modding games for AI related research, bots, and portraying character behaviours

3D and game editors, AI, Architecture, game, virtual heritage, visualisation, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Here is an abridged answer I just gave to an architectural academic who is interested in using games and game modding and AI (bots) in consideration was something like 3DVIDIA/Virtools, Unity or Unreal.
I hope this is of use to others or if my sourced information is out of date or inaccurate please comment below the post!

I am no AI expert although I too have an AI project I wish to develop: I don’t know 3DVIDIA, I do know Unreal (UT) used to have AI research projects, I don’t know if UDK has easily available AI projects but UDK does look good.
Overall Unity is probably the easiest and their  asset store has many content packs and scripts and avatars for purchase (including for AI) and it runs on Mac and PC and quite well on older machines.
You may not need the Professional version, I am not sure.

An introductory summary of difference for level design: http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/categories/level_design_tutorials/what-level-editor-game-engine-should-you-use-how-to-choose.php
A game engine comparison is here: http://fragileearthstudios.com/2011/10/24/comparing-cryengine-and-unreal-and-unity-too/

For heritage settings I have been told UDK (http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/categories/udk/ue3-vs-udk-vs-ut3.php) is very good but I have yet to use it.
Of interest to you: there are tutorials for UDK bots
http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/categories/wold-members-tutorials/petebottomley/udk-01-how-to-spawn-bots-in-kismet.php
https://sites.google.com/site/tessaleetutorials/home/udk-custom-enemy
UDK AI Director:

and project at http://draxov.com/design/ai-director-research/
Free tool: http://www.moddb.com/forum/thread/create-bot-ai-with-pogamut-in-udk-ut2004-ue2-or-defcon
http://www.blackfootstudios.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=5898

UNITY AI research
Wandering AI http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/432027/wandering-ai.html
Robot AI from Mecanim example http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/166633-Mecanim-quot-AI-quot-Free-Sources
AI programming


AI applications (basic overview) http://unitygems.com/ai-applications/
Tutorials in Unity and Basic AI http://devsbuild.it/resources/type/article/unity-basic-artificial-intelligence-part-1

Alternative:
A side project might be to review the new SIMS4 and Sims Societies.
http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/topic/6547-new-artificial-intelligence-mod/

On a more urban design and cinematographic level, one used to be able to link Simcities and the SIMS2 avatars but I have not heard of related urban design or BIM research.
We are also going to look into Skyrim the Crysis/CryTek engine, which may be too powerful / complex for your needs.
I personally will also look into, the earlier version, Oblivion, had very simple scripting tools for avatar interaction and also had good modding tools (but it was not multiplayer, at least not officially).
Skyrim (Creation kit) has built in habits for NPCs, which I believe can be modded/affected, new buildings/settings can be added relatively easily.
http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/topic/6547-new-artificial-intelligence-mod/

SUMMARY
For ease of use, most designers and researchers seem to be using Unity, but UDK (free download for PC) may have some benefits if you find similar AI projects.
If you want to show behaviours and don’t mind or can replace medieval settings, Skyrim may suffice.
For path finding UDK may be good, Unity can do all of it but if you can’t find prebuilt software in the Unity story, you may need to build it from scratch.
Overall, Unity is probably easiest, there plenty of presets/modules, and scripting can be in JavaScript or Python or C# etc. And MiddleVR seems a good for fit for connecting Unity to VR devices and for stereo projection (a video tutorial is here).

book proposal “Cultural Heritage Creatives Tools and Archives” now being reviewed by publisher

Digital Humanities, virtual heritage, , ,

Summary of proposal:

Our aim is to provide a single point of entry into the world of leading cultural heritage infrastructures and associated tools in Europe. As far as we know there is no easily accessible edited book of this nature that both focuses on key research projects and answers the major questions of the three editors.

The countries represented include Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Norway, Romania, United Kingdom, and related chapters from Canada and Australia. We are particularly pleased to include two proposed chapters from Professor Julian Richards of York University (Figure 1), and Professor Sean Ross, Dean of the iSchool, University of Toronto. They were the invited speakers, and have decades of experience in this field.

Figure 1: Invited Talk, Julian Richards, York University.

DIGHUMLAB Denmark, and the Digital Curation Unit Athens, ran a two-day workshop at the National Museum of Denmark, in Copenhagen, June 26-27, 2013 (Figures 1-4). There were approximately two-dozen presentations from around a dozen research organisations and European infrastructures, two invited international speakers (Professor Seamus Ross and Professor Julian Richards), and a final panel, which explored how research infrastructures dealing in digital cultural heritage could work more closely together. Various groups and future projects were kick-started from this workshop, including the ERCG (Europeana Researchers Coordination Group), which was set up to align the strategies of research infrastructures in the Social Sciences and Humanities (Figure 2).


