Tomorrow afternoon I’m participating in a session entitled, Saving the Future: Museum Community Response to the Gulf Oil Spill at the American Association of Museums Annual Conference. It is ironic that we are here in Houston, the U.S. headquarters of BP.

In the session, I’m going to be talking about the multitouch Gulf Oil Spill Mashup application that we produced last summer and provided free of charge to museums and aquariums. The application was built with the GestureWorks multitouch SDK and many of the software components in the application available free on the Open Exhibits website.

In case you missed it, here’s a video of the application in action.

I will post my slides here following my presentation. Looking forward to hearing how others in the museum community responded to Gulf Coast oil spill.

Updated May 24, 2010:  It was a great session to be part of and I found the other presentations really inspiring. In particular, I really enjoyed the talk by Jerry Enzler, the Executive Director of the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium. Last summer, their institution opened a major exhibit on the Gulf of Mexico. Their large aquarium tanks were deliberately presented with no fish or any marine life. The tanks were covered with decals representing oil from the spill.

It was a great example of a museum (and aquarium) taking risks and making a strong statement about the environmental disaster that occurred in the gulf.  The opening of this unique exhibit was a great success and the story appeared in the national news. At the time, there were stories about the exhibit in MSNBC, USA Today, and many other media outlets.

I hope to post more about the session in the future, as all of the presentations were very interesting. For now, here are the slides from my presentation, Gulf Oil Spill Mashup Exhibit (PDF 3.7 MB)

[Cross-posted from Open Exhibits Blog]

We’ve recently released two new modules on Open Exhibits. The gigapixel viewer module allows Open Exhibits and GestureWorks users to plug any gigapixel image into our Flash application and drag and zoom it using multitouch inputs. We recently demo’d this app for the first time at CES 2011 and it was a big hit.

MT-Kinect, our other new module, allows users to interface with a Kinect to manipulate multitouch applications using gesturing (like in the movie Minority Report) rather than directly touching a screen. We combined this module with a gigapixel viewer to create an application that allows you to move and zoom by waving your arms.

So how does our application convert Kinect data to multitouch-compatible input that our Flash application can read? We wrote a “directshow” source filter, a virtualized webcam device that reads data from the drivers released by OpenKinect.

After adjusting the depth data to amplify the edges – which optimizes this application for gestures from a single user centered in the Kinect’s camera – we output a simple webcam feed. We route this information to a vanilla installation of CCV (theoretically, other  trackers should work), which runs various filters, finds the blobs, and outputs the data in whatever format we would like to consume (in our case,”flosc,” which enables Flash apps to get “OSC” information ). Our gigapixel viewer software can then read this input as though it came from any multitouch device.

These modules are free to download and use; you just need to be an Open Exhibits member. The gigapixel viewer requires that you have either Open Exhibits Core or GestureWorks software. Open Exhibits Core is available free to educational users. Commercial users can try GestureWorks free or purchase a license.

And if you’re wondering about the stunning gigapixel image of El Capitán, it was taken by xRez Studio who were nice enough to let us use the image for this demo.

>>Reposted from Open Exhibits blog.

Last month, we announced that we received funding from the National Science Foundation for Open Exhibits. Today we’re happy to announce that, on November 15th and just 60 days after being funded, Open Exhibits 1.0 will be available free to educational organizations.

The Open Exhibits core software along with six modules and one template will make up the initial release. Open Exhibits core is based on our commercial GestureWorks software package.

Open Exhibits core is a multitouch framework for Adobe Flash and Flex. The open source modules and templates will be interoperable with GestureWorks 2.0 (to be released December 9) and free to all developers. Modules are functional components that can be used as building blocks for templates and exhibits. Templates are stand-alone applications that can be populated with content and customized via external XML files.

Here’s a run down on the software that will be available November 15th on the Open Exhibits Website.

Open Exhibits core: Available free to any museum, educational organization, nonprofit, or student. It is essentially a free educational version of GestureWorks (it does require registration). It has built-in gesture support (eventually for over 200 gestures), a built-in multitouch simulator, and an open source gesture library.

Onscreen Keyboard (module)  - A multitouch-enabled, scaleable, rotatable, and “skinable” onscreen keyboard.

Image Viewer (module) – A “local” image viewer that can handle PNG, JPEG, SWFs and other Flash-friendly file formats. Multitouch gestures can be used to scale and rotate the images.It supports basic metadata (title, description, author, and publish) via an external XML file. It can be skinned and some parameters can be changed via XML.

Video Viewer (module) – A “local” video viewer that plays .FLV video files. Multitouch gestures can be used to scale and rotate the videos. It too supports basic metadata (title, description, author, and publish) via an external XML file. It also supports captions and it can be skinned and some parameters can be changed via XML.

Flickr Viewer (module) – A Flickr image and video viewer. This module can draw media from a Flickr account or group. Multitouch gestures can be used to scale and rotate the images and videos. It requires a Flickr API key. It supports basic metadata (title, description, author, and tags). It can be skinned and some parameters can be changed via XML.

