Tag Archives: publicVR

The Egyptian Oracle Project: Ancient Ceremony in Augmented Reality (Bloomsbury Egyptology)

3D and game editors, Book, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, heritage, , , ,

Strange, authors don’t have a copy yet, and it says the book will be available from July 30 but my library already has a copy. Anyway, I wrote an introductory chapter on virtual heritage and the other chapters will be of interest to Egyptologists, Classicists, AI researchers, puppeteers, and of course Virtual Heritage designers..

http://www.amazon.com/The-Egyptian-Oracle-Project-Bloomsbury/dp/1474234151

For more than 2,000 years, between 1500 BCE and 600 CE, the Egyptian processional oracle was one of the main points of contact between temple-based religion and the general population. In a public ceremony, a god would indicate its will or answer questions through the movements of a portable cult statue borne by priests or important members of the community.

The Egyptian Oracle Project is an interactive performance that adapts this ceremony to serve as the basis for a mixed-reality educational experience for children and young adults, using both virtual reality and live performance. The scene is set in a virtual Egyptian temple projected onto a wall. An oracle led by a high priest avatar (controlled by a live human puppeteer) is brought into the presence of a live audience, who act in the role of the Egyptian populace. Through the mediation of an actress, the audience interacts with the avatar, recreating the event.

The series of carefully focused essays in this book provides vital background to this path-breaking project in three sections. After a brief introduction to educational theatre and virtual reality, the first section describes the ancient ceremony and its development, along with cross-cultural connections. Then the development of the script and its performance in the context of mixed-reality and educational theatre are examined. The final set of essays describes the virtual temple setting in more detail and explores the wider implications of this project for virtual heritage.

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.