Azure Kinect body tracking character creator
The visitor stands in front of a screen. Two portraits of lords of the castle are shown on the screen. The visitor can select a lord of the castle by effectively moving his hands and clicking on it virtually. Once chosen, the visitor can dress up a character with items of clothing from the lords of the castle. Each choice is commented via audio. It is in this way that the visitor gets to know the characters better.
Virtual Reality escape room
For some prototypes, specific attention was paid to historical stories and events. How can Immersive Technology help to tell these stories in an interactive way? Can we make visitors feel like they are part of this? Allowing them to discover the story themselves through certain interactions without presenting it to them ready-made?
Deze vragen gaven, in combinatie met enkele van de ideeën die tijdens de brainstormsessies werden geopperd, aanleiding tot de ontwikkeling van twee prototypes waarbij role-playing, groepsbeleving, interactiviteit, gameplay en Storytelling centraal stonden.
Hololens interactive MR castle projection
Maria-Anna van den Tempel came into possession of Horst Castle by chance. Owning the castle gave her the opportunity to fully develop her status. As Countess of Haultreppe and Essenbeek, she certainly already had some status, she also had the necessary connections within the Brussels court nobility, but because of the work she had carried out at the castle, she seized the opportunity to move up the social ladder to stand. It was Maria-Anna who had the castle adapted to the standards and comfort of the 17th century. Characteristic of Maria-Anne is the fact that she herself spent very little time effectively in the castle. Much of the work and maintenance of the castle was coordinated by her landlady, Wilhelm Piret. At the time of Maria Anna, the castle was really a small company where everyone had their own task and where everything could be immediately prepared if necessary to receive Maria-Anna and her high visit.
AR Poetry experience
When the visitor is in the outer zone of the castle, he can look around by means of an Augmented Reality application. In the virtual world, the visitor can see how the garden staff maintain the garden. The tasks of the staff play out in an infinite loop.
Dit is een metaforische verwijzing naar het feit dat het personeel er altijd voor zorgde dat het kasteel er piekfijn uitzag en dat het werk nooit ophield, maar dat Maria-Anna, de kasteelvrouw in kwestie, slechts enkele keren op het kasteel heeft verbleven. Om de beleving kracht bij te zetten, wordt een bijpassend gedicht voorgelezen.
VR Tracked interactable objects
One of the questions asked during the research concerns the possibilities of Immersive Technology for bridging the gap between the physical and virtual world. Can we preserve the character of physical objects and enable interactions in the virtual world that are otherwise impossible? Very often we see beautiful museum objects in closed display cabinets, we see beautifully illustrated books under glass domes, historical weapons under lock and key and so much material that is invisible in the archives. How can we still give the visitor the chance to hold these objects, to let them use these objects or to enable interaction with the objects?
AR Book page tracking
Hidden away in the Sint-Janshospitaal in Bruges is one of the oldest preserved pharmacies in Belgium. On the central counter, kept under a glass dome, is the Winckelbouck of Sister Eléonora Verbeke. It is an imaginative document that will make your hands itch to leaf through it yourself and to copy the recipes yourself.
Model Based Tracking as communication tool
For this prototype, the model-based tracking technology was used to demonstrate the usefulness of the application as a communication tool within a production environment. As a replacement for written tree structure lists, various departments, such as quality check and repair, can display shortcomings on unique assembly pieces in a very visual way. In this way, operators can proceed to repair much faster instead of going over the quality check list manually and having to track down the errors.
Augmented Reality Model Based Tracking
Model-based tracking makes it possible to project augmented reality onto physical objects without the need for trackers or QR codes. This brings the great advantage that the space or physical objects do not have to be adjusted in order to project AR, but also that we can accurately pin the digital information to the physical elements. This prototype shows the potential of model-based tracking in the context of virtual training on physical parts. The user is guided step by step in the real life scenario about the correct assembly steps.
Virtual training: 360° video versus interactive VR
In addition to the developments that are happening in the field of interactive virtual reality, it is also possible to capture an environment using 360° photo and video. In both cases, the user can view the virtual environment using a virtual reality headset. In collaboration with Thomas More and their parallel TETRA project on 360° video, two prototypes were developed where the user can digitally follow the assembly of an engine block. In the first prototype, the user can follow the assembly using a 360° video, in the second, the user can perform the assembly virtually himself in an interactive virtual reality training environment. The intention is to test these two prototypes and compare both methodologies within the new joint TETRA project on ‘Immersive Training’, which will start from September 2018.