YouTube Viewer (module) – A viewer that can play YouTube videos. It has basic video controls. Multitouch gestures can be used to scale and rotate the videos. It requires a YouTube API Key. It can be skinned and some parameters can be changed via XML.

Google Maps (module) – A module that allows a Google Map to be controlled via multitouch gestures. It requires a Google Maps API key. Some parameters can be changed via XML.

CollectionViewer (template) – A collection viewer that incorporates all of the viewer modules. It can connect to local or networked images and videos. It has support for multitouch gestures (and multiple users). The look and functional aspects of the application can be controlled via XML. The template can be populated with content and become a stand-alone exhibit or it the source code can be modified.

These initial modules and templates will be extended and modified as Open Exhibits continues. Additionally, the new site will allow other developers the ability to build off these components or submit their own components to share with the community. The fun begins on November 15th!

Back in June, we announced the release of a free multitouch application that combined NOAA oil spill data, visitor contributed Flickr photos, and Google Maps.  (You can see that blog post and video,  BP Oil Multitouch Map Mashup.) The application was developed exhibit using our own GestureWorks multitouch framework for Adobe Flash.

This application is still available to educational organizations such as science centers and aquariums.  Since then a few different museums and aquariums across the globe have expressed interest.

Just this week we got our first photographs back from Petrosains Discovery Centre in Mayalsia. The exhibit is in their Hot Science exhibit area.

McWane Science Center in Birmingham, Alabama will be including the exhibit as part of their Science of an Oil Spill exhibition opening October 2, 2010.  We hope to have pictures very soon.

Also, the application was mentioned today in Art | Participation an Italian language blog and community site that focuses on interactivity and multimedia, Ideum e la mostra digitale della catastrofe del Golfo.

If you are a museum, aquarium, or science center and you would like to use this free multitouch software, please email us for details.

. . . on the GestureWorks site. Today, we’ve posted a tutorial on how to make a multitouch twitter application in Flash. Not your cup of tea? Maybe you’d like to make a multitouch Google Maps/flickr mashup or just learn the basics on how to create multitouch applications in Flash & Flex.

Our tutorials have been some of the most visited pages on the GestureWorks support site and and we’re looking to expand the list even further. We’d love to hear suggestions on what kinds of tutorials you’d like to see on the site. Tweet us @gestureworks or comment on this post.

Just like everyone else over the last two months, we’ve watched the continuing oil spill in Gulf of Mexico with a sense of helplessness and despair. Not only did has this unnecessary accident taken the lives of 11 people, it continues to impact millions more.  From an environmental standpoint, it it is nothing short of a complete catastrophe.

To help educate the public about this unprecedented event, we’ve decided to release a free version of our multitouch-enabled Google Map and Flickr mashup application to educational organizations such as science centers and aquariums.  The Google Map and Flickr mashup combines oil spill and fishing restriction data from NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association) with eyewitness photographic and video accounts from the Gulf of Mexico. You can check and and join the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico Flickr group; it includes some amazing photographs of the crisis.

Here’s a video of the application in action.

The exhibit software requires a multitouch system. We are offering it for clients who have multitouch tables. We will be building a version that is optimized to work with the 3M 22″ multitouch monitor, a lower-cost system. If there is interest, we may offer a single touch version or Web version of the application later this summer. Please email us for details about this software.

The oil spill mashup application is similar to a Google Mapping and Flickr mashup exhibit that we developed for the California Science Center. In that application, we used a number of KML data overlays to show various features of the LA Basin. You can learn more about that exhibit, L.A. Zone Multitouch, Multiuser Table, on the ExhibitFiles website. That exhibit and the new Oil Spill mashup were both developed using GestureWorks multitouch software for Flash & Flex.

Finally, with reports that British Petroleum (BP) continues to try to block media coverage, we hope that this exhibit helps in some small way to better inform the public about this disaster.

Update: Some of you expressed interest in who was using the application.  A number of museums contact us with interest in it including: the McWane Science Center, Trelleborg Museum (Denmark), Vancouver Aquarium, and at Petrosains, The Discovery Center (Kuala Lumpur). I know that Petrosains and the McWane Science Center used the application on the floor.

This weekend was Oakland Museum’s non-stop, 31 hour opening celebration. I was lucky enough to get a preview on Thursday and it is an impressive redesign effort. The Gallery of California History and the Gallery of California Art have been thoroughly reinvented. The Gallery of California Natural Sciences opens in the Fall of 2012.

We played a small part in the opening, as both the Art and History galleries have exhibits that run on our multitouch tables. We worked with Oakland Museum to design and develop software for the California Land Grab exhibit found in the History gallery. This multitouch and multiuser exhibit allows visitors to view high-resolution historical maps of California and other documents. This application was developed with our own GestureWorks framework for Adobe Flash.  Below are some photographs of the California Land Grab exhibit. There are more photographs of this exhibit and our multitouch tables on the Ideum Flickr stream.

