Category Archives: Blog

Demos & Drinks

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Digital-Den had the pleasure of participating in a particularly cool event last Thursday evening when we joined a number of other companies at Tech-in-Motion’s Immersive Tech: Demos and Drinks hosted by Fragomen in downtown Boston. The event featured a particularly nice range of home-grown immersive technology beyond our own low to mid-range VR demos.

Some highlights included Sam Fisher of Audio Fusion showing his Virtual Analog Studio on a Vive, Mike Quan and Robert “Bob” Hughes of Boston360video explaining their 360 degree cameras while Seth Mantye and Calvin J. Moisan of Eagre Games (founded by Myst co-creator Chuck Carter) gave a preview of ZED, an adventure puzzle game set inside the dreams of a dying man. Of course, one of the most popular demos turned out to be Robert Moore of VR Motion Labs giving attendees the chance to try out their 2DOF motion control platform running a sophisticated race simulation. Fun time!

Find out more about the event on Tech-in-Motion’s Facebook and Meetup pages…

http://www.meetup.com/TechinmotionBoston/events/230839497/?gj=co2&rv=co2

VR Blitz

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We are now into what is being dubbed “The Summer of VR,” and it is off to a busy start.

It kicked-off with that visit to the Technology Show & Tell of the North Shore T.E.C.H. Meetup back on May 25th.

NorthShoreTECH

Then on June 8th there was a day trip to New York to attend the NYC VR University Unity Developer Group Meetup’s VRmicro Summit at the NYU Game Center.

It was was pouring down rain most of the day, but that didn’t prevent a quick jaunt up to catch a Hololens demo at Microsoft’s Flagship store.

That visit didn’t actually turn out “quite” as expected, but it did lead to what might be another excellent adventure in the not-too-distant future.

The VRmicroSummit itself turned out to an informative event.

http://www.meetup.com/NYCVRU/events/231330883/

Lex Dreitser and his crew gave a series of very enthusiastic presentations.

Of course, being the computer history buff that I am, it didn’t hurt that the event was hosted at NYU Game Center’s library full of vintage computer games.

Once all the rain cleared out, the view’s weren’t bad either.

TheEnd3

The next stop on the VR blitz was exhibiting at an Edtech Product Showcase at the Deshpande Symposium for Higher Ed that was hosted at the Innovation Hub of the University of Massachusetts – Lowell on June 13th. It was a fun time where we got to introduce the power and importance of VR to a wide range of Higher-Ed. decision makers and thought leaders from around the country.

IMG_20160613_175840.vr

360-degree picture taken by Neil Carlson using Cardboard

Finally, last but not least, there was a stop to catch the “Google I/O Recap – Lightning Talks” sponsored by Google Developer’s Group Boston Meetup and hosted at Kayak that is located right down the street at Cambridge’s own Galleria Mall.

GoogleIO

http://www.meetup.com/gdg-boston/events/231328349/

The highlight of the evening was Jonathan Linowes’ talk about Google VR Strategy.

The good news is that he even, very kindly, posted his slides.

Whew! Busy, busy! But, it is the best kind of busy to be, and there’s a lot more coming up. Below are two public events where you can catch us in July, and stay tuned for more…

Monday, July 18th, 9-11 am Teacher and Edtech Product Summit Discovery Day
Building Learning Communities Education Conference 2016
Terrace Room, Park Plaza Hotel, 50 Park Plaza at Arlington Street, Boston

Thursday, July 28, 6-8 pm, Immersive Tech: Demos and Drinks
Tech in Motion Meetup, Fragomen, 100 High Street, Boston
http://www.meetup.com/TechinmotionBoston/events/230839497/?gj=co2&rv=co2

Perfect event!

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Over the last few years Digital Den has participated in many technology oriented “Meetups”, and most of them have involved giving demos with a variety of levels of formality and “billing.” Alas, participating in them has fallen off because real ROI was just not there “most” of the time. That is why it was such a pleasure to attend the Boston Unity Group (B.U.G.) Meetup held at Akamai Thursday evening (May 5th). It turned out to be an exceptional event that struck the perfect balance of opportunities for socializing, demos and feedback. It was the best Meetup that I’ve been to recently (yes, including my own I must admit with chagrin)! It was a wonderful experience and a valuable model of how to run a fun, worthwhile event. Thanks to Elliott Mitchell for organizing it. Bravo, well done!

http://www.meetup.com/B-U-G-Boston-Unity-Group/events/230720006/

Coming soon…

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It’s been looking pretty quiet lately, but looks can be deceptive. Sometimes when it looks the quietest is when the most is going on behind the scenes. This is one of those times.

