CELLULAE.NETmetaSpongia (proposal)

intro | concept | realisation | technology

Technology:

Requirements:

Exhibition space:

      • darkened space with 'silver 3D screen' or wall(s), allowed to be (specially) re-painted with a low-cost hight-heat aluminum paint (for the polarisation stereoscopic effect)

Hardware (depending on the scale and available resources):

      • 2-8 projectors (1-4 pairs of identical DLP/LCD projectors)
      • 1-5 PC computers (at least 1 PC with dual head graphic card)
      • 5.1 - 14 (eg. 5.1 + 8) channel sound system
      • touch-screen for PC (optional)

Software:

      • BS Contact VRML/MPEG-4 browser (free/available)
      • MySQL database (freeware)
      • Reaktor / SoundCollider or other real-time multi-channel audio processing software
      • EyesWeb video analysis/tracking software (freeware)
      • on agreement: assistance needed extending components in MS Visual C++, Java (the necessary software components to produce a working installation version exist already, but could be enhanced in various directions, or add new functionality / interfaces)


      It is expected that there could be several interfaces or projects areas, sharing one or several databases. After the agreement on the query protocol shared database (and possibly creating additional meta-database), various VRML scenes are built on-fly or from pre-rendered fragments (eg. accumulated database entries, data mining elements, etc.) via BS Contact VRML/MPEG-4 ODBC client. Other assets: movies, sound files, pictures are added dynamically to the VRML scenes.


      possible scheme (not necessarily to realise all the modules at once or in the same time)

     

Other notes:

VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) is a solid and royalty-free standard for interactive 3D environments, that in the recent years has extented it's range of application beyond rather simple web-based 3D scenes (what was the case until the end of 1990-ties).

VRML has text based (optionally binary compressed) file format, that allows easy generation from any script based server/client technology. VRML is often used as exchange format between many 3D applications.

The VRML viewer BS Contact, that I am using - runs only on PC platform, but is the currently the most advanced VRML viewer in terms of features and visual quality of the image, that in many aspects rivals some of the best game engines and other high-end VR set-ups.

There is interesting, and not so often explored possibility of using streaming media content in interactive VRML and even mix several sources in one scene.

Other very interesting feature is ability to play multi-channel sound by the newest versions of streaming codex v9 from RealNetworks and Microsoft Media – they allow to use e.g. 5.1 or 7.1 channel sound.

During my collaboration with the developers of BS Contact viewer at the company Bitmanagement Software in the recent years - I have implemented several specific custom-made plug-ins, that extends the features with interfaces for MIDI in/out, ODBC (Open Data Base Connectivity) and multi-client sinchronisation. I also have obtained a license for SDK, that would permit to develop further interfaces and extensions, eg. OSC (Open Sound Control) or possibly direct realtime live-video input (video-overlay speed) textures.


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