Last week we conducted a workshop at the British Museum in London and hosted an open house to show off Open Exhibits software and our MT55 Platform multitouch table. Our next two events are at The Tech Museum in San Jose and the Maxwell Museum right here in New Mexico.
Connecting the iPhone to the multitouch table. You can see photos and learn more about the event at British Museum on the Open Exhibits blog.
On November 15th, we’ll be at The Tech Museum in San Jose participating in the Interfaces for the New Decade – Conference and Gallery Opening. You can get tickets for the day long event or you can come by the free evening reception. We will be demoing the Heist software project,which allows visitors to “steal” digital objects from a multitouch table using their mobile devices. We will also have a demo of our Open Exhibits Gigapixel Viewer controlled by a Microsoft Kinect. If you’re in the Bay Area and want to check out our MT55 Platformmultitouch table we will have one at the Tech.
A ceramic head from Guatemala, traced to the Postclassic Mayan times (AD 100-1697)
On December 2nd, we’ll be at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology on the University of New Mexico campus in Albuquerque. We will be running Heist software on the Maxwell’s MT55 Pro multitouch table. The touch table will show digital objects from the “Look Close See Far: A Cultural Portrait of the Maya” exhibit which features objects the Maxwell’s Mayan collection. The event runs from 4 to 6:30 PM. You can learn more on the Maxwell site, look under Events. The Maxwell Museum is one of our museum partners for the Open Exhibits project funded by the National Science Foundation.
Tomorrow, I’m participating in a session entitled, Open Source for Museums: The Experiment Continues at the American Association of Museums (AAM) annual conference. This is a follow up to a session to one I was involved in two years ago. I’m representing the Open Exhibits software initiative. Here’s the description for the session:
Join the project leads of Pachyderm, Omeka, CollectionSpace and Open Exhibits for an introduction to open source and a frank discussion of the promises and potential pitfalls of open source software in the museum world. Learn about the origin and forms of the open source software movement and about the history of its application in the museums.
Hope to see some of you tomorrow! Bright and early, it is a 9AM session.
Open Exhibits has just passed 4,000 software downloads! If you’re not a programmer, or you haven’t downloaded the code, yet – we thought we’d give you an idea of what you may be missing.
This video demonstrates several of the free multitouch software modules already posted on the Open Exhibits site. These modules are designed to simplify Flash and ActionScript exhibit development, and many are compatible with the Microsoft Kinect (using MT-Kinect). The source code for every module shown in the video can be downloaded today on the Open Exhibits Software page.
We demonstrated the software on the TRu Touch 21.5″ multitouch monitor from Touch Revolution and 3M M2256PW 22″ display.
Open Exhibits modules require Open Exhibits Core SDK (free for museums, non-profits, and educational use). The software modules can be used commercially with GestureWorks SDK.
We’ll continue to post videos as we release new software. If you have any comments or feedback, we’d love to hear from you.
Over on Open Exhibits, we’ve just released a new template called the Magnifier Viewer. The template has an integrated multitouch-enabled magnifier object that can be used with a variety of media items such as images and Google Maps. We’ve been looking to integrate this magnifier into Open Exhibits and make it available to the community ever since we developed it for the California Mapping exhibit with Oakland Museum last year.
The Magnifier Viewer has different styled magnifiers (round or square, brass or silver, handles or no handles) that can be changed via XML settings. This flexible template can be used to create a variety of custom exhibits. Just add media and customize the XML and you’re ready to go.
This template and a dozen other software modules are available free on the Open Exhibits site. Museums, students, universities, and non-profits can get the Open Exhibits Core SDK for free too. Comercial users will need the GestureWorks framework to use the free modules. Open Exhibits and GestureWorks require Adobe Flash or Flex.
We’ll be showing how to use this template and other software modules at an Open Exhibits bootcamp workshop next week at Museums and the Web conference in Philadelphia.
This video demonstrates the results of a recent collaboration between SENSUS and our own Open Exhibits software initiative. The concept is simple: make networking and sharing transparent across multitouch devices and operating systems. The demo video shows an Android Tablet (Samsung Galaxy), a Multitouch Table (our own, new MT55), a Windows 7 multitouch kiosk, and an iPod–all sharing media items (images, video, and a Google Map) effortlessly. This easy sharing is made possible with Konnectus software which is a new cloud-computing platform developed by SENSUS.
The Konnectus software and the Open Exhibits modules will be available later this summer. And, Yes! These “network friendly” software modules will also work with our GestureWorks multitouch framework.
Here’s a bit more about Konnectus and our partners at SENSUS…
KonnectUs is a new cloud-computing software platform by SENSUS designed to make sophisticated networking functions easy and intuitive for users across a range of devices including multitouch tables, desktop computers, tablets, and mobile phones. KonnectUs “Natural Networking Technology (NNT)” empowers users to connect seamlessly across all major platforms – from Windows to Android to iOS. The new software aims to deliver a desktop user experience for key cloud-based services such as file sharing, social networking and location-relevant distribution of content. Additionally, KonnectUs APIs allow developers the opportunity to leverage the power of SENSUS networking technology through integration into third party applications.
Our module for Kinect provides a simple solution for authoring gesture-based applications in Flash. Lately, we’ve been using it in conjunction with our other free Open Exhibits software modules. While the Kinect device itself doesn’t have the necessary precision for use with every module, we have successfully paired it with our gigapixel image viewer, our new VR Panoramic image viewer, and with our Google Maps module.
Our free Kinect module works with Community Core Vision (CCV) software, an open source software package for computer vision. We’ve used this software in the past with various multitouch tables and other installations. Our Kinect module is a “directshow” source filter, a virtualized webcam device that reads data from the drivers released by OpenKinect.