It is too early to share details, but watch for news about these things soon!
♦ Public events with VR demos in May and June.
♦ A new version of an old project will be released in June.
♦ Then there is that “real life” move that is in progress…

Please stay tuned… -Mary

Happy New Year!

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2015 was a busy year for Digital Den, and 2016 is shaping up to be even more exciting!

Before explaining what’s coming, here’s a bit of news.

Cosma 3D Gallery
We’ve just finished a new demo — it is a 3D virtual gallery that is an interface to interesting, interactive and 3D web content. Here is a video walk-through of the application. Notice that all of the posters and objects are links.

The application runs on Windows 7/8, and you can download it from Google Drive. It was developed in Unity3D, so it requires a computer with a fairly good CPU and graphics card. If you want to try it for yourself, click the link below, then click “Download.”

Cosma 3D v.1.5 (Cosma-3D-15.exe, 81 mb, Google Drive)

It is a self-extracting Zip file (.exe). You may receive warnings that you are downloading a “suspicious” file. Do not worry, it is still “home baked,” but there are no viruses. Once you download the file and unzip it, you will see a folder called “Cosma 3D” that has a “Cosma-3D-15.exe” file and a corresponding data folder. Click on the “Cosma-3D-15.exe” file to run it. Again, you may need to allow your virus software to run it or click “more info.” and “okay” in Windows Defender. After you are running the application, you will see instructions. There is also more information about this application and the history of the project on the Cosma 3D Gallery page.

Coming soon…
Now that we’ve gotten a few Unity 3D applications under our belt, the next step is to polish, elaborate and expand how the applications are created and shared. For example, we are experimenting with publishing the above Cosma 3D Gallery to a WebGL version that will playable directly in standard browsers. We are also working on a “VR” version that can be seen using Google Cardboard, Samsung GearVR and Oculus Rift. Watch for more announcements soon, but now, speaking of the Oculus Rift…

It is finally here!
2016 is being billed as the year that Virtual Reality (VR) will finally take off, and this just might be the case. There are definitely a lot of caveats and plenty of skepticism is warranted, but no matter what, there really are a lot of significant developments in the area that are about to come to the general public’s notice in the first half of 2016, and the fun will kick-off any minute as the buzz out of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) hits the press this weekend. Here’s an article that covers some of what you will hear.
CES 2016 will be virtual reality showcase (Edward C. Baig, USA TODAY)

Shortly after that, the Facebook owned Oculus will finally start taking orders for their consumer version of the Oculus Rift. Then a raft full of other significant VR products will roll out into the consumer market every few weeks the rest of the year. Each of the platforms will be introduced and explained on the Cosma 3D blog as they are released. Digital Den will be trying to get our hands on as many of the products as possible to review, use for development and share with the public through events. Stay tuned as we report about our progress here…

For now, thank you for your interest and again, Happy New Year! -Mary

Google VR

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Over the last week a lot of things happened on the VR front. Basically, Google made a play to take the market early and fast, and it just might work. First, they more or less doubled the number of low-end VR head-sets in the world by sending Google Cardboard to every New York Times subscriber. Simultaneously, in a carefully choreographed publicity move, they also rolled out the news that there’s a boatload more content to see because of upgrades to their YouTube 360º video application. Rather than run the risk of some serious over-repeating and cross-posting, you can find out more about all of this through a series of recent posts over on Cosma 3D.

Workshops!

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Digital Den developed and maintains Cosma 3D, an extensive catalog of the best 3D and VR content available, and we also have a collection of the latest VR headsets to view it. Now we will bring that collection and our expertise to one of your events!

You’re going to be hearing a lot about 3D and VR over the next few months. We can help you learn what it is all about, navigate the sometimes confusing and competing options, and then get you set up to hit the ground running with all of the new 3D and VR content!   Here’s just a sample of what we can bring to you.

