Ball State Univeristy’s IDIA Lab has been contracted by the US Department of the Interior to develop virtual visitor experiences for the Mesa Verde National Park. The park preserves and interprets the archeological heritage of the Ancestral Pueblo people who made it their home for over 700 years, from 600 to 1300 CE. Today, the park protects nearly 5,000 known archeological sites, including 600 cliff dwellings.
The application will bring to life well-known museum dioramas and locative walking tours of the park. Augmented reality and interactive 3D experiences will help tell the stories of the UNESCO World Heritage site – including the transformation of static elements of the historic dioramas with animated figures and interactive elements. The application will be available on both Google Play and AppStore in 2021.
Virtual Monument Circle is a mobile application that uses historic photographs and maps of downtown Indianapolis, IN to create an immersive interpretation of various historic phases of the city center. This project is a prototype for a larger potential city-wide endeavor bringing to life significant neighborhoods and sites within the city. It is developed as a possible collaboration between the Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts at Ball State University, the Polis Center at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis and the Indiana Historical Society.
There are two experiences with the content dependent on the proximity of the user’s location – onsite and offsite. It will be available soon for both iOS and Android.
Virtual Monument Circle was designed and produced by the Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts at Ball State University. Special thanks to the Polis Center at IUPUI and the Indiana Historical Society.
IDIA Lab – in collaboration with BSU Assistant Professor of Architecture, Kristin Barry – has designed the cultural heritage mobile application, Virtual Columbus Experience – allowing users to virtually tour the rich architectural history of Columbus, Indiana. This locative mobile app was produced with fellowship support of Ball State University’s Digital Scholarship Lab.
Though a relatively small city, Columbus has made itself a cradle of modern architecture, commissioning many buildings and public works since the middle of the 20th century. The number of landmark buildings and notable architects to have worked in the city has earned it the nickname “Athens on the Prairie.”
With data and artifacts gathered by Kristin Barry’s immersive class, users of the app can explore 3D models of key buildings commissioned over the years, survey timelines showing when architects were active or buildings were constructed, and meet Columbus’ famous architects – such as Eero Saarinen, I.M. Pei, and Harry Weese.
After its launch, Virtual Columbus Experience will seek further funding to expand the scope and depth of the project across the community.
Buffalo Bill Center of the West has contracted with IDIA Lab to create an augmented reality (AR) diorama of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. Guests to the museum will be able to view the physical white model. While IDIA Lab’s previous Buffalo Bill project focused on his Muncie show, this iteration explores the Ambrose Park show in Brooklyn, NY.
Adam Kobitz
“Constructing the physical portion of the Buffalo Bill diorama through 3D printing and laser cutting processes presented us with several challenges, the first of which was recreating our existing models within CAD software (Autodesk Fusion 360) to ensure that they were designed with these techniques in mind. This modelling process is quite different from those employed on the AR side of the piece, and entails ensuring that the sizes, thicknesses, etc. of each element correlates with the parameters of our machines. Additionally, given the overall scale of the final product, many elements throughout the diorama had to be broken down into smaller components and reassembled by hand. After the models had been 3D printed or laser cut, each of the elements needed to be assembled with adhesives, their seams hidden with a filler substance, filed and sanded, and painted to achieve the final aesthetic.”
Trevor Danehy
“I identified several 19th century photos of William Cody, Iron Tail, and Nate Salsbury with in a timeframe of a few years. Using these photos I constructed a digital 3D model of them within programs like Zbrush and Maya. I also did extensive research of the 1884 Buffalo Bill Wild West show in Ambrose Park, Brooklyn- a long forgotten location that has been all but wiped from history. There are very few details of Ambrose Park aside from a few photographs from the late nineteenth century. The location was demolished in the early 20th century and the Brooklyn Navy Terminal was paved over it. I was able to confirm structures and locations of the Wild West show by cross referencing photographs that overlap the same locations. An interesting note is that we have an electrical layout map of the show in Ambrose park. When comparing photographs to the electrical map, while it does confirm the exact locations of electrical poles throughout the campus, the positions of major tents have changed, possibly due to weather or other circumstance. Many informative photographs came from Robert Bracklow, a professional photographer that was heavily active in the New York area at the time. Many other photographers can be seen in the Wild West show, but his archive survived over more than a century. It was his photographs that helped establish the location of the tents belonging to William Cody, Annie Oakley, and even John Burke’s cabin. They also helped piece together what parts of the exterior grandstand might have looked like.”
