VISTA demonstrations at Community Day

Posted on Wednesday 6th July 2011

Video report showcasing our interactive technology to the local community in Birmingham.

Filming and computer graphics from Dr Eugene Ch’ng.

Transcript (narration from Dr Henry Chapman):

On the 19th June, the University held a Community Day which is an annual event. It was very, very popular, it had a lot of visitors and on the stage in the Great Hall we had a display from the VISTA Centre - the IBM Visual and Spatial Technology Centre.

This was an opportunity to show some of the types of work we get involved in - from 3D visualisation looking at museum objects through to the use of gaming environments to allow people to engage with the data we collect from the field in novel and useful ways. Using the intuitive interfaces that gaming provides to explore our data.

This use of gaming environments really brings the archaeology alive, particularly to younger generations. They're used to the interface that computer games provide, but this is a way that we can use those games to allow people to explore our data. This isn't just useful for the community but also allows us to view our own data in new and novel ways, to come up with other interpretations.

We also showcased our new multi-touch table. This is a screen technology where multiple users can engage with data at the same time. It's really got huge potential in terms of museum environments, but also for learning.