Figure 2: Final Panel: Research infrastructures policy panel

Central topics of the workshop were

  • Presentation of digital heritage tools and infrastructures (database, knowledge representation, analysis).
  • GIS, 3D graphic reconstruction, high-end imaging.
  • Ontology related to archives and database storage for material and visual culture, etc. and how best to share data and tools across European countries and partners.
  • Database and infrastructure support for fieldwork (cf. issues of data collecting and representation, excavation and survey data management, recording “information at the trowel’s edge” to coin Ian Hodder, how to best process survey and long series datasets etc.).
  • Discussion on further collaboration and how to influence EU policy in digital heritage-cultural heritage matters.

The mandate of the workshop was as follows:
“The workshop is open to all but we in particular invite participants drawn in the first instance from the DARIAH, ARIADNE, CENDARI and NeDiMAH and other EU cultural heritage networks. We envisage it will foster the growth of a community of practice in the field of digital heritage and digital humanities, leading to closer cooperation between participants and helping attendees develop tools and methods that can be used by the wider community.”

Figure 3: The Venue, National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen.

We had a very strong turnout of participants, including keynote presentations by Prof. Seamus Ross, the University of Toronto iSchool’s Dean and Prof. Julian Richards, Professor at York University and Director of the Archaeology Data Service, and introducing innovative work from institutions and projects including: the Serious Games Interactive, the National Museum of Copenhagen, the Europeana Cloud project, DARIAH, DASISH, LARM, EHRI, ARIADNE, V-must (Virtual Museum Transnational Network), NEDIMAH, the Digital Curation Unit-Athena R.C., the Digital Repository of Ireland, and the Gunnerus Library in Trondheim (previously library of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters – DKNVS). We received about a dozen pre-workshop papers, and we are impressed with the quality and range of the work presented.

On this basis, we propose turning some of these papers into an edited volume, organized around the following themes:

  • Scholarly information practices in cultural heritage.
  • Requirements for digital tools and services.
  • Corpora and digital collections.
  • Digital infrastructures, architecture and tools.
  • Digital cultural heritage, public communication and user experience, and
  • Policy issues in cultural heritage infrastructure research and development.

Stanford researchers to open-source model they say has nailed sentiment analysis

Digital Humanities, visualisation

Gigaom

Stanford Ph.D. student Richard Socher appreciates the work Google and others are doing to build neural networks that can understand human language. He just thinks his work is more useful — and he’s going to share his code with anyone who wants to see it.

Along with a team of Stanford researchers that includes machine learning expert and Coursera co-founder Andrew Ng, Socher has developed a computer model that can accurately classify the sentiment of a sentence 85 percent of the time. The previous state of the art for this task — essentially, discerning whether the overall tone of a sentence is positive or negative — peaked at about 80 percent accuracy. In a field where improvements usually come fractions of a percent at a time, that 5 percent jump is a big deal.

It’s also a big deal to businesses, which are trying harder than ever to automate the…

View original post 747 more words

Open Access journal scandal-the replies

Academic, Journal, ,

The recent Science article on Open Access journals that accepted a scam paper has met with a storm of protest. Please be careful with the article as it did not have a control group (did not compare to paywall publications) and had a bias in OA journal selection.
Yes there are lists of OA journals to avoid (http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/) but here are some responses to the contentious Science article

http://www.scilogs.com/in_scientio_veritas/science-sting-openaccess-peerreview/
http://oaspa.org/response-to-the-recent-article-in-science/
http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2013/oct/04/science-hoax-peer-review-open-access
http://im2punt0.wordpress.com/2013/10/04/science-mag-sting-of-oa-journals-is-it-about-open-access-or-about-peer-review/
http://osc.centerforopenscience.org/2013/10/04/a-publishing-sting-but-what-was-stung/
http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1439

NB Curt Rice, Trondheim, recently tweeted: The EU has a goal that 60% of publications they finance are open access, by 2016.

The future of games in museums: what should we be doing?

design, Digital Humanities, game, virtual heritage, visualisation

very articulate post! Now to play those games!

martha henson: blog

A confluence of related projects and talks has got me thinking about where games in museums should be going in the future. There have been some notable successes in museum games to date, and some failures. Where to go from here? Here are some assembled thoughts on the types of games and game design practices I would love to see more museums exploring.

Collaborative games

Now, I love competitive games, but not everyone does, and competition can be off putting and disruptive in, say, family situations (I’m sure you all have stories about the game of Monopoly that ended in tears). Collaborative games are perhaps more suited to the mixed audiences and interests that are represented by museum visitors.

