Working with CT scans of a mako shark and consulting directly with Museum scientists John Maisey and John Denton, we produced an animated, interactive digital asset for the Hall of Biodiversity to augment the mako shark model hanging overhead. We developed versions for Microsoft’s Hololens (a headset) and Google’s Tango (a tablet).
Mixed Reality + Escape Room Experience, American Museum of Natural History, Jan 2017
This is SVG’s next prototype gamified AR Constellations, as well as another dataset from Digital Universe. We developed a collaborative gaming experience inspired by “escape rooms,” where players work against the clock to discover clues and solve a mystery within the confines of a thematically staged room. Our setting was the Big Bang Theater, staged to be the cockpit of spaceship that had crashed on Mars. Teams were given 20-30 minutes to solve two puzzles in order to survive and be rescued.
Both puzzles had augmented reality components: one used AR Constellations, and the other a simulation of the Solar System. Each required collaboration between the player in the Hololens headset and teammates working with physical materials. We tested “Escape the Planet” on a group of students and staff from a local school, and we tested portions of the experience on Museum visitors.
We conducted 2 hours of public evaluation over two sessions (38 people observed; 28 people interviewed).
Selected Press
New York Times | Review: ‘The Secret World Inside You’ Explores the Microbial Human
CBS New York | Museum Of Natural History Exposes Visitors To ‘The Secret World Inside You’
VR Development and Experience Design @ AMNH, 2017
Working with Museum scientist Steve Davis, we developed an immersive, VR experience around the CT scan of a root weevil. Users enter a virtual orange grove, click on a leaf, and are suddenly standing on the leaf by a human-sized weevil. They explore the insect to learn about its wing structure and the fascinating way insects breathe. A soundscape adds to the immersion.
Location: New York, NY
Size: 1100 sq ft
Featured: Mashable - Art Exhibit surrounds you with the sound of space
NY1 News - Festival Brings Abstract Concepts to Life
The Wall Street Journal - Getting Down to Earth Through Space
The Architect's Newspaper - Listen to the Sounds of Satellites from the comfort of your Home Planet
CREDIT
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Panel Design, Text Animation @ AMNH, 2018
The Orbit Pavilion comes from the desire to capture the soundscape of the 19 NASA satellites that monitor the earth. Shaped like a massive nautilus shell, the pavilion is made from 3,500 sq. ft. of aluminum panels, with 100 “orbital paths” waterjet cut into their surface, and curved around an aluminum pipe framework. The shell culminates in an oculus at the center of an inner chamber, wired with 30 speakers, each linked to the location of a NASA Satellite in space. Visitors can enter into this chamber and immerse themselves in the simulated sounds of the satellites, in real time, as they orbit around the earth.
Location: New York, NY
Size: 1100 sq ft
Featured: Mashable - Art Exhibit surrounds you with the sound of space
NY1 News - Festival Brings Abstract Concepts to Life
The Wall Street Journal - Getting Down to Earth Through Space
The Architect's Newspaper - Listen to the Sounds of Satellites from the comfort of your Home Planet
CREDIT
Pavilion Design by STUDIOKCA
Sound Composition by Shane Myrbeck
Creative Strategy by NASA JPL
3D Audio produced in the Arup SoundLab
Photography by Chuck Choi, Lesley Chang
Interactive 360 App Development, Experience Design @ AMNH, 2017
Inspired by the Mead Festival, we created a prototype 360 video that takes visitors behind the scenes to the Museum’s paleontological spaces. Using a rig of six cameras, we filmed three semi-scripted scenes:
○ An AMNH tour guide speaking in front of T. rex on the 4th floor
○ Daniel Barta talking bones in the Big Bone Room
○ Mark Norell, walking around his own office, discussing dinosaur research
We set up stools in three locations on the 4th floor (near T. rex, near the Big Bone Room exhibit by Titanosaur, and in the Astor Turret) and invited visitors to “go behind the scenes with Museum paleontologists.” We conducted 12 hours of public evaluation over two sessions (101 people interviewed).
Location: New York, NY
CREDIT
AR Development, Experience Design @ American Museum of Natural History, 2018
The American Museum of Natural History is teaching a class about evolution and adaptation to environmental forces. This course will use bat head physiology of scores of bats as a case study.
This application is an Augmented Reality digital companion to the course. Students will be able to look at bat skulls, musculature, and pictures to study phenotype variations across different bat species.
In addition to being used in the course, this application will also be provided as a touchpoint to museum visitors via temporary multimedia carts near relevant exhibitions.
