FINAL #6: Building my final immersive library

This is my iED Library in Rocket Client. It is titled Caras iED Library. I put a park layer underwater to make a super interesting library. There was a fenced in area with a lot of objects that were part of the layer. Surrounding the fence area is a lot of open space with trees around it. In the fenced in area I put all of my clickable images. On one outside spot I put the videos all together, and in another spot I added all of the pictures. In a third spot I linked my blog post that notes the ten other papers and vidoes.

 This is a structure I made using pyramids and half spheres. I liked one of the shapes to Facebook.

 Here you can see two of my clickable images. I linked the picture of my sister and I as little kids to the Disney website because that is where we were. I linked the picture of me writing on a wall to the Brooklyn Bridge website because that is what I was writing on. I linked the picture of a house to the Bradley Beach, NJ website because it's a picture of my beach house there. I linked the picture of my family to a Coogee Beach, AU website because that's where we were, in Australia. I linked the picture of my dog to my Facebook page because that's where I got it!

 Here is another view of my world. I tried to delete some of the extra stuff but since it was part of the layer it would just always come back.

 This is me working with AJ and Michelle trying to troubleshoot one of the issues that Michelle and I were both having. We all got together online to work on problems, they were SO helpful! Thank you to AJ for saving us all.

 This is the welcome text I added that you see right when you come to my world.

 This is the section that has the 10 last papers and videos. I made a post in my blog that has all of the links, to save space.

 This is the section that has all of the papers. There are 5 that I put up by linking Web Content on to cubes that I made into flat screens.

 Another view of the inside of the fence of my library.

 This is where my videos are.

 Here is another view, you can see all of my clickable images.

Here is a small structure I made, moving and adjusting 3D circles to create an interesting shape.

OPTIMIZATION:
To optimize space, I separated all of the parts. I put the clickable images in the middle, cluttered section. The I put all of the videos together in one section and labeled it, and the same with the papers. To save space and optimize I posted the videos through Edit-Web Browser on a flat screen-like cube instead of dropping them all through that function. I optimized by keeping the categories in the same section, but keeping them relatively far apart. I added labels to make it easier for people to find where everything is. I also made my images clickable without using an embedded web browser, which saved some power. The most important thing I did to optimize was instead of adding the ten extra pages separately, I put in a web browser page that linked the user to those ten videos after clicking.

I had SO many issues with this program but thank you to my team members Michelle and AJ for all of their help!! This is a final exercise from the Immersive Education course that I am taking at Boston College. The course is called Discovering Computer Graphics. For details, visit the immersive BC portal at http://ImmersiveEducation.org/@/bc

Trying to Complete Final #6

The point of this post is to just show all of the screenshots as I was trying and failing to complete the last final over the last few days. Since Tuesday, Rocket has probably closed on my 100 times even though I updated my graphics drive. I started using my roommates computer because though Rocket wouldn't work on mine for some reason, it worked on hers. That is why my name isn't in the name of the computer. I got together with Ann to work and also talked to Michelle and AJ to try to fix all the issues I was having (Ann, Michelle and I all had some of the same issues). A lot of time was spent trying to work on this program that really was not receptive at all.

 This was when I kept trying to drag and drop the script that AJ posted to help with clickable images, and it wouldn't register.

 This just shows all the times it would load for 20 minutes then not work, and I kept getting these error messages that I had no idea what to do to fix the issue.

 Here I finally was able to get the script to upload by changing it to a different form- Plain Text. However after it did not make my images clickable, I think that it is still not responding to Rocket because I can't click my images.

 This is what happens every single time I try to click the image, the avatar just runs into the picture.

After talking to Michelle, she told me that the only way her images were clickable was if she uploaded them as a Website and not as a Picture. So I did that with this picture and it was clickable (though the website was brought up in Rocket, but it was the closest thing I could do to actually working).

 Here I added 3D text with my name and it actually worked perfectly!

Another example of dropping a picture in and following all the steps, but still not being clickable.

Still trying to work through all of these issues.

FINAL #6: BUILDING MY IMMERSIVE LIBRARIES/MUSEUM

Below are screenshots of my library. I chose to do an underwater library to be more creative, it is definitely not something that you would see in the real world. I put an outdoor park layer underwater so I have that structure laid out, with picnic tables and trees. As you can see, all of my youtube videos and papers are Dropped in the world. I'm still working on creating 3D structures other than what is already there in the layer.

Props to my teammate Michelle for all her help!

