DGC Blog

On October 4, 2007 we were invited to see pioneering take place and interact with some environment with the help of cameras, tablets, and various hardware. Mr. Song Ho Ahn a Visualization Developer at Visual Design Institute showed us many resources to create interactive environments. An acronym API was passed around which I interpreted as some engine used to develop and render graphics or whole environments.

An open source game engine called OGRE had been the engine of choice which had me to come up with a few questions:

1. Do developers always favor the free (namely open source)?
2. What trade offs are there from open source rather than paying a license for something more fancy.
3. Besides the development of games what major industry needs this type of technology? Medical practices perhaps?
4. What other engines exist and how do they differ?

Of course for me to completely get an answer for all of the preceding questions I would need to do my research and gather some opinions from for industry experts. To my surprise there are many free game engines at a developer’s disposal.

As we moved on we got to interact with some facial recognition applications which Song had built from scratch mentioning some others along the way. FACE (Facial Animation Communication Engine) was really remarkable. You could sit anyone in from of the camera and the program would process their facial features and then an animated face would mimic what was captured in real time. Real neat stuff I might add. Of course lighting would be an issue as some sat in place with a hat.

The final portion of the tour literally immersed us into an interactive experience via projectors, panoramic screens, sound systems, and tablets for interactivity. Immersion Studios had made its audience participate via tablets in a life or death situation held in outer space rendered using 3ds Max aka 3D Studio Max.

In order to continue with the story the audience would have to make choices (i.e. scanning the heart, lungs or brain). The idea of choices and the consequences attached to them would be effectively illustrated using this platform namely warfare training, surgical procedures, etc.