Faculty and students at Bowling Green State University and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland have created a program that transforms the standard GPS display-- showing a person's position on a map-- into a 3D virtual representation of their surroundings that changes as the user moves.
The program, called Pocket Virtual Worlds, is still in the prototype phase, but project directors Larry Hatch and Jared Bendis are currently working with 239 special photographs they took about a year ago at the Alamo battle shrine in San Antonio. Taken through a mirrored, three-dimensional upside-down cone, the resulting circular images can be unwrapped to create a panorama. Next, the photos are connected in a sequence of paths plugged into a computer program, resulting an image display that changes with the user's direction-- thereby allowing a user to explore the Alamo in the display of a GPS device simply by walking around.
"We had 20 to 25 people surrounding us when we were taking pictures," said Hatch. "They were wondering what in the world we were doing."
"It's really hard to show people the 'wow factor' if you show them the building you work in," Mr. Bendis said, figuring that the nationally-known Alamo site, which not everyone has the opportunity to visit, was "a good place to start."
Hatch and Bendis hope to advance the program into an interactive learning gaming system, with the goal of eventually using the technology to let classroom-bound students take "virtual field trips" of locations like the Amazon rainforest, with classroom projects and discussion launched from what they "see" around them. Since the program can use digitally-created images as well as photographs, students could also theoretically explore outer space or locations in history.
"We lock them into a desk all day, and they don't like it," said Hatch of the average school day.
The group is currently using PDAs as a display unit, but the goal is to have a company interested in the software create a handheld device like the Nintendo DS, wherein students could switch between virtual worlds within the same device as they would switch games.
And like switching games to play, it'd be possible to swap virtual worlds in the same device, Hatch said.
According to Hatch, the team hopes to perfect Pocket Virtual Worlds and have it ready for corporate consideration in about a year, and is heading to Austria with four students from BGSU's Digital Media Research Group to tweak the program at the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences.
[Via ToledoBlade.com]