This is a final exercise from the Immersive Education course that I am taking at Boston College. The course is called Discovering Computer Graphics. For details, visit the immersive BC portal at http://ImmersiveEducation.org/@/bc

Immersive Libraries and Museums

LAM.TWG Charter Summary:

The LAM.TWG stands for Libraries and Museums Technology Working Group. It was created out of the LIB.TWG, which was expanded in 2013 and stands for Immersive Education Initiative's Library Technology Working Group. The chairs of the group are Jerome Yavarkovsky and Melissa Carillo, and they wrote the charter along with H. Nicholas Nagel. LAM.TWG is open to anyone who meets one or more of three requirements. These requirements include experience with real world or digital libraries and/or museums, and experience with different aspects of immersive education and virtual reality. These aspects can include developing or using virtual worlds, simulators, video games or full, augmented or mixed reality (FAM).

The LAM.TWG wants to provide informational resources, research and other services to people that can not necessarily be transferred in the "real world". As we move into the age of advancing technology, the group wants to work to bring materials to people online, that would not be available otherwise because of the data in them (such as video information). For these librarians, they not only have to find and display the information, but keep up to date on different sources of information. The number of sources is becoming more and more vast, and the librarians have to keep that in mind. 

Though many libraries have implemented some type of technology in their systems for the past few decades, there are some traditional aspects that cannot be changed. For example, the fact that libraries are constrained to buildings. With virtual libraries, they can be in as creative and interesting a place as possible because there are no limitations online. Traditional libraries also have to deal with the usual modes of communication, through face-to-face meetings, email and telephone. With virtual libraries, librarians will be able to communicate in many more ways, such as through video conferencing or virtual reality meetings.

There are ten basic objectives that the LAM.TWG are aiming toward. The group wishes to design library and museum-specific specifications and implementations, as well as a framework for the support of development. They also wish to define and publish practices for assessment, interpretation of data, design of environments, and re-defining curatorial practices. Other objectives include applying collaborative opportunities and promote basic understanding of knowledge on applications and services. Also, they with to maintain an up-to-date bibliography of all of the research papers and studies in the virtual environments, as well as promoting networking and community building.

Source: "Immersive Education Libraries and Museums Technology Working Group (LAM.TWG)"

FINAL #6: iED Library Steps 1-4

STEP 1: Setting up and exploring Meshmoon

STEP 2: Tried to set layers but kept ending up with no ground and did not know how to fix that. When I would go to Meshmoon and add a layer it wouldn't do anything to the world I created.

STEP 3/4: Experiemented making clickable and non-clickable shapes. The first screenshot shows me making non-clickable squares with the build tool. Then I was able to link shapes to images, like the dogs. When I tried to link to a webpage it would work for a second, then show a blank screen like in the screenshot under the one with the dog image.

This is a final exercise from the Immersive Education course that I am taking at Boston College. The course is called Discovering Computer Graphics. For details, visit the immersive BC portal at http://ImmersiveEducation.org/@/bc

Final #4: High Resolution Avatar

This is the first avatar I made, where I spent a lot of time on all of the facial features. The first screenshot shows the face that I started with, and the second shows my finished face after I made many adjustments. I used the different sliders to adjust the features. What I found the most difficult here was getting both sides of the face and body to have the same adjustments. For example, left eye and right eye, left cheek and right cheek, left and right feet/hands and more all had separate sliders. Especially with the eyes, it took me a while to get them to look the same because their sliders were totally separate and you couldn't get it to transfer over from right to left.

Here I am trying different outfits on my avatar. I thought that when I was in clothing and hit reset it would only reset the clothing, but it reset the whole avatar. That is why my avatar looks like the original face, because the one I adjusted got reset. I first tried t-shirts and jeans but they all looked like they were peeling away on my avatar. The only thing that didn't have that affect were the two dresses. So I chose a yellow dress and boots that stayed on my avatar without peeling. 

Here I demonstrated Make Human's capabilities by making two very different people. The first was a 44 year old male with an afro. The second was a 12 year old girl (I did 100% female) with curly hair. I also moved the "Afro" scale on the man so he looked like he could be African-American. I dressed them in different outfits, also. This demonstrates that you can choose any age, gender and amount of each gender, and certain specific cultural features (choose from African American and Asian, it seems like the default is White European) to make different types of people. This is a final exercise from the Immersive Education course that I am taking at Boston College. The course is called Discovering Computer Graphics. For details, visit the immersive BC portal at http://ImmersiveEducation.org/@/bc