31 March 2017

vLearning: From Second Life to Fieldscapes

Presentation from my Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education Conference 2017 talk describing how our experiences in Second Life have influenced the development of Fieldscapes.




And here are some images from the event. It's always good fun to use Second Life to talk about virtual worlds.






15 March 2017

DatascapeVR Released!


We officially released DatascapeVR (aka Datascape v2.1) today.

The big feature is the "Publish to Web" button. This takes your visualisation (up to around 5000 points) and publishes to the web via WebGL. The system gives you a unique URL which you can share with friends and colleagues and they just click on this and the 3d visualisation opens up in their browser AND they can fly through and around the visualisation just as you can on the desktop version. This is a "view only" mode at the moment, they can't change the visualisation, or interact with it beyond clicking on a point for the hover text, but we can add more features if there is the demand.


It doesn't stop there though. Since we're using WebGL it also means that you can view the visualisation on smartphone. And clicking on the VR mode option brings up a stereoscopic display so you can drop the phone into your Google Cardboard and explore the visualisation in full VR!

We have a video demo/tutorial and you can request a free 21 day trial from our brand new DatascapeVR website.

And if you want to see what a WebGL data visualisation looks like in your browser right now - just click on this link: http://live.datascapevr.com/viewer/?wid=26417d10-3d94-43d8-936b-22298153bee9




6 March 2017

Fieldscapes at Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education Conference 2017



The Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education Conference is a long standing virtual event looking at the use of virtual worlds and 3D immersive environments in education. Whilst much of the early VWBPE was in Second Life, Wonderland and other virtual worlds - and VWBPE main hub is still in Second Life, the conference now includes other environments - such as our own Fieldscapes.

We have two Fieldscapes contributions to the conference:


  • On 31st March at 6pm UK time, 1000 SLT/CET we have a presentation on Fieldscapes, and since the theme of the conference is "Legacy" we'll look at how Fieldscapes grew out of our early work in Second Life and Open Sim.
  • On 4th April at 9pm UK time, 1300 SLT/CET we are hosting a "virtual field trip" to a "virtual field trip" when we invite delegates into Fieldscapes to experience a couple of our lessons, and then leave then to play with the editor.

You can find out more about, and sign up to, VWPE2017 at https://vwbpe.org/ and details of the virtual field trip and associated Passport to the Metaverse are at https://vwbpe.org/vwbpe-news/vwbpe-2017-immersive-experiences-and-passport-to-the-metaverse.

Daniel and Humza Work Experience

By: Daniel and Humza, Yr10, AUEA

On the 13th of February, we arrived at the Daden office and were introduced to Nash and Sean. Sean and Nash were going to be the ones helping us learn and develop skills in software testing and also using different software such as Unity 3D. For the first day we learned the basics of Fieldscapes, one of Daden's products that allow to go on a virtual fieldtrip. In our opinion Fieldscapes is easy to learn and understand. Fieldscapes also has a wiki one can reference if they need help.

On the second day we were a given one tasks to complete for the week. Firstly we asked to test Fieldscapes and look for bugs in the software. During our testing we were also asked to think of an experience we would to create using Fieldscapes. We created a mind map of all the ideas that we had. In the end, we agreed to use Pokémon because of the endless ideas that we had that would work well by adjusting Pokémon.

  



On the third day we started to download 3d models of Pokémon and import into Unity. Once they were imported, we had to adjust their length and widths so they would be able to fit onto our world. We downloaded about 15 Pokémon alongside buildings and a small city.

On the fourth day, after we sorted out our Pokémon, we started to work on the landscape. We were showed how to access the Unity Asset Store to see the terrains we would use. We chose a grass terrain and edited it to fit in with our planning diagram. We changed the middle area to be flat for the city, with mountains covering the outside.



On the final day, we imported both the terrain and Pokémon onto a Fieldscapes and started to create settings for each Pokémon. For example if you were to tap on one it would make a sound and show the details about it. Instead of repeating this for each Pokémon, we used the clone tool when we found the location to hide them, they were given the same properties. We used unity in order for us to adjust and resize the models of the Pokémon.

We also were able to use the Oculus Rift to explore the world we have made and all the Pokémon that we have inserted in virtual reality


Overall we have enjoyed week here and everyone was kind and helpful.