Past Projects
MindSpace personnel have been involved in numerous educational technology projects, including both cutting edge research and development (involving HITLabNZ, Ultralab and Lincoln University) and content development on a number of platforms. Details are below, and a brief overview is available on the Experience page. MindSpace is also available to Contract on these types of projects.
The projects are divided into the following categories:
Project Management:
- HITLabNZ Converge05 Artist Fellowships
This combined seven technology students from t he HITLabNZ with five artists from around New Zealand to produce four technology-enabled are works, exhibited at the innovative Converge05 conference. In addition to delivering the final works, this involved a through selection process and a number of workshops that increased the student’s awareness of art and helped the artists become more familiar with the technology available and how it could be applied.
More Info: is available at the fellowship website or by viewing the exhibiton flyer (1.6mb).
- Te Ahua Hiko: Maori Performance Art in Augmented Reality
 This is an ongoing project, developed with HITLabNZ, with funding from the MoRST and Creative New Zealand Smash Palace Initiative. This project will record a Maori Performance in 3D, enhance it with virtual content and present the result in Augmented Reality at the Canterbury Museum, so that viewers see life-size virtual performers, performing in the real world. The project is also researching the needs and techniques for fairly working with inindigenous intellectual property.
- Inner Earth and Volcanoes
 This is an Augmented Reality kiosk that was developed with HITLabNZ for Science Alive! This six-page, Augmented Reality book teaches people about volcanoes, including details on tectonic plates, subduction, rifts, the Ring of Fire, volcano formation and of course, eruptions. This book features an interactive slider that allows the user to progress through events at their own pace, including: volcano formation, the movement of tectonic plates and the eruption of Mount St Helens. Each page includes stimulating sound effects and a series of narrated questions that encourage the student to read the accompanying page of text.
More Info: A video of this project in action can be viewed here.
- Giant Jimmy Jones Story Book
 This is an Augmented Reality kiosk that was developed with HITLabNZ, with funding from the MoRST and Creative New Zealand Smash Palace Initiative and is now touring around the Christchurch Public Libraries. This is an eight-page book following the adventures of Giant Jimmy Jones. As well as looking at the images and reading the story, the characters come to life and enact the story in 3D, supported by narration and music. It was written and illustrated by renown New Zealand children’s author Gavin Bishop and developed at the HITLabNZ with modelling assistance from One Glass Eye. Eric Woods co-managed this project, and managed a side project with Core Education and John McKenzie of the Christchurch College of Education, involving a one-week workshop that enabled a class of 10 young (10 to 14 year old) students to create their own 3D pages for the book.
More Info: A report written for the workshops entitled “The eyeMagic Book. A Report into Augmented Reality Storytelling in the Context of a Children's Workshop” is available here.
More Info: A video of this project in action can be viewed here.
- Solar System Builder
 This is an Augmented Reality kiosk that was developed with HITLabNZ for TeManawa Science Centre. This workspace teaches people about the planets and their position in the Solar System by letting them build their own Solar System. Users start with an ‘empty’ solar system and place virtual planets into their correct orbits. The cards can be rotated and examined up close to see details such as the spot on Jupiter, or Saturn's rings. All planets are also tilted at their appropriate inclination and are rotating at their relative speed. When all of the planets are in their correct locations, they all shrink down to their relative sizes and begin to orbit the Sun.
More Info: A video of this project in action can be viewed here.
Consulting
- 3D Animation and Presentation of the Ngai Tahu Creation Narrative
This was developed with HITLabNZ, for Ngai Tahu Tribe, a Maori Tribe in the South Island of New Zealand. An innovative and visually unique, 3 minute 3D animation has been developed, which will be used as the welcoming piece at the entrance to the Ngai Tahu exhibition at New Zealand’s Nation Museum - Te Papa. The consulting on this project involved working with a Ngai Tahu artist, Rachel Rakena, on the visual style of the animation, technical direction and support, researching and proposing a number of innovation ways of presenting the final work, and working with the Tribe to settle upon a final result that satisfied both the practical and emotional requirements of the Tribe.
- 3D Digitisation and Presentation of Polynesian Artifacts
 This involved work with Karen Brown from the Macmillan Brown Centre at the University of Canterbury, who specialises in Polynesian Artifacts. MindSpace advised Karen on existing and potential situations where the digitisation of arifacts can be used for preservation, recreating 3D copies (that can then be handled by wider audiences), communication of better copies of information to international colleagues, to perform research simulations on, and to diseminate back to the original owner to increase cultural awareness  and be used new cultural endeavours (3D animated films, artworks etc). Karen has started digitising some artifacts with the assistance of Applied Research Associates’ (ARANZ) FastScan - a portable, handheld, 3D laser scanner. This recorded the shape, but not the colour of the artifacts, and it was not able to record some objects properly at all due to their surfaces not reflecting the laser light as desired. So MindSpace worked with photos of the objects and mapped these onto the shapes recorded by ARANZ, thereby recreating the complete object. Other optimisation was required to make the objects able to be presented on a computer as 3D objects that could be explored in detail by rotating and enlarging them. They will also be viewed in Augmented Reality, so that they can be moved and interacted with as easily as if they are real. In addition, some of the objects that could not be scanned by ARANZ were modeled manually by MindSpace, which also gave Karen an opportunity to compare different digitisation techniques.
- 3D Visualisation of Forensic Paleontology
 MindSpace worked with Kelley Barnes, while she was completing her Masters at the University of Canterbury, on the taphonomy (Forensic Paleontology) of a Pleosaur fossil held at the Canterbury Museum. Kelley was essentially trying to build up a series of events surrounding the life and death of the Pleosaur, based on the ‘snapshot’ recorded in the fossil. Her job was made harder by the fact that the fossil was very large (about 2m by 2m) and heavy, and in the past had been broken into 15 parts to aid transportation. Part of her research involved digitising each part, with the assistance of Applied Research Associates’ (ARANZ) FastScan - a portable, handheld, 3D laser scanner. MindSpace took these virtual objects, assembled them back into a single fossil, optimised the geometry for 3D viewing and manipulation on a computer and looked at different ways of enhancing the analysis of the fossil, including superimposing contour lines and inserting a proposed water-sediment boundary plane. Two Augmented Reality simulations/educational games were also created which involved rebuilding some of the fossil from five of its parts, and inserting a proposed water-sediment boundary plane across the whole fossil.
More Info: A video created for this project, showing the digital, 3D fossil with a contour texture can be viewed here.
More Info: A video created for this project, showing a proposed sediment-water-boundary can be viewed here.
 3D Visualisation of the InnerSpace Probe Proposal
This project was for the Wizard, a Christchurch celebrity and icon, who is proposing construction of a complex and innovative multimedia experience in Christchurch. The InnerSpace Probe is to be a spherical room, on the inside walls of which is projected an inverted universe. Due to the complex nature of this proposal, a 3D model and animation was created to illustrate the concept.
More Info: The video created for this project can be viewed here.
Custom Development
- Canterbury Innovation Incubator Interactive TouchScreen
 The Canterbury Innovation Incubator (Cii) came to MindSpace with a desire to create an interactive display that powerfully communicated the capabilities of the sponsors and member copanies of their incubation centre. MindSpace researched and proposed a number of possibilities and settled upon a technique using a data projector back projecting onto a touch sensitive screen. MindSpace also created the interactive software used on the screen, with specific consideration for touchscreen interaction and with the ability to easily access text, images and movies on each of the 22 companies. The application was also versatile enough to also be used as a broadband version of the Cii website (see below to view it).
More Info: The Interactive Touchscreen application can be viewed at the following bandwiths (will open a dedicated window 1024x768):
|
