The company responsible for the online video game hit Fortnite has awarded a 激情快播 assistant professor a grant to develop an immersive technology to take virtual experiences to new levels of reality.
Epic Games provided 激情快播 information scientist and artist a $25,000 grant to expand her cutting-edge augmented and virtual reality work, which she began in 2016 with a website virtual field trip guide and resulted in the VR 1.0 version, . It is available for download from and use on any game or VR-ready PC.
The , which is home to 247 acres of unspoiled Florida habitat. The landscapes range from swamps to scrubby flatwoods. The virtual arboretum provides stunning images that look real because they鈥檝e been created based on detailed and botanically accurate information. The project pulls from field observations, photos, measurements, drone footage and historical geographic information system (GIS) data. Users can also access a virtual field guide that provides more detailed information about any object in the virtual model. As users traverse the landscape, they can get a close-up view of any plant they see, and can listen to the sounds of the creatures that call the property home.
鈥淣ot only are they photorealistic and beautiful, but what you see is information that represents the data颅 颅鈥� truth 鈥� and not creative or artistic fantasy.鈥�
鈥淭hese immersive models are different than others, because they are data visualizations of the botanical and ecological information,鈥� Harrington says. 鈥淣ot only are they photorealistic and beautiful, but what you see is information that represents the data颅 颅鈥� truth 鈥� and not creative or artistic fantasy. Much like botanical illustrations of the past, they are a form of scientific communication, ideal for constructing museum exhibits and in support of educational and informal learning activities desired by the public, especially now during COVID-19.鈥�
Epic Games provided the money through its MegaGrants program, which seeks to encourage development of the unreal engine ecosystem (all the components that make virtual reality possibly online) or 3D graphics community that makes games like Fortnite more realistic. According to Forbes, the gaming industry was worth $138.7 billion worldwide in 2019. Game-based learning is estimated to account for more than $2 billion in the United States alone.
The grant will allow Harrington to explore new techniques to improve the experience and to potentially broaden the collection to initially include botanical gardens and university arboretums from the American Southwest and Pacific Northwest.
The project became a reality because of the collaboration among colleagues from the College of Arts and Humanities, and the and , in the , and the team at 激情快播.
Harrington鈥檚 research and experimentation over the past decade has resulted in many programs that have earned local, national, and international recognition.
For example, the allows users to create a perpetual garden of native Appalachian flora with a finger tap on the surface of a smart phone or tablet. The app lets you see the world the way an expert scientist might imagine it and to experience the wild variety of flowers and plants in a springtime forest bloom surrounded by the accurate sounds of birds and insects thriving off of the nectar, wild fruits, and nuts of that habitat.
She collaborated with the Carnegie Museum of Natural History鈥檚 botanist and ecologist to authenticate all the facts, figures and plant populations of the ecosystem and then created a multi-modal, three-dimensional spatial, information visualization. With any AR enabled device, a user can create a virtual garden of wildflowers anywhere, from the kitchen to the subway station. Users can get a close look at the veins on a leaf of a Wake Robin (Trillium erectum), and can also listen to a variety of creatures in the garden including the Black-throated green warbler singing or insects like the Katydids humming. Users can experience many details and complexities of a natural world, Harrington says. The app is available on Apple iTunes and Google Play stores.
The app鈥檚 quality is so good, that in March it was named a finalist in the international GLAMi Awards. The international awards recognize the best innovative projects in the cultural heritage sector that engages, informs and excites the public. Some of the others in the competition included the Smithsonian and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Harrington was inspired by museum dioramas that she saw as a child at the Carnegie Institute, which had 鈥渢ons鈥� of information, but for today鈥檚 tech savvy audience, may be a bit dull. She wanted to create a way to connect people to the rich information and stories quietly locked away behind the beautiful traditional glass displays, and in a technologically modern and engaging way to help retain knowledge. That鈥檚 one reason the app can be used inside or outside museums to extend the learning impact of real dioramas and gardens, and at home or in backyards for casual social experiences.
The project became a reality thanks to an international collaboration among the members in Harrington鈥檚 lab at 激情快播, The Powdermill Nature Reserve at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, and the MultiMedia Technology program of the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences, Austria.
鈥淚t is all about bringing teams of experts who share a vision and have complementary skills, applying innovative technologies to create transformative and impactful applications for humanity, and to help people experience new and beautiful environments, without them even realizing it, and to learn from the experience in a personally meaningful way鈥� Harrington says.
Harrington joined 激情快播 in 2016. She is an assistant professor of digital media in the 激情快播 and she is part of the university鈥檚 Learning Sciences Cluster. Her research covers the development of digital media artifacts from human-computer interaction, user centered design, and data visualization perspectives. She鈥檚 had numerous papers published in peer-reviewed journals and been a speaker at several national and international conferences. She鈥檚 earned multiple awards and fellowships and is a research associate with the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Powdermill Nature Reserve. She has several degrees including a doctorate in information science from the University of Pittsburgh and undergraduate degrees in economics and art from Carnegie Mellon University.
