The Advanced Visualization Lab (AVL) and the Center for Network Science (CNS), both units at Indiana University (IU), are proud to be a partner on the Immersive Scholar project. The AVL is the premier support unit for visualization-related activities at IU. Its mission is to promote the innovative application of visual technologies that enhance the University’s research, education, creative, and community engagement activities. It targets to enable and empower the IU community and supports all departments across 2 major research campuses and 6 smaller regional campuses. The Lab provides free access to a wide range of systems including, but not limited to:
Reality Labs - VR-enabled classrooms and open labs
IQ-Tables - IU-designed and built touch-enabled table displays running web-enabled exhibit and media collaboration software
Science on a Sphere - spherical visualization appliance for exhibiting digital art, presenting scientific and information visualizations, and creating interactive visual experiences
Flagship “black box” facilities - experimental spaces with cutting-edge visualization and interactive technologies that can be reconfigured to suite a variety of projects and experiences
IQ-Walls - large-format, ultra-resolution displays for visualization and collaboration
|
Location |
Primary Purpose |
Configuration |
Total Resolution |
Size |
|
Mathers Museum of World Culture, 2009 |
Teaching, Exhibits |
3 x 4 |
4098 x 3072 (12.5 MP) |
10' x 8' |
|
School of Informatics & Computing, 2010 |
Research |
3 x 3 |
4098 x 2304 (9.5 MP) |
10' x 6' |
|
Cyberinfrastructure Building, 2011 |
Public Space, Research |
6 x 4, curved |
10080 x 4200 (42 MP) |
24' x 9' |
|
Global Research Network Operations Center, 2011 |
Operations |
6 x 2 |
11520 x 2160 (25 MP) |
24' x 4.5' |
|
Social Science Research Commons, 2012 |
Research, Presentations |
2 x 2 |
1920 x 1080 (2.1 MP, scaled up 2x) |
8' x 4.5' |
|
Wells Library Scholars Commons, 2014 |
Public Space, Research |
4 x 4, 3D |
5464 x 3072 (17 MP) |
13.5' x 8' |
|
Indiana University Foundation, 2015 |
Public Relations |
3 x 3 |
1920 x 1080 (2.1 MP, scaled up 3x) |
10' x 6' |
|
Global & International Studies Building, 2015 |
Public Space, Presentations |
4 x 4 |
7680 x 4320 (34 MP) |
13.5' x 8' |
|
IUB Data Center, 2015 |
Operations |
8 x 2 |
15360 x 2160 (34 MP) |
27' x 4' |
|
IUPUI Data Center, 2016 |
Operations |
3 x 2 |
5760 x 2160 (12.5 MP) |
10’ x 4’ |
|
Hodge Hall, 2016 |
Presentations |
4 x 2 |
7680 x 2160 (16.5 MP) |
16’ x 5’ |
|
Ruth Lilly Medical Library, 2016 |
Research, Presentations |
4 x 2, touch |
7680 x 2160 (16.5 MP) |
16’ x 5’ |
|
ICTC Room 414, 2016 |
Research, Presentations |
4 x 2, touch |
7680 x 2160 (16.5 MP) |
16’ x 5’ |
|
Whitewater Hall, 2017 |
Public Space, Presentations |
4 x 4 |
7680 x 4320 (34 MP) |
13.5' x 8' |
|
Luddy Hall, 2017 |
Research, Presentations |
4 x 4, 3D |
7680 x 4320 (34 MP) |
13.5' x 8' |
|
ICTC Room 403, 2018 |
Research, Presentations |
8 x 4, 3D |
15360 x 4320 (66 MP) |
27’ x 8.5’ |
The IQ-Wall is our most prolific display and is most relevant to the Immersive Scholar project. Despite our extensive use cases and the increasing ubiquity of tiled video walls, they remain somewhat challenging to use and prepare content for. Our project addresses this challenge through the development of the Multimedia Collectome.
Multimedia Collectome
The Multimedia Collectome is an open-source, easy-to-use, online system that allows users to create, share, and display collections of related multimedia objects on large-format, ultra-resolution displays such as an IQ-Wall. The objects are chosen from existing online sources, and each collection (called an exhibit) is arranged in a layout. Object data types are very flexible (since they derive from existing sources) and can include documents, images, videos, 3D objects, maps, or any web page. You can use viewers from YouTube, Flickr, SketchFab, GigaPan, Twitter visualizers, Universal Viewer, etc. Initially, the layout will be specified by a user for a specific display, but then those layouts can be shared and remixed for other displays and heuristics can be implemented to semi-automate the layout process.
The Collectome is fundamentally a passive or pseudo-interactive experience. It is intended to make these displays more interesting and to facilitate scholarly exhibits in public spaces, labs, or classrooms. We propose that the video wall community embrace the notion of digital signage and use it to excite and engage potential users. That will, in turn, increase user buy-in and open up other, more advanced use cases and opportunities.
Here are 3 potential representative exhibits:
1. Exemplar collection of similar media types
Places & Spaces maps; Library of Congress collections; historic maps
2. Scholarly story-telling based on a collection of different media types
Election recap; natural disaster; anniversary of a historical event
3. Mash-up of live streams
Coverage of a live sporting event; updates from an ongoing conference; twitter visualization; live polling data
A Content-Sharing Platform
The Multimedia Collectome is a content-sharing platform intended to facilitate the building of a community of practice around tiled video walls or similar large-format displays. Many organizations already have these kinds of displays, yet we each struggle with creating content. The Collectome wants to leverage these existing resources and geographically-dispersed expertise by providing a mechanism to more easily share and access quality content (exhibits) which have already been curated and vetted at another location.
Building the Collectome
The Collectome will be built from a foundation of two existing tools. The AVL Screensaver, initially developed for IU’s IQ-Walls, accepts curated URLs and randomly chooses a subset of those URLs to display within an appropriate window layout. This is the basis for the Collectome’s Exhibit Creation Module. Within this module, a user will build their exhibit by specifying metadata, content URLs, and display and layout parameters. This module will likely feature a form-like interface that provides a live preview (such as what is shown in the following image).
The AVL Showcase is a simple project repository. It provides basic search functions to narrow down the project(s) you’re most interested in viewing. It has a handful of metadata fields, including an image and a URL to an existing online source that usually provides more details and/or interactive viewing options. The Showcase is the basis for the Collectome’s Community Sharing Module which features consumer and creator modes as well as options for searching, previewing, and presenting exhibits.
Limitations & Timeline
Some of the Collectome’s limitations include the lack of a fully-featured GUI to handle exhibit creation and configuration. We can offset this using a JSON editor which provides some error checking and syntax highlighting as well as our live preview window. Another challenge is the requirement that the objects exist elsewhere online. But the goal of the Collectome is to share and re-purpose the exhibit themselves; it need not concern itself with the details of individual object viewing and storage. That is a solved problem (using any one of the many existing online resources). The Collectome simply leverages those resources. Removing the need to store objects locally has the additional advantage of reducing the systems’s security footprint and alleviates some privacy concerns.
The Multimedia Collectome is set to be developed throughout the course of calendar year 2018. We will share draft and early development versions and welcome feedback and comments.
Contact Us
For more information, please contact Michael Boyles (mjboyles@iu.edu) or you can email Indiana University’s Advanced Visualization Lab team (vishelp@iu.edu).
The Advanced Visualization Lab is a unit of the Research Technologies division of UITS and is affiliated with IU’s Pervasive Technology Institute.