IDIA Lab partnered with physicians at the Seattle Children’s Hospital to develop a virtual simulator to train staff in the case of various disasters.
The EVAC+ Virtual Disaster Simulator leverages virtual reality to train health care providers to react quickly and effectively to unexpected events that threaten patient safety. It was developed after pilot live simulations, user focus groups, surveys, and a successful pilot of the initial EVAC system. After the need for more communication opportunities and variations in disasters responses was identified in the pilot, EVAC+ was created. EVAC+ leverages the same ability to prepare patient equipment for an evacuation but with significantly more features allowing for interacting with hospital room, other staff, and family members. Upon entering the EVAC+ environment providers are oriented to the virtual space, including navigation, interacting with objects, and how to interact verbally with non-player characters.
Once they are comfortable with the space they can choose from a menu of disasters to experience, including earthquakes, fire, and an active shooter event. Each simulation has unique objectives around patient protection, equipment packing, and communication with other staff and families. Learners practice how they would provide a status update using the SBAR technique to their charge nurse, use closed loop communication, and respond to anxious family members.
Pre-determined safety behaviors, such as stopping and resolving a mission critical issue, are prompted and performance recorded for feedback. After each scenario the user is guided through a self-debriefing on how well they performed on key disaster and communication behaviors. Information on how they managed and packed medical equipment is presented along with evidence-based information on how experts would recommend managing equipment. Users can choose to repeat any scenario to practice or refine their responses and can explore the scenarios in any order.
The Unity3D environment is accessible on web-browsers and head-mounted VR systems. Amazon Web Services (AWS) supports voice communication and real-time analytics. The EVAC+ system fills a unique need for accessible, interactive, sustainable disaster training for healthcare providers.
Wonders of Oz is an augmented reality application that provides users an enhanced 3D experience with the film, The Wizard of Oz. This demo app can be triggered during film (or anywhere, anytime) to deliver animated content and sound to augment the screening and share events with a live audience. Flying monkeys, the witch on her burning broom, lollipops, the hot air balloon, Dorothy’s falling house, cows, chickens, rowboats, bicycles, rainbows and the wizard all appear with the press of a button! Users can use their devices to discover and track the virtual performers as they appear around them during the film. The original version contained more 3D content and was designed to work on a timer so the audience can share in the digital performers appearing on cue! This app can be adapted for any event, live theater, film concerts, art and cultural heritage events, etc. Note: This application requires the use of a gyroscope – not all Android devices possess one.
iOS: http://apple.co/1SmwI7Z
Google Play: http://bit.ly/1RRbNds
Explore the solar system by touch and augmented reality. New app for iOS, Android and Oculus Rift designed by BSU’s IDIA Lab allows users to learn about our sun and planets – and their moons. Physical museum objects trigger augmented experiences of each planet, providing deeper context and understanding. View the moon’s orbits, examine each moon, the planet’s atmosphere and unique features such as Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. IDIA designed this augmented reality app as a prototype for the Boston Museum of Science Planetarium.
Hero’s Horizons is a real-time 3D adventure game where players can choose a character that shapes the outcomes of their own experience in learning about civic responsibility and the consequences and impact of their own actions. The game employs a graphic novel esthetic as it immerses players in the conflict and progress of improving the health of an urban community.
In order to design an environment which allowed mission-based gameplay as well as free-roaming exploration, the team at Ball State University’s IDIA lab employed Unity 3D alongside various modeling, animation, motion capture, scripting, painting and texturing packages to create the look and feel of the world. Characters came to life through cinematic and graphic novel techniques, allowing the story to flow as required by interactive missions, but yet allow free gameplay via exploration and mini-games. Players’ good deeds provided mementos from those characters whose lives they helped shape and change.
