Virtual Museum

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Virtual Museum

The New Media Museum is experimenting with creating a virtual museum — the goal of the this is threefold.

First, it is an exercise in envisioning what a “real” museum will look like.

Second, it will stand on its own as a valuable educational experience.

Finally, third, the experiments will determine the best platform for the future.

Here are descriptions of the experiments done so far!

Unity 3D

The New Media Museum’s last predecessor, the NEW Computer Museum, had an virtual museum created with Unity 3D. The obvious problem was that there was no way to publish a version of that on a Web page. It required a download and installation that was, and still is, deemed unacceptable for typical users.

The video below shows a walk-through of that application to give you a sense of what a “Virtual New Media Museum” might look like.

Notice that the posters and almost all of the objects link to content and interactive activities. The “title poster” in each exhibit links to the relevant page on this site, while other posters and objects link elsewhere. There was a high overlap between content in the application and and the content in the “Guide” that was posted on the NEW Computer Museum Web site.

Here are links to the Guide and Gallery pages on this the NEW Computer Muesum Web site.

NEW Computer Museum Guide
Earliest Computers
Pioneers Posters & Videos
“Big Iron”
Supercomputing Clubhouse
Dec & Friends
Micros Zone
Public Lab & Library
Learning & Computing
Game Arcade
Immersive Experiences

SecondLife

There is an extensive version of the New Media Museum in the virtual world SecondLife. Click the images below to explore it.

Toy Worlds

Toy Worlds are fun “3D interfaces” for navigating the Web.

They are literally “toy worlds” because they are dioramas created with dollhouse furniture and other miniature toys that are photographed with a RICOH THETA S 360° Camera. The resulting 360° photos are posted on the Kuula 360° photo sharing service in order to overlay links to YouTube videos and Web pages.

They are also figuratively “toy worlds” in that they are only intended to be prototypes that serve as placeholders for more sophisticated “worlds” made with advanced software such as Unity 3D. The reason those worlds have not been created and posted so far is because there is no way to embed sophisticated 3D worlds directly on Web pages yet.

Here is the New Media Museum Toy World!

Touch the interactive 360° image to explore it. Click on objects to find out about them, and use the menu in the lower left or door knobs to visit other related Toy Worlds that were also created by M. E. Hopper (Worlds, Studio and Cosma).

You can find out about Toy Worlds and their backstory on this post.

Web Worlds

Web Worlds are the newest approach to making virtual museums, and they serve as interfaces to content on the New Media Museum’s Web site. They are scenes created in the virtual world SecondLife and then photographed with the built in 360° image capture function. The resulting 360° photos are posted on the Kuula 360° photo sharing service in order to overlay links to the Web.

New Media Museum Welcome Center

Step in and explore the New Media Museum!

Touch the interactive 360° image to explore it. Click on objects to find out about them.

If you can’t see it, you can also see it on Kuula.

Computer Museums Lobby

Here is a companion to the New Media Museum Welcome Center above. It is a virtual field trip to the best (virtual) computer museums in the world!

Touch the 360° image to begin exploring, objects to learn about them, “i”s to learn about the museums, and doors to enter the virtual museums.

You can also see it on Kuula.

See this post for the backstory and a scavenger hunt!

Here is a fun little annex to the New Media Museum.

Touch the 360° image to begin exploring.

You can also see it on Kuula.