI) organized a one day talk and workshop on cultural heritage visualization, (“GLAM-VR”, Curtin HIVE, http://slides.com/erikchampion/glamvr16-26-08-2016 ) and helped facilitate a related makerspace event (“Cultural Makathon at Curtin Library Makerspace”, URL: http://slides.com/erikchampion/deck-4#/fullscreen#/ ). All groups of students finished their projects apart from one single individual group encountering trouble designing inside a 3D game engine. For the Augmented Reality 2016 makerspace tutorials, there was similar difficulty in finding suitable tutorial material. Unfortunately, there are few tutorials and examples for augmented reality and 3D game engines for hackathon or makathon events. There is even less material for cultural heritage augmented reality tours. And there is no academic feature list survey and comparison of recent augmented reality headsets for cultural heritage tours, where one walks along a heritage trail using the augmented reality headset (HMD) for augmented information.

This 2017 pilot study will aim to resolve this issue by providing an exemplar, online resources, a white paper and

  1. The two ECRS will develop a simple digital 3D environment prototype which reveals cultural heritage assets, artefacts and landmarks when viewed inside a portable head-mounted display (HMD) or augmented reality HMD.
  2. We will compare the relative strengths and weaknesses of the above HMDs, run an evaluation on test subjects of preferred display, time required to navigate and to wayfind, and record participants’ task performance and memory recall.
  3. We will create a white paper for this, including suggested workflows and appropriate tools.
  4. From the above findings we will provide an online available training course for developing Augmented Reality cultural heritage tours for head Mounted Displays.
  5. There will be a pilot workshop at CURTIN LIBRARY MAKERSPACE

GLAM-VR

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 Event: GLAMVR short talks and workshop (Friday 26 August, THE HIVE, from 9:00AM)

On Friday 26 August (just before Curtin Research week) a School of Media Culture and Creative Arts academics, Curtin University Library and friends will host at the HIVE a morning series of short presentations.

The main themes are:

  • Digital Heritage: Workflows and issues in preserving, exporting and linking digital collections (especially heritage collections).
  • Scholarly Making: How to encourage makerspaces & other activities in tandem with academic research.
  • Experiential Media: How to learn and develop AR/VR and other new media technology and projects especially for the humanities.

Primary Objectives:

  1. To encourage humanities and especially digital humanities research, connecting research project ideas with an idea of possible equipment and the skills required.
  2. To get people together to discuss their projects and get feedback
  3. To help push forward prototypes and proof-of-concepts
  4. To uncover potential design ideas and available datasets for the Cultural Hackathon later in the year (see below).

Friday Morning: Short Presentations (on Digital Heritage, Scholarly Making & Experiential Media)
Speakers include

  • Assistant Professor Elaine Sullivan, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA, who will speak on Digital Karnak.
  • Mr Conal Tuohy, software developer from Brisbane, will speak on digital collections, visualisation and Linked Open Data.
  • Short presentations from academics at Curtin and there may be a few slots available to others in Perth.

Friday Afternoon: Digital Workflows/Augmented Reality WORKSHOP (3-3.5 hours)

In the afternoon Mr Michael Wiebrands will present workflows on importing digital records and other media assets into the UNITY game engine and he will be followed by Mr Dominic Manley, who will demonstrate Augmented Reality (AR) technology and how to use AR in research projects.

 

Cultural Hackathon, October/November 2016

In October or November we plan to host a CULTURAL HACKATHON. Academics propose ideas, and provide datasets (and so can Libraries, Galleries, Archives and Museums). Hobbyists, programmers, students will spend the entire day in teams working on application prototypes using that data and the VR/AR equipment provided. Proof of concept ideas will be presented and the best project will win a prize and the chance to work with the academics in the near future.

PLEASE NOTE: The event is free for attendees but they will have to register at EVENTBRITE (link to follow) for either the morning presentations or the afternoon workshop. We recommend people register and attend both but having separate registrations is to encourage those who can only make one session. Numbers will be limited.