Ball State University and Creative Associates have developed and disseminated a highly successful and transformative life skills curriculum to help at-risk youth in Central America and the Caribbean. But Creative Associates’ life skills training has always happened face-to-face, making it difficult for organizations to scale it large enough to help the greatest number of at-risk youth. In 2013, Creative Associates and Ball State University joined forces to explore the possibilities of gaming and gamification to expand the reach and impact of the existing life skills curriculum. The result is Hero’s Horizons – an innovative game-based learning system designed to deliver critical life skills training to at-risk youth via mobile devices and the Web.
Creative Associates International and Ball State University have combined expertise to create a truly blended-learning game for change targeted at youth living in high crime areas of Central America and the Caribbean. By bringing together a mobile-ready graphic novel game – Hero’s Horizons, built in Unity 3-D, and 20 interactive e-modules, Creative seeks to build the life skills of 10,000 youth living in gang affected communities. Youth can access the game and training through their mobile devices as well as in some of the 200 youth outreach centers Creative has set up across the region.
Hero’s Horizons allows the player to customize a character, and then play the role of a young community organizer working in 4 sections of Capital City to help mobilize community youth and leaders to create a youth outreach center. Along the way he/she encounters issues of apathy, political manipulation, and many issues facing at risk youth that he/she has the opportunity to make choices in how to respond to as he/she learns to overcome barriers at both the individual and community level.
The graphic novel game and accompanying e-modules help youth to advance their life skills in 20 competencies including conflict management, finding employment, and team work among others. the game and the e-modules continually reinforce each other as part of a blended learning approach to long term retention.
Youth’s achievements are rewarded both through achievement badges as they successfully complete tasks and levels, as well as in the e-module section where youth earn printable Certificates of Competency for completing modules and Mozilla badges for achieving learning paths.
The game is being rolled out and tested through Creative’s network of 200 youth outreach centers in the region and other youth serving organizations to measure its effectiveness and further adapt it to the realities that youth in these communities face.
Wonders of Oz is an augmented reality application that provides users an enhanced 3D experience with the film, The Wizard of Oz. This demo app can be triggered during film (or anywhere, anytime) to deliver animated content and sound to augment the screening and share events with a live audience. Flying monkeys, the witch on her burning broom, lollipops, the hot air balloon, Dorothy’s falling house, cows, chickens, rowboats, bicycles, rainbows and the wizard all appear with the press of a button! Users can use their devices to discover and track the virtual performers as they appear around them during the film. The original version contained more 3D content and was designed to work on a timer so the audience can share in the digital performers appearing on cue! This app can be adapted for any event, live theater, film concerts, art and cultural heritage events, etc. Note: This application requires the use of a gyroscope – not all Android devices possess one.
Learn how modern technology can shape our understanding of the past during a special program at Mounds State Park on Saturday, Nov. 14.
Visitors to the 1 p.m. program will join park naturalist Kelley Morgan to learn about modern technologies that help archaeologists and historians bring the past to life. During the second half, director John Fillwalk and animator Neil Zehr of the Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts Laboratory at Ball State University will demonstrate how they use archaeological data to interpret the past to the public.
BSU’s IDIA Lab is premiering Virtual Companion – their custom augmented reality app employing LocusEngine, a geolocative process developed by IDIA Lab. Visitors to the park use the app to aid in learning and discovery while exploring the park’s Adena-Hopewell mounds. Using GPS data, the user’s position is geolocated in reference to the historical sites, allowing the app to display relevant content as a dynamic guide. This approach can be applied in cultural heritage, archeology, the sciences and the arts.
Interactive features, as well as the user’s current location in the park, are marked on a series of map options designed to provide multiple layers of locative information throughout the park. A GPS-driven trail map is available, allowing the user to track their movement through the trails and important features. When an interactive feature is selected on the map, an augmented reality view using gyroscope and compass data is loaded, portraying native people’s and habitats from the Adena-Hopewell era. Archaeologists have proposed that the enclosures were used to track celestial alignments. Using solar data from NASA’s JPL Horizons database, the movements of the sun on the equinoxes and solstices during the Adena-Hopewell era can be viewed and tracked to search for important alignments.