Here’s a video showing the Kinect module working with other Open Exhibits software.
The Kinect module and the others are all free and open on the Open Exhibits website. The Open Exhibits core software is free for students, educators, nonprofits, and museums. (Commercial users can download a free GestureWorks trial.) Add a $150 Kinect 3D Motion Controller to our software and you have a very cheap and flexible authoring solution.
There are photographs of the Kinect and Open Exhibits modules on the OE Flickr site.
This article is cross-posted on the Open Exhibits Website.In the video, the gigapixel image of El Capitán that appeared in the example was provided by xRez Studio. The cubic VR image of Chichen Itza was taken by Ideum back in 2005 and is part of the Traditions of the Sun project.
Over on the Open Exhibits website, Jeff Heywood of Vancouver Aquarium has just shared a comprehensive field study on two multitouch tables in the Canada’s Arctic gallery space. The study was developed by The InnoVis Group, Interactions Lab at the University of Calgary.
We built the tables and worked with Vancouver Aquarium back in the summer of 2009 to create the software. The report looks at the “general experience of the digital tables”, including the form factor, and then it takes a closer look at the applications.
The study shows, as Jeff points out in his post, that “not everything was a success with the tables, but they are, overall, successful.” Considering the emergent nature of these types of exhibits, we were pleased to see that the study was generally very positive.
Still, some things didn’t work as well we would have liked. There were significant usability issues with the early version of the Collection Viewer. I’m happy to report that many of the issues cited in the report have been fixed in the newer version of the Collection Viewer that is available on the Open Exhibits site. We built in the ability to easily change some of the design parameters via XML. For example, button size and spacing can be modified by changing the XML. In addition, we remapped many of the gestures, so that the Collection Viewer objects respond better to visitor interaction. Still, some issues remain and we’ll be taking a closer look at this report and making additional changes.
Studies like this are incredibly valuable (and far too rare in the field). As designers and developers, we can only learn so much through testing and observation in the studio. The museum (or aquarium) setting and the sheer number and range of different visitors provides us with a new picture of the exhibit. You can download and read the full report on the Open Exhibits website, Interactive Tables at the Vancouver Aquarium.
I’m very happy to announce the release of a major update to our GestureWorks multitouch authoring frameworks for Adobe Flash and Flex. The new version has some great new features, most notably over 200 built-in gestures and the ability to incorporate Open Exhibits software modules. A GestureWorks 2.0 commercial license costs $249. We are providing free upgrades to any GestureWorks 1.x users.
In addition to the new software release, we’ve also redesigned the GestureWorks website. The front page is now multitouch-enabled. The support system and documentation areas of the website have been completely revamped, with an expanded FAQ, a new issue tracking system, and a comprehensive GestureWorks manual. We’ve also added Google Checkout to the options for payment in the store.
In addition, we’ve updated our popular gesture poster to reflect the gesture support in the new release. The poster and the gesture artwork are released under a Creative Commons Attribution – ShareAlike license.
On September 21st, I announced that we received funding for Open Exhibits from the National Science Foundation. It is great to be able to announce today, just two months later, that Open Exhibits core software and a new community site are now available at OpenExhibits.org.
We are, by just about any measure, off to a very fast start. While Open Exhibits is a three-year exhibit software initiative, we know how hard it is to develop a community of practice and we understand that it takes time. Quickly releasing software and developing a site that allows our community to take root is the first step.
On the Open Exhibis site, you’ll find Open Exhibits Core software, which includes support for multitouch gestures within Adobe Flash and Flex. Along with the core, the first open source templates and modules are also available. These templates and modules will allow developers to easily create interactive exhibits. All of this software is free for museums, nonprofits, universities, students, and other educational organizations. (Commercial users of GestureWorks can also use the templates and modules and are encouraged to contribute.)
The Open Exhibits site allows for software downloads and uploads and there is a community blog that any member can contribute to. In addition, the site has personal profiles, tutorials, support, and documentation. New features will be rolled out over the next few weeks.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the fantastic team at Ideum that helped put all this together. Chad Person is the Open Exhibits project manager and helped design and oversee the site. Danillo Stern-Sapad is the main site developer (we built the site in Drupal). Erin Rose is a content developer and social media outreach specialist and helped with the tutorials and blog. James “Glass” Cartwright was the CSS master for the site, while James Kassemi helped with database and Javascript implementation. Open Exhibits software developers Matt Valverde and Paul Lacey put together all of the modules and templates. They also worked with Chris Gerber to put Open Exhibits Core together, implementing the new module and gesture support, as well as an extensive set of documentation.
We encourage you to check out Open Exhibits and join us. We are just getting started.
This week we put together a quick test using QR Codes to extend a multitouch exhibit that we developed last year. QR Codes are an easy way to incorporate a mobile exhibit component that allows visitors to view and share more information about exhibit objects or media items. Any user with a smartphone can use a barcode scanning app to scan a QR code, which can then navigate to websites, source materials, teacher guides, commenting; basically, the possibilities are endless. Users can also choose to share the link with friends via social networking sites or email.
We reworked the EM Spectrum multitouch, multiuser exhibit that we developed with Adventure Science Center last year to include QR codes with links to Wikipedia entries for each area of the spectrum. Check out the video below to see the updated EM spectrum exhibit.
This experiment has proved useful enough that we’ve decided to add a QR Code generator to our Open Exhibits software modules. You’ll be able try these for yourself when the redesigned Open Exhibits site launches and the software is released on November 15th! Open Exhibits core multitouch and multiuser software is free for educational use. All Open Exhibits modules are free for any user and they also work with the commercially available GestureWorks software framework.
Tomorrow, I’m participating in a session entitled, 