——
We used the CT scan of the mako shark, as well as scans of a microfossil, weevil and ghost bat, to develop a Holocube experience that required much less facilitation than our first prototype. Manipulating the Holocube in one hand, and viewing it through the camera of a smartphone or tablet, visitors could examine the scans as 3D images on the screen. They could rotate the specimen by turning the cube, and even go inside the specimen by bringing the cube closer to the camera. Additional touchscreen features allowed them to play with the specimens in other ways (e.g., watching the shark swim and bite; bisecting the microfossil into halves).
Location: New York, NY
Size: 1100 sq ft
Featured: Mashable - Art Exhibit surrounds you with the sound of space
NY1 News - Festival Brings Abstract Concepts to Life
The Wall Street Journal - Getting Down to Earth Through Space
The Architect's Newspaper - Listen to the Sounds of Satellites from the comfort of your Home Planet
CREDIT
AR Development, Experience Design @ American Museum of Natural History, 2018
The American Museum of Natural History is teaching a class about evolution and adaptation to environmental forces. This course will use bat head physiology of scores of bats as a case study.
This application is an Augmented Reality digital companion to the course. Students will be able to look at bat skulls, musculature, and pictures to study phenotype variations across different bat species.
In addition to being used in the course, this application will also be provided as a touchpoint to museum visitors via temporary multimedia carts near relevant exhibitions.
——
We used the CT scan of the mako shark, as well as scans of a microfossil, weevil and ghost bat, to develop a Holocube experience that required much less facilitation than our first prototype. Manipulating the Holocube in one hand, and viewing it through the camera of a smartphone or tablet, visitors could examine the scans as 3D images on the screen. They could rotate the specimen by turning the cube, and even go inside the specimen by bringing the cube closer to the camera. Additional touchscreen features allowed them to play with the specimens in other ways (e.g., watching the shark swim and bite; bisecting the microfossil into halves).
CREDIT
Pavilion Design by STUDIOKCA
Sound Composition by Shane Myrbeck
Creative Strategy by NASA JPL
3D Audio produced in the Arup SoundLab
Photography by Chuck Choi, Lesley Chang
Gesture-based interactive where you fly through the universe using your body gestures | Flatiron Institute Data Visualization Conference @ American Museum of Natural History, Oct 2017
An interactive display reveals the microbial drama inside the body -NYT
People can touch the table to learn more about the lives of individual microbe species, including how they help us digest food, cause and fight infections and help regulate the immune system. The display also teaches the ecology of microbes. That is, how they work together to adapt, compete and collaborate.
Selected Press
New York Times | Review: ‘The Secret World Inside You’ Explores the Microbial Human
CBS New York | Museum Of Natural History Exposes Visitors To ‘The Secret World Inside You’
Gesture-based interactive | Flatiron Institute Data Visualization Conference @ American Museum of Natural History, Oct 2017
Star Pose is a gesture-based interactive experience in the Hall of Universe at AMNH in which visitors can interact with our Digital Universe Atlas on the large Astro Bulletins screen. Visitors pose like the constellations only to discover that those familiar 2-dimensional images are just one point of view of a three-dimensional arrangement of stars.
Selected Press
New York Times | Review: ‘The Secret World Inside You’ Explores the Microbial Human
CBS New York | Museum Of Natural History Exposes Visitors To ‘The Secret World Inside You’
VR Development, Art Direction, User Experience Design, Physical Exhibit Configuration @ American Museum of Natural History, March 2019
T. rex Skeleton Crew is an interactive, multiplayer virtual reality experience, now part of T. rex: The Ultimate Predator at the American Museum of Natural History.
The facilitated experience will “transport” up to three players at a time to a space similar to the Museum’s Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs, where they will team up to build a T. rex skeleton bone by bone. Once all of the bones are in place, the players will watch as the T. rex comes to life in marshland that is now Montana, its home 66 million years ago.
Selected Press
New York Times | Review: ‘The Secret World Inside You’ Explores the Microbial Human
CBS New York | Museum Of Natural History Exposes Visitors To ‘The Secret World Inside You’
Gesture-based interactive where you fly through the universe using your body gestures | Flatiron Institute Data Visualization Conference @ American Museum of Natural History, Oct 2017
An interactive display reveals the microbial drama inside the body -NYT
People can touch the table to learn more about the lives of individual microbe species, including how they help us digest food, cause and fight infections and help regulate the immune system. The display also teaches the ecology of microbes. That is, how they work together to adapt, compete and collaborate.
Selected Press
New York Times | Review: ‘The Secret World Inside You’ Explores the Microbial Human
CBS New York | Museum Of Natural History Exposes Visitors To ‘The Secret World Inside You’