For example, Spaceteam is absolutely one of my favourite games of the last few years. It manages to be ridiculous, hilarious, breathlessly exciting, social and visually striking, all at the same…

View original post 2,039 more words

Evaluation Criteria in Digital Heritage

Academic, Conference, Digital Humanities, virtual heritage, visualisation

Some suggestions I sent to a panel on the above topic. I am sure I missed many key (main) points

  • standardised guidelines to reviewers on how to review, currently the reviewing standard is not standard, in both senses of the word!
  • If the conferences (at Digital Heritage 2013 Congress Marseille) represented (CAA, Arch. VSMM etc) at least shared some info on how papers et al are reviewed or could be more consistently reviewed it would be of great help to the gathered scholars
  • discussion on the major issues in evaluating virtual heritage
  • mentioning standard papers and projects that address some of the issues that many people keep returning to without realising it has already been critiqued/tested
  • references to current evaluation methods and strategies in related societies (archaeology, ISPR Presence, VR society etc).
  • attempt to marshall the references together or a portal to list related resources

Just this week I was explaining to someone problems with Likert surveys that are in journals he had not read, I had to share papers with him myself from these authors as the papers are scattered over the internet and behind academic paywalls.

Abstract for talk at ICOMOS imagined pasts…imagined futures

Conference, Digital Humanities, virtual heritage, visualisation, , ,

Talk, 2 November 2013, Old Parliament House, Canberra, ICOMOS 2013 conference

TITLE: Can the past be shared in Virtual Reality?
There is an interesting divide between historians and the public that must be debated, how to best use virtual heritage, and digital media in general, to learn and share historical knowledge and interpretation. Heritage and history do not have to be a series of slides; space-time-intention can now be depicted and reconfigured. Teaching history and heritage through digitally simulated ‘learning by doing’ is an incredibly understudied research area and is of vital importance to a richer understanding of heritage as lived. However, the actual spatial implications of siting learning tasks in a virtual environment are still largely un-researched. Evaluation of virtual environments has been relatively context-free, designed for user freedom and forward looking creativity. It is still much more difficult to create a virtual place that brings the past alive without destroying it.

There has been an explosion in virtual heritage conferences this century. In the last year alone, there have been calls for digital cultural heritage or virtual heritage by Graphite, VSMM, New Heritage Forum, VRST, VAST, DIME, Archäologie & Computer, and DACH, just to name a few. An outside observer may believe that such academic interest, coupled with recent advances in virtual reality (VR), specifically in virtual environment technology and evaluation, would prepare one for designing a successful virtual heritage environment. Game designers may also be led to believe that games using historical characters, events or settings, may be readily adaptable to virtual heritage. This paper will advance key contextual issues that question both assumptions.

Beacham, R., Denard, H., & Niccolucci, F. (2006). London charter for the computer-based visualization of cultural heritage. Retrieved from http://www.londoncharter.org/introduction.html Fredrik, D. (2012). Rhetoric, Embodiment, Play: Game Design as Critical Practice in the Art History of Pompeii. Meaningful Play 2012 conference paper. Retrieved fromhttp://meaningfulplay.msu.edu/proceedings2012/mp2012_submission_178.pdf

Leipzig eHumanities 2013 Seminar abstract, Leipzig Germany

Digital Humanities, slides, virtual heritage, visualisation, , ,

Leipzig eHumanities Seminar, Leipzig, Germany
Date: 3:15-4:45 PM, Wednesday 23 October 2013
URL: http://www.e-humanities.net/events/2013-ehum-seminar-call.html
SLIDES OF TALK ONLINE AT: http://www.slideshare.net/nzerik/leipzig-ehumanities-23-october-2013-talk 

Title: Interacting With History Using Virtual Environments

Where historians wish to develop digital environments to teach and disseminate, I suggest that the crucial issue is interaction and the learning that results from that interaction (Mosaker, 2001). In order to improve interaction, designers and historians could examine games and why they are so successful; a considerable amount of literature has argued that interactive engagement in a computer medium is best demonstrated by games (various references are provided in Champion, 2008). Although they are not easily customized for serious historical learning, game technology and online worlds are surprisingly advanced and span multiple platforms and devices, offering many opportunities for educational design. In this talk I will outline conceptual not technical issues in the development of these serious and pervasive games, outline a brief theoretical classification system, and provide examples of promising tools and interactive methods to help history and heritage scholars develop appropriate learning content.

Today, electronic games are an important vehicle for learning (Anderson, 2010; Dondlinger, 2007). At the minimum, a game is an activity that (1) typically has some goal in mind, something that the player works to achieve, (2) has systematic or emergent rules, and (3) is considered a form of play or competition (Oxford, 2010). While this encompasses “skill and drill” types of games, many of today’s digital games are much more complex, providing an interactive narrative in which the player must test hypotheses, synthesize knowledge, and respond to the unexpected (Dondlinger, 2007).

According to Ang (2008), a game can motivate the student via ludology or narrative or both. Yet there is still debate over whether the communication medium makes any meaningful difference in how well students learn (Jacobson, 2011). However, I believe that computer games and related media do have unique affordances for bringing history to life and can help historical narratives be experienced directly in the form of the game, or in a game-like environment. For evoking and communicating historical situations or heritage values I am interested in helping the player/user/student develop a deeper understandings rather than simply memorizing facts (Bloom, 1956). I wish to convey the cultural significance of what is represented and interacted with.