Standard park entry fees of $5 per in-state vehicle apply. Mounds State Park (stateparks.IN.gov/2977.htm) is at 4306 Mounds Road, Anderson, 46017.
Digital artists from Ball State’s IDIA Lab built their virtual simulation of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West with the Unity 3-D gaming platform along with custom software created by the lab.
Cowboys and Indians captivated the country when Buffalo Bill’s Wild West rolled through America in the late 1800s and early 1900s. More than a century later, Ball State digital artists have re-created the legendary showman’s outdoor exhibition.
Working with staff from the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, artists and designers from Ball State’s Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts (IDIA) have crafted a computer-generated world that authentically simulates the Wild West showdramatizing frontier life.
“The visual look and feel of the project is something we’re really proud of,” said John Fillwalk, IDIA director and senior director of the university’s Hybrid Design Technologies initiative.
Fillwalk collaborated on the project with Jeremy Johnston, curator of the center’s Buffalo Bill Museum, and Ball State historians James Connolly and Douglas Seefeldt.
As a senior digital editor of the Papers of William F. Cody, Seefeldt has worked closely with Johnston on several projects the National Endowment for the Humanities recently recognized as among the most significant it funded.
“When Doug introduced me to John, I was excited because all we had to visually represent the Wild West show at the Buffalo Bill Museum was this small architectural diorama,” said Johnston, who is also managing editor of the Papers of William F. Cody. “It gave our visitors an aerial overview of the show but lacked action.
“What the IDIA captured for us is the look and feel of the experience, right down to the sound effects of horses and the stage coach running through the arena.”
Buffalo Bill’s Muncie visit
IDIA-created augmented reality apps will feature objects in the museums’ collections, such as firearms.
The Virtual Buffalo Bill project offered a crossover research opportunity for Connolly, director of Ball State’s Center for Middletown Studies. The center is developing Virtual Middletown, a 3-D visualization of industrializing early 20th-century Muncie, and the Buffalo Bill simulation offered an opportunity to produce a module as part of that endeavor.
Connolly and Seefeldt provided Fillwalk with photographs and newspaper accounts of Buffalo Bill’s 1899 stop in Muncie. “He personified the Wild West for audiences in these small towns,” Connolly said.
Connolly’s and Seefeldt’s research, along with assets provided by the Buffalo Bill Center, allowed Fillwalk and his artists to create beautifully rendered graphics based on data and research, hallmarks that have distinguished IDIA’s work in emergent media design.
“The attack on the Deadwood Stage Coach is simulated down to representing John Y. Nelson, one of America’s original Mountain Men driving the coach,” Fillwalk explained. “And Cody himself—along with his wardrobe—was painstakingly researched and re-created. His appearance was based on specific clothing of Cody’s in the museum collection that we were allowed to photograph.”
Seefeldt said Fillwalk’s re-creations uniquely capture William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody.
“His show had it all—buffalos, the Pony Express, Annie Oakley, re-enactments of iconic events in the history of the West. He was one of the most famous people in the country, a celebrity of that era, and it’s a thrill to see the way John has brought him back to life.”
Ball State-Center of the West partnership continues
Located in Cody, Wyoming, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West includes the Buffalo Bill, Draper Natural History, Whitney Western Art, Plains Indian and Cody Firearms museums, along with the McCracken Research Library.
The Origins of Buffalo Bill
Born in 1846, William F. Cody rode for the Pony Express, served as a military scout and earned his moniker “Buffalo Bill” while hunting the animals for the Kansas Pacific Railroad work crews. Beginning in 1883, he became one of the world’s best showmen with the launch of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, which was staged for 30 years, touring America and Europe multiple times.
