Todays presentation of the Virtual Chair Museum as a VLE

 Today was a success, I did not make a hash of it, the presentation went well and the supporting documentation, It did make me consider that I had not gone into the full detail of research I went into... so lets rectify this heres the gen...



Prototype and a proof of concept for constructing a Virtual
Chair Museum as a VLE within Second Life

Supporting document for Powerpoint presentation:
Building a VLE within Second Life presentation


Very little has been written about the chairs, thus complete catalogues of both the chairs and the carvings and an inventory of the company archive are required in the first instance. This is a catalogue of the chair collection, which includes all currently known data about each chair, an image and a description. John Cross Sir John Cass Department of Art, Media Design RAE 2008

Initial Concept
As part of increasing the awareness of London Metropolitan Universities role as the current recipient
of the Frederick Parker collection there was a tentative idea to do something with the collection in the
virtual world, Met works had already scanned two of the chairs and build a facsimile of one of the older
chairs and VADs the free graphic resource had photographed each of the chairs and there was a catalogue
and exhibition space, but to quote Dr John Cross the curator “very little has been written about the chairs”
as they had primarily been distributed throughout the estate of the Parker family

The repository of The Frederick Parker Chair collection
http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/jcamd/research/rae-2008/john-cross/portfolio_outcome04.cfm ,
its representation on VADS http://www.vads.ac.uk/ and a synopsis of its establishment at http://www.vads.ahds.ac.uk/collections/FPC.html

Refining the idea

I wanted to build a more formal learning outcome for the Virtual Museum by tying existing primary sources
to other online content and existing Vocational Study within fine furniture qualifications. In discussion it was
felt that recreating historical creative environments as workshop and its practice, coupled with accurate
component build, isometric representation and linking video of heritage skills and restoration techniques
associated with individual key chairs could be linked to contemporary curriculum and assignment work,
giving significant added value and pedagogical merit to the Proof of concept.

Design brief or thumbnail..

The idea is to prototype a virtual chair graphical and historical repository, linking it to current vocational
training curriculum in real world fine furniture.. with examples of 3D virtual chairs, virtual workshop <s>,
a movie screen on wall with links to curriculum and videos on You Tube showing real live people
demonstrating real live techniques. This could hopefully link primary source to formative curriculum
study and test pieces, improve candidates knowledge of detailed isometric projection and scalar
accuracies where the original sample is a distance away and maybe difficult to get "up close and
personal with.. which is essential where construction and spatial awareness is a must...
The repository is the Lond Met Sir John Cass The Frederick Parker Chair collection http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/jcamd/research/rae-2008/john-cross/portfolio_outcome04.cfm ,
its representation on VADS http://www.vads.ac.uk/ and a synopsis of its establishment at http://www.vads.ahds.ac.uk/collections/FPC.html

Content Research Approach and interviews
Interviews were held with key stakeholders: The fine furniture curriculum is based around
components within City & Guilds existing courseware the link to live curriculum was
stablished with Andrew Hewison Portfolio Manager - Engineering and Manufacturing.
Portfolio Management and Development City & Guilds. I discussed the concepts of the
design approach with the Frederick Parker Collection Curator Dr John Cross and the
Senior fine furniture Tutor Colin Eden-Eadon at the
Building Crafts College http://www.thebcc.ac.uk/.
All parties showed an enthusiasm for broadening the resources under the umbrella
of a Virtual Chair Museum. To gain more knowledge of the environment I also visited a
live Bodging  and Chair making day at the Chiltern open air museum http://www.coam.org.uk/BBuildings/Buildings4.html#Furniture ,
visited the Salomon Tool Collection at St Albans Museum
http://www.stalbansmuseums.org.uk/2/Search-Our-Collections,

The Benjamin Seaton furniture tool collection at the Guildhall museum in Rochester http://www.medway.gov.uk/leisureandculture/museums/guildhallmuseum.aspx and
general help from the National Association of Decorative & Fine Arts Societies website
http://www.nadfas.org.uk/.

The Virtual Concept
Within Second Life the Virtual Chair Museum has live teleporting when sitting on the
virtual exhibits... The Avatar approaches the chair they are interested in, sits on it and
is teleported to a virtual period work shop or furniture factory that exhibits the processes
and component build, that also has a screen with curriculum and video of pertinent resources
and build demonstration with additional research resources and a tips for assignment and
potential tutor interaction via IM or email etc..,

The Avatar can then be teleported back to the museum by sitting on an anachronistic
modern chair to try other chairs and links... I would expect all sites to use the same
resource documents but with specific tutorial and curriculum pertinent to that specific
chair and workshop experience.