There are many examples of game engines and digital worlds for historical visualization, there are also explorative games where the historical information augments the experience, or is absorbed as an ambient medium. These projects have had some notable successes, but, arguably, important humanities-related issues are not being answered.

For example, can users learn via interaction the meanings and values of others, do we need to interact as the original inhabitants did? How can we find out how they interacted, and through the limited and constraining nature of current technology help interaction become more meaningful, educational and enjoyable (Handron & Jacobson, 2010)? How do we even know when meaningful learning is reached?

Scholarly knowledge does not easily translate to audience knowledge; nor is scholarly knowledge necessarily the type of knowledge that would best engage the public. And if we can use digital worlds for teaching and learning about heritage and history, is it preferable for the audience to learn about a collection of culturally situated past experiences, or a strictly academic procession of historical events? For example, Smith noted that there has been confusion between history as meaning the past, and history as being something produced by historians. Given that even philosophers such as Goldstein (1964) and Gale (1962) disagreed on what constitutes history and what constitutes recollection of the past; how can students or the general public reliably distinguish between the two? And even if we agree on what is the historical content, can we agree on how it can be or should be accessed?

Ideally, virtual environments may help the general public to create, and share and discuss hypothetical or counterfactual places, meet virtually in these places with colleagues to discuss them, work in these recreations to understand limitations forced on their predecessors, or develop experiential ways to entice a potential new audience to both admire the content and the methods of their area of research. However, these academic disciplines are typically book-based and do not see that an academic publication is also a simplification and metaphorical extension of the remains and ruins it describes.

So perhaps technology or evaluation is the not the fundamental problem. Skeates (2000) warned that archaeologists need to reconsider their field as a communication medium, and not just as a closed scientific discipline. For while these books presuppose a vast domain of knowledge, a certain learnt yet creative technique of extrapolation; they typically do not cover the experiential detective work of experts that visit the real site (Gillings, 2002).

Using media such as game engines to represent the past or digital places that represent the future, it is all too easy to be taken in by the lure of technology and forget to concentrate on enhancing the user experience. There is also a school of thought in archaeology that views digital media as purely a shop façade for the serious and scholarly past-time of reading and writing books (Parry 2005; Gillings, 2002). Yet if we avoid teaching with digital media, how will the changing attention spans and learning patterns of new generations be best addressed (Mehegan, 2007)?

Even if we decide on what we are evaluating, it is not clear how to evaluate. The ethnographic techniques used by researchers may be effective in recording activity, but they do not directly indicate the potential mental transformations of perspective that result from being subjectively immersed in a different type of cultural presence (Benford et al, 2002).

Conclusion

We lack digital history projects that are meaningful and engaging learning experiences. The conventions on how to play games are known to a wider number of people than frequent computer gamers, and these conventions typically provide engaging and challenging goals, strategies, and performance feedback which taken together help people to find some form of internal meaning and purpose in interacting with a virtual environment. In my proposed talk I will outline the major issues and sketch out possible solutions.

References

BBC Ancient History Section. (Undated). Death in Sakkara: An Egyptian Adventure, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/interactive/animations/ironage_roundhouse/index.shtml

Benford, S., Fraser, M., Reynard, G. Koleva, B., and Drozd, A. (2002). Staging and Evaluating Public Performances as an Approach to CVE Research, Proceedings of the 4th international conference on Collaborative virtual environments, ACM New York.

Bloom, B. S. (1956). ‘Taxonomy of Educational Objectives’, Book 1 Cognitive Domain. New York: Longman Inc.

Champion, E. (2008). ‘Otherness of place: Game-based interaction and learning in virtual heritage projects’, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 14(3), 210-228.

Dondlinger, M. J. (2007). ‘Educational Video Game Design: A Review of the Literature’, Journal of Applied Educational Technology, 4(1), 21-31.

Handron, K., & Jacobson, J. (2010). Extending Physical Collections Into the Virtual Space of a Digital Dome,. Paper presented at the 11th International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Cultural Heritage (VAST), Paris, France.

Hight, J. (2006). ‘TEXT: Narrative Archaeology: reading the landscape’, newmediafix, http://newmediafix.net/daily/?p=638

Leader-Elliott, L. (2003). ‘Community Heritage Interpretation Games: A Case Study from Angaston, South Australia’, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 11:2, 161-71.

Gale, R.M. (1962). ‘Dewey and the Problem of the Alleged Futurity of Yesterday’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 22(4), 501-511.

Gillings, M. (2002). Virtual archaeologies and the hyper-real, in P. Fisher, D. Unwin, (eds.), Virtual Reality in Geography (London & New York: Taylor & Francis, 2002), 17-32.

Goldstein, L. (1964). ‘The “Alleged” Futurity of Yesterday’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 24(3), 417-420.

