Demo uniVRse: http://univrse.io/
Education challenge!
Demo from Hack the Universe presentation: http://youtu.be/dztVFTekfEU?list=UUIuhq9LTleLC-GMdAOvvZcg
UniVRse is your interactive immersive VR adventure to the AMNH Digital Universe dataset to be made accessible to anyone with a Android smartphone, computer, or virtual reality headset. Our VR environments can also be easily rendered for partipants using smart phones when the phone is inserted into the Google Cardboard cardboard enclosure.
Multiple devices ("students") can connect to a server which streams the visualizations created by a central device ("Flight Captain"). This web platform allows a "Flight Captain" to guide the "students" through a planetarium show or lesson plan with each student joining the virual planetarium from their remote device. The "Flight Captain" uses a pointer (visible only to the "Captain") to decided where the remote participants travel in space. "Students" are teleported to the new point in space as a group, maintaining their relative orientation to one another. Students can freely explore their local orientation.
We are excited to enable accessibility to the awesomeness of the Hayden Planetarium for those who do not have the privilege of living close to the AMNH! We aimed to create a user friendly and inexpensive way for any person to engage with Digital Universe data in an individual or guided manner.
Details: The application loads digital universe data via the PartyView speck files. We present the Milky Way stars in their true 3D environment and their brightness as the logarithm of luminosity. We present known Pulsars as green dots (and fixed luminosity). We have added eight colorful spheres ("planets") in artifical locations and sizes to represent the the immersive VR experience within the solar system.
Extensions: The application loads digital universe data (via the PartyView speck files). Pairing our application with the Digital Universe API can allow individual devices to filter their view on the fly, allowing for specific celestial objects. For instance: specific astronomical surveys, extragalactic objects, exoplants, dwarf galaxies, star clusters, or stars filtered by color or age proxy. Our application iteration loads PartyView speck files and can be fully generalized to any existing planetarium scales.
Use Cases:
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The ability to download pre-recorded planetarium shows onto a mobile device (with of without Google Cardboard enclosure) to allow any user to browse an archive of planetarium shows to explore the universe in their own flight. In this use case, participants could retain their freedom to alter their orientation, akin to craning one's neck inside the planetarium!
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The accesibility of the 3D environment from web enabled devices could be developed to allow student at a distance to watch guided planetarium shows guided by staff in realtime.
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An interactive exhibit at the museum using virtual reality or smartphone devices to prove supplemental activities for visitors of the museum and allow them to fly around the Universe.
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The separation of the "Flight Captain" and "student" displays allows an extension so that teachers/flight captains can click on objects and have predesigned information scripts presented, or other interactive environments to aid teaching.
UniVRse is an interactive planetarium for displaying the museum's partyview data and making it accesible to anyone with a smartphone, computer or virtual reality headset.This web platform allows a "Teacher" to run through a lesson with a classroom in the stars with each individual joining the classroom from their remote device. The "Teacher" decides where the classroom travels in space and allows them to learn about the location, celestial or planetary. This allows for accesibility of the awesomeness of Hayden Planetarium for those who do not have the priveledge of living close to the museum. Also, this creates a user friendly and inexpensive way for students to engage with the milky way in an immersive and ineractive manner, sparking interest in astronomy.