A lot of newspaper articles covered the weekend opening, you can find a complete listing on the Oakland Museum website. One article in particular that caught my attention was in the Contra Costa Times, who published a map of the new galleries with descriptions and photos showing exhibits of interest. Check out Oakland Museum, 2.0 The Layout to get an overview of the new galleries.

When we have visitors to our studio, we always like to show off the inside our MT-50 multitouch table. We’re very proud of the care and workmanship that goes into each custom-built table and we pride ourselves on using the best quality components we can find. We’ve decided to extend our inside tour to the web. Below, is our one-minute video tour of the MT-50.

The MT-50 multitouch table continues to evolve and improve. In a recent test, we broke 60 points of simultaneous input, making it a true multiuser platform (six sets of hands!). Our powerful computer, screen resolution and size, and number of touch points all top Microsoft Surface. (Compare our specs to theirs and see for yourself.) Plus, you can develop multitouch software using Adobe Flash with our GestureWorks framework without Silverlight.

And don’t forget to check out our other videos and subscribe to multitouch exhibits on YouTube.

For the second year in a row, Paul Lacey and I will be hosting a workshop entitled Make it Multitouch at the Museums and the Web conference. Normally, I try to avoid sequels and over the last few years I have delivered one-time workshops on RSS, mashups, and even online video editing. Multitouch is different. As emergent technology, it has the potential to fundamentally change the way visitors interactive with exhibits and eventually the Web itself.

This year Paul and I will have a few new things to share. Most notably, we will show a new experimental LCD multitouch table table (a potential successor to the MT-5o multitouch table)  and provide a peek under the hood of this new high-resolution device. I hope to see some of you at the Museums and the Web conference this year in Denver. The workshop will be held on April 14th. Here’s the description…

Multitouch and multiuser exhibits are changing the ways in which visitors interact with computer-based exhibits in museums. Multitouch exhibits allow designers to move away from traditional graphical user-interfaces and incorporate more natural and intuitive controls. Additionally, multiuser exhibits encourage social interaction in ways that traditional computer exhibits can’t.

Multitouch technology is no longer just a novelty, it is moving into the mainstream. The iPhone and other touch-enabled phones, the popularity of multitouch-capable all-in-one PCs, and the release of Windows 7 demonstrate the reach of multitouch technology. This major technological change presents exhibit developers with new and exciting design challenges. Before long, the work of Web developers will be impacted by the advent of multitouch, as well.

In this full-day workshop, we’ll explore a variety of multitouch technologies including off-the-shelf multitouch-enabled PCs, along with a look under the hood our second-generation custom-built 50″ touch table. We’ll also explain the software development process. Participants will see a variety of examples and prototypes, including many that use Web-based technologies. We’ll see how multi-touch technology is used to browse multimedia elements, RSS Feeds, mapping services, and other Web-based applications and mash-ups.

Finally, we’ll explore the design challenges multitouch and multiuser exhibits present. We’ll examine some traditional computer-based exhibits and conceptualize how they might be designed differently with multitouch and collaborative capabilities in mind. Through engaging rapid-design exercises, we’ll explore and discuss the conceptual, informational, and user-interface aspects of multitouch and multiuser design.

We’ve just launched a redesign of our portfolio site and blog. The site aggregates content from our Flickr, Twitter, and YouTube sites, embedding it in our new website.  For now, we’ve added simple links to our Facebook and Linked In pages. We may expand our integration with these sites in the future. Along with extending our reach into these social networking platforms, the site is easier to maintain and update.

The site is powered by WordPress. While this is hardly revolutionary, having WordPress work as our de facto content management system gives us a flexible platform for our Web presence. Our portfolio and products are custom “pages” in WordPress. The WordPress plug-ins Tweet Blender and Flickr Feed Gallery display tweets and photo thumbnails on the front page.

The portfolio itself contains descriptions for 14 projects. We’ve gone with a new editorial style for presenting project descriptions along with an improved layout. Each project description contains links to either YouTube videos or Flickr photos (or screen shots). We use Adobe Flash to integrate these media items into each portfolio piece. “Custom fields” in WordPress are used as hooks to connect to remote content and control the layout.

Five of the descriptions in the portfolio are for new projects we’ve worked on this fall and winter. These projects all involve either multitouch and/or multiuser technology. The new projects are:

• Visitors explore the electromagnetic spectrum on a custom 100″ multitouch table
• Teams of museum visitors guide their ships to an extra-solar planet
• “Magic Planet” exhibit shows visitors global images on a spherical display
•  A multitouch “Collection Viewer” presents surprising connections to museum visitors
•  Visitors explore “Arctic Choices” with a multitouch, multiuser mapping exhibit

The redesign of the portfolio site is our 4th since the company was founded in late 1999. Here ‘s a look back on some of the earlier designs.