Jacobson, J. (2011). ‘The Effect of Visual Immersion in an Educational Game; Gates of Horus’, International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations, 3(1), 13-32.

Mehegan, D. (2007). Young People Reading a Lot Less: Report Laments the Social Costs. The Boston Globe, 19 November (2007), http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/11/19/young_people_reading_a_lot_less/.

Mosaker, L. (2001). ‘Visualizing Historical Knowledge Using VR Technology’, Digital Creativity S&Z 12(1), 15-25.

Oxford English Dictionary (2010). Retrieved December 17, 2010, from Oxford Dictionaries website: http://oxforddictionaries.com.

Parry. R. (2005). ‘Digital Heritage and the Rise of Theory in Museum Computing’, Museum Management and Curatorship, 20:4, 333-48.

Skeates, R. (2000). Debating the archaeological heritage, (London: Duckworth), 109-111.

Smith, B. G. (1995). ’Whose Truth, Whose History?’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 56(4): 661-668.

Visiting Fellows to work with me at Curtin University in Visualisation, 2013

3D and game editors, Academic, Architecture, Biofeedback, design, Digital Humanities, game, virtual heritage, visualisation, , , , , , , , , , ,

I am very happy to announce that two Visting Fellows and two Early Career Visiting Fellows will work with me in October and November on various projects.

They are (and please note, dates are provisional):

Visiting Fellows

 

Nov 4-27: Dr Jeffrey Jacobson, http://www.publicvr.org

To provide examples of interactive and immersive environments featuring architecture and archaeology of the ancient world, to run inside Curtin’s new visualisation facility, iDome, Stereo Wall, and/or possibly the Wedge. Upload and run public VR 3D models inside UNITY on the iDome. These are the Virtual Egyptian Temple, Living Forest, Theater District of Pompeii. Prototype ancient heritage sites to run on the 0.5 CAVE (actually it is a Wedge). Design and pilot evaluation environment for potential use in humanities subjects, including history, and the visualisation undergraduate degree.

Nov 16-Dec 16: Dr Rob H. Warren, Canada, http://blog.muninn-project.org
Link 3D models in virtual environments (Unity real-time engine) to the archival databases to create a specific pilot of a World War 1 simulation using accurate historic geo-data, weather data, astronomical data, and historical records. Design and pilot evaluation environment for potential use in humanities subjects, including history, and the visualisation undergraduate degree. Link to colleagues in New Zealand and Canada to discuss potential research collaborations

Early Career Visiting Fellows

Nov 4-11: Andrew Dekker, University of Queensland http://itee.uq.edu.au/~dekker/ OR http://uq.academia.edu/AndrewDekker

We will work together on the following project: Camera tracking and biofeedback for indirect interaction with virtual environments. This project will connect biofeedback devices and camera tracking devices with equipment in the Curtin Data Visualisation Facility (CDVF) and provide a research platform to evaluate how biofeedback can be a meaningful interaction component for virtual environments, especially for augmenting socially believable agents, and to enrich the apparent “life” and “atmosphere” of digitally created architectural environments.

Nov 18-25: Dr Hafizur Rahman, Bangladesh http://bdheritage.info and http://ttclc.net

Create a streamlined 3D model data and 3D virtual environment workflow, analyse and comparing different image modelling tools, and explain how their optimal deployment for community web portals of digitalised cultural heritage.

Acquiring 3D models for artifacts is always expensive, as it typically requires a 3D laser scanner and relevant training. However, 3D modeling of small artifacts is possible to produce with photographs using low cost software such as 3D Som Pro (http://www.3dsom.com/). This software can produce 3D wire mesh and baked images for rendering, which can later be use as a source for augmented reality application for interactive public display. Free AR Toolkit /BuildAR can be used here for making this interactive display for museums/heritage institutes and interested community groups who currently lack high end technological resources and related skills.

We will also compare the above to insight 3D (http://insight3d.sourceforge.net/), which is free and open source. We will produce schematic workflows, incorporating Blender 3D for modeling and we will consider alternatives such as Google SketchUp.

the Curtin Data Visualisation Facility (CDVF)

3D and game editors, Academic, Digital Humanities, virtual heritage, visualisation, , , , , ,

The Curtin Data Visualisation Facility (CDVF) is unusual in that a great deal of strategic direction comes from the Faculty of Humanities, but it will be open to all academics at Curtin University.
It is also part of the John Curtin Gallery, on the Curtin University main campus (Bentley). The launch is planned for the second week of November.

What will it be used for? To “meet a broad demand for visualisation, virtualisation and simulation infrastructure and capability in Western Australia. It will enable significantly better training environments and improved interpretation of research data across the university’s core areas of research.” (Curtin University website).

Currently being installed are:

  • A 4X3 high resolution tiled display.
  • A half-cylindrical stereo display (8 metres in diameter).
  • A wedge (2 high resolution stereo display screens at an angle to each other-the angle can be adjusted).
  • A truncated dome.