Digital Heritage, Scholarly Making & Experiential Media

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Our internal small grant (School of Media Culture and Creative Arts, Curtin University) was successful!

Here is a synopsis of the application (redacted):

Digital Heritage, Scholarly Making & Experiential Media

We propose

  • A one-day workshop [Friday 26 August 2016, HIVE] with 3D, Digital APIs, UNITY and Augmented Reality workshops.
  • We will present our projects at that workshop and a month later meet to review progress and each other’s publications and grants.
  • Then we will organize with the Library and other GLAM partners a cultural hackathon in Perth where programmers and other parties spend a day creating software prototypes based on our ideas from the workshop. The best project will win a prize but the IP will be open source and contestants may be invited into the research projects or related grant applications.
  • Equipment to build prototypes and showcases for future grants. Part of the money will also go into Virtual Reality headsets, and Augmented Reality equipment that can be loaned out from the MCCA store to postgraduates and students.

The above would help progress the below research projects:

  • Another need is to develop the maker-space and digital literacy skills in information studies and the Library Makerspace, to develop a research area in scholarly making.
  • Another project is to integrate archives and records with real-time visualisation such as in the area of digital humanities scholarship, software training in digital humanities, and hands on workshops and crafting projects at the Curtin University Library.
  • Another project is to explore how SCALAR can integrate 3D and Augmented Reality and create a framework for cloud-based media assets that could dynamically relate to an online scholarly publication and whether that journal in printed form, with augmented reality trackers and head mounted displays could create multimedia scholarly journals where the multimedia is dynamically downloaded from the Internet so can be continually updated. Can this work inform future developments of eSPACE and interest in ‘scholarly making’ and makerspaces?
  • There is potential to create an experiential media research cluster with the new staff of SODA, to explore immersive and interactive media that can capture emotions and affects of participants or players. This requires suitable equipment.

augmented reality brochures and posters

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What you could do is build a brochure that when held up to the webcam of a laptop etc or even a phone would produce an apparent ‘3d’ image.
Anyone played with the above for conferences and exhibitions?
Some software I know of

The Magicbook from the HITLab
http://www.hitlabnz.org/index.php/research/augmented-reality?view=project&task=show&id=54

Commercial
https://www.layar.com/
http://www.metaio.com/products/creator/

This is a commercial Australian-NSW company who might provide proof of concepts/examples
http://www.augmentedrealitydevelopment.com.au/products/augmented-reality-development/

Open source: augment for print (MQ Uni, with instructions)
https://wiki.mq.edu.au/display/ar/Systems

Please advise me of more!

Notes on Audio, Radio Archives and Digital Humanities Research

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1. High performance audio computing

a. HPC http://www.dinigroup.com/

b. The Imperative for High-Performance Audio Computing
http://lac.linuxaudio.org/2009/cdm/Friday/09_ffitch/09.pdf

c. High Performance Computing Center Stuttgart has expertise in Audio-Videoconferencing
http://www.fasilis.eu/facilities/high-performance-computing

2. Augmented reality via sound, Tourist Soundscapes, projected urban surfaces (Media Scape)

a. Augmented reality and audio see esp Volkswagen http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/9842-seven-awesome-augmented-reality-campaigns

b. Toozla: augmented reality AUDIO browser http://www.augmentedplanet.com/2009/12/the-worlds-first-audio-augmented-reality-browser/

c. Historic visual tour could have matching audio

“Augmented Reality Sightseeing” historic photos and 3D model superimposed of Berlin Wall.

a. Art and audio: Medea is a sound journey around the Black Sea:
http://soundwalkcollective.com/index.php?/progress/black-sea/

b. Soundscapes and archives http://www.catpaisatge.net/dossiers/psonors/eng/arxius.php

c. Google project glass AR released for cyclists, what about audio?
http://www.gizmag.com/google-x-augmented-reality/22072/

d. Projection in a panorama surround cinema with multiple scenes and spatial audio (split conversations) “Eavesdrop” by iCinema UNSW

http://www.icinema.unsw.edu.au/projects/eavesdrop/project-overview/

3. EVENTS THAT COULD SHOWCASE AUDIO-AR/3D PROJECTS

a. MEDIASPACE http://www.urbanmediaspace.dk/multimediehuset, MEDIA ARCHITECTURE BIENNALE 2012 http://www.digitalurbanliving.dk/news/events/mabiennale.php

b. Possible to showcase with 3D heritage conferences at UNESCO Paris? http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/access-to-knowledge/archives/audiovisual-archives/