We can also tell you how to get set up so that you, or your students, can author your own 3D and VR media. Check out our own Cosma 3D Experience Gallery to get a better sense of all of the content, hardware and expertise that we can share with you.

Please contact us if you would like Digital Den to bring our demonstrations of our applications and exhibits to one of your upcoming events! info@digital-den.org

Out & About

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The Digital Den team spent the weekend out and about learning new skills and sharing the latest draft of our main project of the moment, the New Computer Museum, VR Edition.

Here’s a quick recap…

First, Saturday brought a fantastic opportunity to spend the day at Google’s Cambridge office learning all about how to use Unity3D to create and publish content for the Google Cardboard and the Samsung GearVR. These happen to be Digital Den’s target VR delivery platforms, so this was a particularly timely and incredibly valuable experience!

http://www.meetup.com/gdg-boston/events/223658198/?a=cr1_grp&rv=cr1&_af=event&_af_eid=223658198

Juno Forbes started the workshop off in the morning by doing an amazing job of providing rigorous instruction that ranged all the way from the very basics of Unity3D programming all the way through how to publish our work for Google Cardboard.  Then after lunch Dustin Wish from Samsung gave the crowd a wonderfully detailed walk-through of how to code an application in Unity3D and publish it to the Samsung GearVR.

It was awesome to find out that the process for publishing to both Google Cardboard and Samsung GearVR is relatively painless!  Jeff Bail, one of the organizers of the event, was kind enough to agree to let us re-post this picture that he took of attendees learning to load their programs to the GearVR. Thanks Jeff!

DD@GoogleVRWorkshopByJeffBail

Saturday VR Code Lab Google Cardboard and Samsung GearVR (Photo Credit: Jeff Bail)

Then Sunday turned out to be a beautiful day to take the newest draft of the New Computer Museum, VR Edition off to a Show & Tell at the Flea@MIT.  Long-time Flea attendees had great fun stopping by to experience the latest iteration of the project, and they provided some ideas for even more cool things that we can add to the next version. As you can tell from the picture, there are some interesting folks that hang out at the Flea@MIT :-) Thanks to their help, the next draft of the project will be even better — please stay tuned for information on when and how to see it!

NEWCM@FLea

Flea@MIT attendees get a preview of New Computer Museum VR Ed. (Photo Credit: Neil Carlson)

New demo!

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New Computer Museum, VR Edition Preview
Flea@MIT, Sunday, July 19, 2015 · 9:00 am – 11 am

Come see a new demo of a “Virtual Reality (VR) Edition” of a New Computer Museum that Digital Den is making! The application is being built in Unity 5.1 and will be available for WebGL, Google Cardboard, Samsung GearVR and Oculus Rift later this summer.

New Computer Museum, Virtual Reality Edition

The version that will be available on July 19th is actually just an early draft, so it will only include a small subset of the full version. However, there was an earlier “rapid prototype” of the full version built in SecondLife — here are a few images from that prototype to give you some sense of what the full version will be like when it is released.

The full version will demonstrate the vision of what a “real” New Computer Museum has the potential to become in the near future. It will also stand on its own as a valuable and entertaining educational experience for use in classrooms. In addition, the VR Edition of the New Computer Museum will be an exploration of how the newest wave of virtual reality products can be used in the context of museums and art galleries. Of course, it will also be an excellent demonstration of Digital Den’s expertise and skill in VR production.

Please stop by, say hi, take a look, and share your feedback!

Cool Caves!

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Digital Den just took a field trip to a wonderful event at Brown University where they celebrated the past, present and future of their virtual reality caves Visualization and Creativity in Immersive 3D Environments — From Cave to YURT. If you are not familiar with the concept of a cave, be sure to check out the Wikipedia page about the technology. Brown has been a well recognized leader in the area for many years, and they have just upgraded to a brand new cave. The YURT website gives more in depth information about the event and the technology. The event began with demonstrations of both the older “legacy” cave and the new YURT cave. Check out this slide show to see pictures of the event and both spaces. Some projects that use the caves are available online as well. Overall, it was a fascinating event, and it was great to have the chance to chat about some historic Brown hypertext projects as well. Stay tuned for more news on Digital Den’s adventures on the VR frontier over the summer!
Cave to YURT