The inventor, Associate Professor Paul Bourke, Director of iVEC@UWA, tells me it is not an iDome, as it uses fish eye projection and it is a truncated spherical dome, but it currently lacks a catchy name.
You can see some of Paul Bourke’s visualisation work featuring Gigapixel, 360 Ladybug panoramas and iDome scientific visualisation here: http://paulbourke.net/papers/curtin2013/slides.pdf
NB We are also part of iVEC, iVEC@Curtin, so we can borrow iVEC’s high quality recording and rendering equipment and access their services.

The CDVF is staffed by 2 technical assistants and an expert in Stereoscopic projection, Mr Andrew Woods, the Managing Director of CDVF.
Much of the content design will be handled at various creation nodes on campus.
At the School of Media Culture and Creative Arts I have access to the following new postgrad research lab, featuring dual screen MacPros and iMacs.

Computer Lab, Room 211B, Building 208, Curtin University

Do I have enough project ideas? Yes!
Next step: grants, partners, and students! If you any of the three, please contact me!

recent call for papers (from September 2013)

Conference,
START*DUE*CONFERENCETHEMELOCATION
13-Apr-1627-Sep-13SimAUDSymposium on Simulation for Architecture and Urban DesignTampa Florida
18-Mar-1430-Sep-13dha2014Perth Australia
5-Dec-1330-Sep-13Chicago ColloqiumDigital Humanities and Computer ScienceChicago USA
1-Apr-141-Oct-13GameDaysSerious gamesDarmstadt Germany
2-Apr-141-Oct-13CSEDUBarcelona Spain
17-Apr-141-Oct-13www2014World Wide Web ConferenceSeoul Korea
17-Mar-1423-Oct-13GDCEducation SummitSan Francisco USA
7-Mar-1430-Oct-13Utzon SymposiumWhat would Utzon do now?Sydney Australia
22-Apr-1431-Oct-13CAA2014Computer Applications in ArchaeologyParis France
8-Jul-141-Nov-13DH2014Digital HumanitiesLausanne Switzerland
2-Dec-141-Nov-13Critical HeritageSessionsCanberra Australia
7-May-1418-Dec-13Graphics InterfaceGraphics InterfaceVancover Canada
23-Jun-1412-Jan-14ITiCSE 2014Innovation & technology in Computer Science EducationUppsala Sweden
21-Jun-1419-Jan-14dis2014(ACM) Designing Interactive Systems: Crafting DesignVancouver Canada
10-Sep-143-Feb-14eCAADe2014Data integration at its bestNorthumbria UK
27-Aug-1420-Apr-14OpenSYM2014The International Symposium on Open CollaborationBerlin Germany
28-Oct-1424-Apr-14nordichi2014Helsinki Finland
17-Jul-1431-Oct-14AAS-Asia in motionAsia in Motion: Heritage and TranformationSingapore
6-Jun-1626-Jan-16DIS2016Designing Interactive SystemsBrisbane Australia
10-Aug-14?SIGGRAPH2014Computer Graphics and Interactive TechniquesVancouver Canada
12-Nov-14?ICMIMultimodal InteractionIstanbul Turkey
17-Dec-14?siggraph asia 2014Singapore
6-Jul-15?Digital Humanities 2015Digital HumanitiesSydney Australia
31-Oct-13icomos2013Imagined Pasts Imagined FuturesCanberra Australia

Centre for Playware – The MIT Media Lab of Denmark?

3D and game editors, design, Digital Humanities, game, virtual heritage

Fantastic stuff! Knew nothing about them when I worked in Denmark!

Constructing Kids

I  invited myself to pay Centre for Playware a visit. This is a department of Technical University of Denmark (DTU), just outside Copenhagen. I was a part of a research project with them and ATR about the robot Telenoid (read more about that project here).  A friend from that project is doing his PhD here and thought it might be a good idea to see what they have been doing lately.  Centre for Playware is a lab-style research department in the crossfield between play and technology. The place is small and the staff list contains less than 10 people, ahead of this is professor Henrik Hautop Lund. The projects are state of the art when it comes to innovating technology and play. They are all based on movements, sounds, games, modules, fun and learning – though learning isn’t the main goal!

Take the Modular Robotic Tiles…

View original post 432 more words

Researchs into interactive maps, multimedia cartography

design, Digital Humanities, virtual heritage, visualisation, , ,

Recent interactive mapping projects I mentioned
http://orbis.stanford.edu/#
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2313590/The-interactive-map-reveals-Britains-popular-surnames.html

Migration map http://migrationsmap.net
Interactive ‘immigration explorer’ map http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/03/10/us/20090310-immigration-explorer.html?_r=0
The Human Journey: migration routes https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/human-journey/ and lessons http://education.nationalgeographic.com.au/activity/global-patterns-human-migration/?ar_a=1
Journey of mankind http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey/ (http://www.geography.org.uk/cpdevents/onlinecpd/migration/ahistoryofmigration/) Overview at http://www.findingdulcinea.com/features/science/The-History-of-Human-Migration.html