The IDIA Lab’s next project for the center will be a series of augmented reality apps featuring objects in each museum’s collection. By holding electronic devices over images like a grizzly bear or gun, users can learn more about them as 3-D models of the subjects pop up on screen.
“By using their phones or tablets, visitors can see museum exhibits come to life,” Fillwalk said. “All of our work is meant to give visitors a greater appreciation for these assets with the aid of our digital interpretations.”
Johnston said what he likes best about Fillwalk’s approach is the way “he puts technology in the users’ hands.”
“I’ve seen so many younger people walking through our museums with their heads down, glued to their iPhones and iPads. With John’s help, I’m excited that we’re taking something they’re so familiar with and using it in a way to get them to engage with our exhibits here.”
Funding for the Virtual Buffalo Bill project was provided by a grant from the Buffalo Bill Center for the West, which was matched by internal grant funding from Ball State.
The DicePlus (Dice+) can communicate with both iOS and Android devices and has an available SDK for Android, iOS, and Unity.
It has capabilities including: return dice number rolled, control of LED’s, magnetometer and accelerometer for orientation and movement, capacitive sensor for proximity and touch, and temperature sensor for temperature.
For more information regarding its use check out www.dicepl.us
The Mobile Arduino Controller allows one to access an Arduino board via a mobile friendly website. It’s a website designed for mobile devices for a couple reasons…
1) Allows access from computers, not just smart phones.
2) Easier for the public to access the Arduino or multiple Arduinos for installations without searching for an app and then waiting for it to download.
3) Works on all smart phones.
The mobile website allows for near real time manipulation of anything connected to the Arduino board. It could also be used to relay sensor information back to the website or user. Right now, it is just connected to control LED’s, but it could be anything (servos, speakers, etc.)
We hope to use this for more than just turning on/off an LED on the board, but currently it is in a prototyping/research phase.
The Unity Mobile Controller would allow us to have a Unity project running on a PC, and users would be able to download an app that turns their smart phone into the controller. This allows for the project running on the PC to show the player and the smart to display the controls and other information (such as maps, menus, etc.). It’s still in a research/prototyping stage right now.
Virtual worlds are three-dimensional environments that can provide compelling shared experiences for their users. These media-rich immersive spaces can connect to social networks, web-services, and data to bridge into an entire universe of external content. The IDIA has developed scores of projects in virtual worlds and game environments including Blue Mars, Unity 3D, Second Life, Open Simulator, and Quest 3D.
The IDIA built and animated Odie’s character using Maya 3D; an industry standard animation software package used in the feature film and visualization industries. This game that IDIA designed with Paws characters, was developed in Unity 3D.
Paws characters Odie, Garfield and the neighborhood were then brought into the Unity game engine where the lighting, real-time shadows, and physics simulations were designed. Unity’s scripting capability was also utilized to control the Odie character’s animation and movement, trigger collision sounds, and animate Garfield as Odie moves by. There are a selection of objects for Odie to interact with, each with its own physical properties including weight, friction, and bounciness.
http://unity3d.com
MOBILE ENTERTAINMENT
Mobile devices are increasingly used to help us navigate, communicate, stay informed and be entertained. Devices such as the Apple iPhone are capable of supporting rich and complex 3D experiences such as augmented reality and games. The IDIA has been developing numerous projects for PDA enabled mobile phones including applications for social networking, conference systems, augmented reality walking tours, live musical performance and games.
The prototype 3D game, IDIA built with Paws content, has also been re-purposed here as an iPhone game – exhibiting the range and scalability of these authoring environments. The same content from any game can also be realized as a Nintendo Wii game using this production workflow.
This authoring environment supports two and three-dimensional game spaces, interacting through clicks, tilts and touch. Users can walk Odie through his neighborhood, encountering trashcans, balls and Garfield himself!
Born in 1846, William F. Cody rode for the Pony Express, served as a military scout and earned his moniker “Buffalo Bill” while hunting the animals for the Kansas Pacific Railroad work crews. Beginning in 1883, he became one of the world’s best showmen with the launch of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, which was staged for 30 years, touring America and Europe multiple times.