Build and Tools used, arrival at current solution
All build and scripting used is currently native to the Second Life environment. The Primative
object builder tool works better on a large specification machine with a powerful graphics
card and large screen real estate, working on laptops is not advisable. Scripting can be
embedded in created objects to add functionality to dumb 3D media, thus teleporting
capability can be scripted, dynamic screens can become web browsers and Multimedia
can be embedded.

This is a slow business I initially investigated a variety for 3D builders to hopefully speed
up the process: Google Sketch-up, Wings, Max 3D, and AC3D they were all complex
with a long ramp up learning process, Sketch being the easiest for my limited time though
the ruby rails plug to import into SL actually added greater complexity than the native build
tool. I have some 3D versions of Frederick Parker chairs in Sketch-up but they are embedded
2D via a web browser within Second Life.

Current Project Position
My site seems to have ground to a halt on all my development machines, I haven’t yet
managed to rectify the problem, I pared down all of my buildings and chair builds in terms
of primitive content. but I may have run out of either build space or memory on my machines at
home, I hope to rectify this in consultation with Alan Hudson. Also You Tube video does not
want to embed currently.

Futures

If I can get my SL editor to work as it should then my Proof of concept should complete by
deadline. I have gathered significant interest from the project to establish more interest
in Second Life at City & Guilds

Modification or Enhancements?

A dedicated development area may help, and a good offline object builder with enough
time to learn it.

I can see problems trying to monetize the product and building a business case with an
unknown population is a challenge, but it is engaging…

Also I think that a resource repository database is essential to scale up tied resources
to each chair examples…

Investigation into XML compliance and data re-use as otherwise there may be no
opportunity to scale up…

Templated skinable workshops

Signage in the virtual world....

Should instructions be any different than in the real world... whilst we have plenty of opportunity to make things dynamic with added functionality.. I think that there is enough investigation going on in what is quite an alien environment without having to click on inanimate objects to get a response... that was an earlier ergonomic software worls - as things get more realistic I think we want to super emulate reality... but we want to know where we are and how we do it..

I asked a designer who used to work as a design authority for signage: Lance Bohl; he recommended that the organisations involved in shaping disability policyseemed to currently offer best practise.This  seemed to fit in with the aspirations of my site so I melded a few other industry standards and produced my signage in accordance  to this....

Sign groups: information, way-finding, location and safety Schemes should be planned with care, directions must follow a logical progression throughout the area. Never place signs with potential obstructions or cannot be touched i.e. on doors, on walls behind tables, stacking areas, or counters such as receptions or buffets.

All signs should be short simple messages, and un-ambiguous consistent in positioning and style, using clear plain lettering (eg Arial) in mixed case, slightly embossed for tactility, with good colour contrast such as dark characters on a white or pale yellow signboard or vice-versa (Avoid red and green for sector identification as they can be difficult for people with colour blindness)

. All signs must be none reflective, well illuminated by day or night and should not be placed against a background of sunlight or artificial light.

Signboards should be matt, have colour contrast with their background or have a border.

other useful sources were the JMU Access Partnership who have provided consulative work for the RNIB website at www.rnib.org.uk/prof

Newcastle Disability Forum www.ndf.org.uk                             September 2007

deprimming the development environment; does this make the VR VLE any less credible? will it make the editor work...needs must...

I am finding that my machine refuses to cut and paste - not much use when I am trying to build a chair to teleport people to and from the museum....  I think this is because I am close to an unknown volume on my graphics card... or build space on the London Met site... even the old trick of “saving” small increments and often (essentially leaving SL and coming back in often) is not cutting it…

Each time I re-enter the SL world an object or prim has not saved or I am getting odd behaviours in the editor - this springs to mind early compilers where we had to work around the functionality....  I am even getting artefacts from earlier builds or edits cropping up, or large chunks of previous builds missing..

I have given up on the sketch life primitive importer with my chairs as it is very tricky to use in an isometric environment.. you have to over line your existing creation, peel off the Sketch-up rendering via a filter and upload: the x y and z tools do not have good flexibility for tapers and curves - which there are a lot in furniture   seemingly the only way to build chairs is within second life... but as I am running out of time and environment  it is gradually breaking my heart - I can render the stuff onto web pages but that is hardly the point.. 