Side note: The great human migration -Why humans left their African homeland 80,000 years ago to colonize the world
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/human-migration.html

Potential research partners
@Curtin, spatial sciences and Ric Lowe http://humanities.curtin.edu.au/schools/EDU/staff.cfm/R.K.Lowe
UCL http://makingmaps.net/category/13-multimedia-mapping/
Vis: RMIT http://www.rmit.edu.au/mathsgeo/research/geospatial/cartography
UTAS http://www.utas.edu.au/research/graduate-research/elite/humanities/history–and–classics/from-colonial-cartography-to-digital-mapping-tasmania-c.1780-2010
Unimelb http://www.land-environment.unimelb.edu.au/research/cartographic-and-spatial-services/
SBS http://www.sbs.com.au/shows/cq/about/page/i/3/h/Research/
ACMI http://www.acmi.net.au/research-resources.htm
Museums-National Museum, UWA, Maritime, Immigration, etc
Mapping sciences australia http://www.mappingsciences.org.au/heritage/cartography-foundation
Instotute of Australian Geographers http://www.iag.org.au/publications/geographical-research/
CSIRO http://www.csiro.au/Organisation-Structure/Divisions/Ecosystem-Sciences/GEHES.aspx (Dr Kirsten MacLean http://www.csiro.au/Organisation-Structure/Divisions/Ecosystem-Sciences/KirstenMaclean.aspx(

NB
Australian public datasets http://data.nsw.gov.au/links
Immigration websites http://www.besthistorysites.net/index.php/american-history/immigration
Europe History Interactive Map http://www.worldology.com/Europe/europe_history_md.htm
Examples for kids http://www.eduplace.com/kids/socsci/ca/books/bkf3/imaps/
Global migration map http://www.open.edu/openlearn/society/international-development/international-studies/global-migration-map
Times maps http://www.timemaps.com/history

AUSTRALIA
National museum resources http://www.nma.gov.au/education-kids/classroom_learning/by_subject/australian_history
Typical curriculum lessons http://www.australiancurriculumlessons.com.au/2013/01/18/australian-history-lesson-migration-and-settlement-in-australia/
NSW http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/homepage/
Australian Immigration history http://www.family-getaways-melbourne.com/australia-immigration-history.html
Listen to the Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants oral history interviews http://www.nla.gov.au/digicoll/ListentotheForgottenAustralians.html
GOLD! http://www.sbs.com.au/gold/ Explore the impact of the gold rushes on Australia and uncover the stories of the diggers at SBS GOLD! The topics below detail the varied results of the gold rushes on the young colonies of Australia, and use newspapers, diaries and memoirs to uncover the personal experiences of those caught up in the rush.
World atlas Oceania http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/oceania/au.htm Multicultural australia http://www.multiculturalaustralia.edu.au
Australia civilisation http://www.michellehenry.fr/civiaus.htm

fascinating biofeedback equipment-BITalino kit

3D and game editors, Biofeedback, design, game, visualisation, , , , , ,

The low cost (€149/$197 + shipping and taxes) kit of modular blocks includes a swathe of physiological sensors that can be broken out to use individually or linked together and used in whatever combination you’re after. BITalino’s approach is plug and play, to keep things as simple as possible. The sensors in the kit can interface with computing platforms such as Arduino (and derivatives) and Raspberry Pi, says project lead Hugo Silva. BITalino also includes Bluetooth connectivity so can be used in desktop and mobile environments.

“Currently there are several APIs for platforms including Android OS, Java or Python; BITalino is also cloud / web compatible through a software framework based on WebSockets, HTML5 and CSS3,” he tells TechCrunch

http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/05/bitalino/

Sensors included in the BITalino kit are:

  • an EMG (electromyography) to track muscle activation
  • an EDA (electrodermal Activity) to measure skin activity/moisture levels
  • a LUX light sensor to monitor ambient light or (used in conjunction with a light source) to track blood volume pulse data
  • an ECG (electrocardiogram) to track heart rate, monitor stress etc
  • an accelerometer to track limb movements

The board also includes an LED block for visual feedback, a microcontroller unit and a power management block to power the other units.

Youtube video:

augmented reality brochures and posters

3D and game editors, visualisation, , , , ,

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!

CFP: ACM SIGCHI New Zealand conference on Computer-Human Interaction (CHINZ) 2013 (15-16 Nov): Christchurch.