4. HTML5 interface design and audio

a. HTML video editing, what functions can be done with audio mixing? For example, you have different radio tracks that can be mixed via a webpage, see http://evelyn-interactive.searchingforabby.com/

b. Can archives be integrated with editing applications on tablets and smart phones? (http://bbclistener.com/, http://www.thisamericanlife.org/listen)

5. Spatial audio and virtual environments eg OPEN SIM, Wonderland, Unity, Blender, procedural audio.

a. http://www.presciencelab.org/VA/
 The goal of virtualized audio is to permit listeners and performers to inject themselves into a shared virtual acoustic space-to let a listener hear what a performer would sound like in his room or in a virtual performance space of his choosing. The listener(s) and performers, recorded or live, are able to move about the shared space at will, the system maintaining the illusion that the performers are in shared performance venue-a guitarist appears to be sitting at your conference table strumming softly.

b. Open Wonderland and Open Sim promised to be virtual worlds with spatialized audio that could work as virtual conferencing tools, Combine with 3D virtual worlds for teleconferencing, providing streaming located radio in VEs for teleconferencing, http://elearnmag.acm.org/archive.cfm?aid=2206888

6. Combine NUI, Soundscapes and urban design

a. Nordic + Natural User Interfaces (NUI): http://www.nuiteq.com/

b. Natural User Interfaces for a Radio Web archive? Pick the icons and move them on the screen, they play as you collect them.
For example: http://interactivemultimediatechnology.blogspot.com/2012/05/nuiteqs-latest-multitouch-showreel.html (Swedish http://www.nuiteq.com/)

c. Could it be used with archaeology projects. For example, virtual reality reconstructions and archaeoacoustics (http://article.wn.com/view/2012/04/24/Archaeoacoustics_reconstructs_the_sound_of_Stonehenge/).

d. There is also audio archaeology (http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/03/magazine/audio-archaeology-eavesdropping-on-history.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm).

e. In a similar vein, there are good practice guidelines for archaeology audio archives(http://guides.archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/g2gp/Audio_1)

7. Archive-PR and profiling

a. Is there research being done on what examples can best showcase LARM to a wider audience? What new research tools are required for net radio, etc?
Example: http://www.audiencedialogue.net/pmlr3.html

AND http://www.widepr.com/press_release/10673/internet_radio_new_business_models_will_define_growth.html

AND http://marketing.about.com/od/publicrelation1/a/massmediapr.htm

b. Crowd tagging to increase profile and to study user behaviour (could be applied to radio archives?)
Indianapolis Museum of Art Tag tours http://www.imamuseum.org/page/collection-tags

c. What are the issues in RADIO ARCHIVE RESEARCH? http://www.iasa-web.org/selection/selection-radio-sound-archives-problem-documentation

8. Audio-video intelligent searching (DARIAH?)

a. For our contribution to DARIAH we need indexing tools and search tools ways of creating interactive video and audio content.

9. RADIO and GEOVISUALIZATION

a. Could audio detection tools reveal recording location?

b. Pronunciation database retrieval, idiolects (CLARIN_NeDiMAH, DARIAH?). Update apparently already done. Hmm, but with ORBIS like data? (http://orbis.stanford.edu/)

Note to self:

· In passing, 3D sound http://www.studio360.org/2011/apr/29/adventures-3d-sound/

·  Note to self: where is that French video showing accurate 3D recording of sound that they added to virtual objects?

· Retrieving sounds via voice and movement detection (“Skyrim voice detection” the game engine can be used to create free standing levels). Medieval and pseudo Viking content is already built into the game.

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