The Flash drivers in You Tube and Second life are different versions so that does not currently work either - trying to get real word multimedia into a formative virtual learning environment within Second life is constrained... I think a dedicated Avatar based elearning solution akin to Epic, Caspian or Thinking worlds http://www.thinkingworlds.com/  is the obvious way to build a resilient environment and an easier user interface.. that is totally dedicated to the task in hand.. these are not cheap learning solutions, but then the use has to be determined and cost benefit and return on investment closely looked at…

By comparison

I have disassembled period workbenches into Ikea like ones, I have disassembled my museum which had balustrading and all kinds of structure that would have worked in the real world – I have ditched Doric columns, in the real world the structure would not load bear... but this is not an architectural study – I have got to deprim enough in my environment to get 2 chairs to teleport between the building and that seems about it... I am a bit dejected if I am honest... I have spent a lot of time and research on this project... I suppose the brightest element here is that it is fun and the creative skills are realised, and I am in the dark as to just how much memory and build space specification is actually really required to make a good stab at a industrial strength app..

However I am tied to an algorithm which is how much do I have to compromise the look and feel to actually get my concept working, the fear is that I may have to be in a position where the locations bear no resemblance to the learning and the chairs do not resemble anything like that in the Parker collection…

My newly deprimmed (rapidly cutting down of the number of primitive objects) Museum..

it is starting to take on a rather 1960s GDR look and feel - I reckon by the time I have finished it will be a shell...
this is the first reductive development I have done....

still struggling with scripts....

I cannot seem to embed you tube videos, I am finding the scripting and stability of saves very volatile as well...so I may not be able to use the early techniques videos I have which is a pity: heres the view of the work done today... tomorrow is chair building and teleporting in SL I hope it doesnt let me down...

the  static intro screen:

the Museum with two dynamic info screens

the workshop with chair teleporter and pertinent info sites to browse

I have made the environments less authentic as we have memory issues with prims

3D rendering tools.... in SL pah!

Well I have Sketch up, Wings, Max 3D, AC3D they are all fiendishly tricky... with Sketch up the easiest for my limited time though I am uncertain that the ruby rails plug actually works with SL as  I have not managed top actually import anything there yet - I have some 3D versions of Frederick Parker chairs in Sketch-up but they stand everychance of being embedded 2D via the web browser in SL yet Ouch...

and I am running out of time:

heres some oak side chairs: heres Sir John Cass' version: and mine that Im having difficulty in getting into SL

I am also rather unconvinced with the Second Life scripting device... they dont seem to be saving terribly well, bit like the prims, whenever I go back in something seems missing...  or perhaps  I am missing something...? 

Trying to pull all the strands together for the SL elearning virtual chair project

This is the refined (sic?) Design brief or thumbnail..  

The idea is to prototype a virtual chair graphical and historical repository, linking it to current vocational training curriculum in real world fine furniture.. with examples of 3D virtual chairs, virtual workshop <s>, a movie screen on wall with links to curriculum and videos on You Tube showing real live people showing real live techniques. This could hopefully link primary source to formative curriculum study and test pieces, improve candidates knowledge of detailed isometric projection and scalar accuracies where the original sample is a distance away and maybe difficult to get "up close and personal with..  which is essential where construction and spatial awareness is a must...

The repository is the Lond Met Sir John Cass The Frederick Parker Chair collection http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/jcamd/research/rae-2008/john-cross/portfolio_outcome04.cfm , its representation on VADS http://www.vads.ac.uk/  and a synopsis of its establishment at http://www.vads.ahds.ac.uk/collections/FPC.html

The fine furniture curriculum is based around components within City & Guilds existing courseware, the concepts of this design approach has been discussed with the Frederick Parker Collection Curator John Cross and the Senior Tutor Colon Eden-Eadon at the Building Crafts College http://www.thebcc.ac.uk/ , and conceptually given a tentative thumbs up..

The Concept

Within Second Life a Virtual Chair Museum has live teleporting exhibits... The Avatar approaches the chair they are interested in, sits on it and is teleported to a virtual period work shop or furniture factory that exhibits the processes and component build, that also has a screen with curriculum and video of pertinent resources and build demonstration with additional research resources and a tips for assignment and potential tutor interaction via IM or email etc..,

The Avatar can then be teleported back to the museum to try other chairs and links... I would expect all sites to use the same resource documents but with specific tutorial and curriculum pertinent to that specific chair and workshop experience.

Arrrggghhh!!! 3D rendering, disappearing buildings, panic etc..

Well I thought my ideas were coming together nicely, lots of research - found exanples of Edwardian High Wycombe furniture factory - infact here it is...

This was an original factory that was pulled down and rebuilt at the chiltern open air museum...

I had pictures of interiors: heres one:

So I could add my tools, benches etc into my version of  High Wycombe. However I am having real issues with buld ing chairs in a variety of rather complicated 3d Graphics packages: Invis,max studio 3D wings and Sketch-up - the problem being either the learning curve or the ability to get the sculpties to work in SL..

Not least my disappearing building components in SL... heartbreaking.... apparently I have over 4300 prims in my development which makes authentic re hashing of the past very tricky - so my rendering of the factory below  gets the chop...  sob...