Conference, , , ,
Call for Participation – CHINZ 2013
The 14th Annual ACM SIGCHI_NZ conference on Computer-Human Interaction will provide a forum for researchers and practitioners involved with Human Computer Interaction in New Zealand or other parts of the world.
The CHINZ 2013 Conference will be held on November 15 – 16 at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. CHINZ 2013 aims to bring together people interested in any aspect of HCI and Interaction Design, to allow them to share their experiences, exchange their ideas, learn from one another, and promote collaboration in research and development.
We are encouraging submissions and participation from a broad range of disciplines, including, but not limited to Computer and Information Science, Psychology, Design, Human Factors, and Interactive Arts.
Important dates:
Friday, September 27th – CHINZ Submission Deadline
Monday, October 14th – Response to authors
Friday, November 1st – Camera-ready copies
Friday, November 15th – Conference starts
Saturday, November 16th – Conference ends
Paper templates:
Please use the standard ACM paper templates for paper submission

NB Christchurch is the gateway to some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.http://www.christchurchnz.com/new-zealand/

Does visualisation ever provide new insight in the humanities?

3D and game editors, virtual heritage, visualisation, ,

The Dean of Research at my Faculty of Humanities asked this yesterday.I have decided this could become a future book project, answering that question, I mean.

Some beginning links are here:
http://www.quora.com/What-are-some-critical-data-visualization-works
Data visualisation but good http://www.mulinblog.com/2013/09/03/data-visualization-matters/?utm_source=buffer&utm_campaign=Buffer&utm_content=buffer612ef&utm_medium=twitter
http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Apr-12/AprMay12_Bailey_Owens.html
http://viewshare.org/views/jefferson/fulton-street-trade-cards-collection/
Good slides roundup http://www.slideshare.net/smithss_27106/data-visualization-and-digital-humanities-research-a-survey-of-available-data-sets-and-tools
A conference this question may have been answered: http://hyperstudio.mit.edu/h-digital/

http://www.quora.com/Data-Visualization/Why-does-visualization-matter
To explain this to my students I usually refer to the best historical examples. Epidemiology, for instance, would not be the same without thematic mapping, as maps let you take a peek behind the data, see what the numbers hide. The classic is Snow’s Cholera map, obviously, which I praise here http://blog.visual.ly/infographi… but there are many others. I’d recommend two books about data maps: “Cartographies of Disease” http://www.amazon.com/Cartograph… and “Early Thematic Mapping in the History of Cartography”http://www.amazon.com/Early-Them… which revisits some well known names, such as Charles Joseph Minard, and casts lights on others that are not so well known.
http://blogs.hbr.org/hbr/hbreditors/2013/03/power_of_visualizations_aha_moment.html

here’s an “Aha!” moment sometimes. Even on the most obvious things. Take Matthew Bloch [and Shan Carter and Alan McLean]’s census maps.


Click to see larger image. View the interactive version here.
source: New York Times

I’m just seeing what I basically know: New York neighborhoods are segregated. But I felt it in a way I never had before. You can feel a good data visualization.

One thing we did was take a very simple unemployment chart — your most basic visualization — and we let people choose a Democrat or Republican interpretation of the data.


Click or touch to see larger image. View the interactive version here.
source: New York Times

You can literally see the visualization change based on whose point of view was highlighted. It would be silly to interpret any data viz as truth. They are interpretations of truth.

3D on the Web is Dead, Long Live 3D on the Web

3D and game editors, virtual heritage, visualisation, , , , , ,

Apart from the everywhere solution that is UNITY, and the not so well known solution that is Flash in 3D, 3D models on the web appears dead. At least VRML is. Single-player, lack of browser standardisation, no killer app. Actually it is more of a zombie, still there, but not in wide usage because what can you do with it?

Well that has changed, the below are not VRML but its grandchildren, html5 and webgl and JavaScript. I was a little apprehensive about replacements for VRML, it needs to be quicker, pref no plugin required, but that is no deal-breaker now, multiplayer, quicker, with some rendering and scripting features of commercial game engines, for architectural visualisation etc.

Enter two contenders:

1 Playcanvas
demo http://apps.playcanvas.com/playcanvas/scifi/latest
features http://playcanvas.com/#features

  • 3D HTML5 Game Engine. Create games that run plugin-free in any modern browser. Hardware-accelerated using WebGL.
  • Cloud-based tools. Running right in your browser, nothing to download and install. Get started in seconds.
  • Designed for teams. Real-time collaboration. Work with your team-mates see their changes as they happen.
  • Game Developer Community. Join the PlayCanvas community and get help making your game.
  • Publish and Share. Publish your game to PlayCanvas, share it with the world.

2 BananaBread
“BananaBread is a 3D first person shooter that runs on the web. It takes the Cube 2: Sauerbraten engine, which is written in C++ and OpenGL, and compiles it using Emscripten into JavaScript and WebGL so that it can run in modern browsers using standards-based web APIs and without the need for plugins.”

https://developer.cdn.mozilla.net/media/uploads/demos/a/z/azakai/3baf4ad7e600cbda06ec46efec5ec3b8/bananabread_1373485124_demo_package/list.html
You can download the source//assets
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/demos/detail/bananabread

Thanks to netmagazine for the heads up:
URL: http://www.netmagazine.com/features/top-10-html5-games-2012