Planet in Action's 3D Sound in Google Earth: Part of the Interactive, Touchable 3D Picture (and thoughts about how this might play out on interactive whiteboards in education)

I came across a link to Planet in Action's video demonstration of 3D sound in Google Earth, thanks to a post by Nate Torkington in O'Reilly Radar.  WOW!   


The company shows that a 3D sound engine works nicely within the Google Earth environment.  Planet in Action tweaked the Soundmanager2 library from schillmania.com, resulting in a sound3D javascript object that can be used to program geo-located sounds in Google Earth.


The 3D sound concept, in my opinion, will be useful in creating immersive interactive educational experiences, especially if students have access to newer interactive whiteboards with decent sound systems.    


Below is the video from Planet in Action, along with a bit of promotional information:

The video is of a port in San Sabastian, Spain.  The "sound landscape" is realistic, and a range of sounds, from various spots in the scene, can be heard during the exploration.  


"Google Earth is a highly detailed 3D representation of our entire planet.  Rather than just looking at it, why not play on it!  PlanetInAction.com brings you top quality ideas, applications and concepts that will let you experience your planet in a whole new way." -Planet in Action


Thoughts:

My bet is that this concept will play out very well in the future in family rooms outfitted with large displays and decent surround sound systems. 

Why?  No need to explain.  Just take a look at what is going on with 3D TV and film,  3D HD gaming, interactive TV, internet-enabled large HD TVs, Google's "Lean Back" concept, and the "Slow Media" movement.

By the way, Planet in Action's work strikes a chord in me.  One of my HCI team travel planning projects that used Google Earth in the demonstration prototype.  We focused on cruise travel planning, mostly because I had lots of pictures and video clips from my cruise trips vacations and other travels.  I even worked on part of the project while I was ON a cruise ship.  (That was before the economic downturn.)   Below is a video of a cruise ship model that Planet in Action created for a cruise line, for use in Google Earth:

Celebrity Constellation Virtual Fly-by


SOMEWHAT RELATED

As I mentioned in my previous post, "Video Experiments: Sea Life Medley - Extended version with music",  I'm experimenting with some ideas to create interactive educational video clips for future use on higher-resolution interactive whiteboards and other large touch-screen surfaces.   


Part of my motivation stems from an immediate need for "touchable" content for the students I work with who have more significant disabilities, including autism- and of course, my colleagues. All of the classrooms in the program have IWBs- mostly brand-new SMARTBoards - - we also have a SMARTTable that is begging for more content.


As I worked with students using my video clips and a new SMARTboard, I noticed that students have a strong desire to touch what they see on the screen.  If they could stop the video and further explore item of interest, for example, the jellyfish in the above picture, it would be great.  


Imagine putting your hand on the jellyfish, and having the power to explore it as a 3D model! If you are a grad student or researcher who is working on this concept, or something related, please let me know.


Getting back to the 3D landscapes/soundscapes in Google Earth- this is something that I'd like to try at school.  I'm wonder if PlanetinAction allows for touch-screen interaction so that students who are at the SMARTBoard can easily explore the 3D-sound enabled scenes in Google Earth.

"Cute Doggies" Photo-Globe Mash-up using Google Earth and a Flickr Set (How-to)

The above photo is a screen shot of photos of just about every dog I know, and some that happened to cross my path. In this post, I'll share some information about how to create a photo-globe in Google Earth.  I'll post a "how-to" video in the future.

The first step is to make sure you have lots of pictures related to your theme uploaded to a site such as Flickr.  (You can also create a photo-globe using pictures from your computer's hard drive.)

To get the pictures into Google Earth, I used the Image Overlay feature, and in the "link" textbox, I entered the image URL for each picture that I'd previously loaded as a set in Flickr.

To do prepare for this, make sure you go to "view" tab on the upper left-hand section of your screen, and make sure that "toolbar" is checked. Also make sure that "Grid" is selection, as this will help make it easier to arrange and align your pictures.  You can turn off this feature later. Near the top of the screen, click on the Image Overlay icon. (I've highlighted it in the picture.)

You'll have to enter the URL of the image you'd like to add to the globe in the "Link" textbox, which I've highlighted in the above picture.  In this case, I've used a link to one of my pictures in a Flickr set I created for this project.

One thing to keep in mind is that the picture will take up a much larger space than you might prefer, so you'll have to adjust the size using the green markers:


The following directions are from the "Positioning the Imagery in the Viewer" section in the help section:

1. Use the center cross-hair marker to slide the entire overlay on the globe and position it from the center. (Tip: do this first.)
2. Use the triangle marker to rotate the image for better placement.
3. Use any of the corner cross-hair markers to stretch or skew the selected corner. If you press the Shift key when selecting this marker, the image is scaled from the center.
4. Use any of the four side anchors to stretch the image in or out of from the selected side. If you press the Shift key when doing this, the image is scaled from the center.

TIP:  Try positioning the center of the image as a reference point first, and then use the Shift key in combination with one of the anchors to scale the image for best positioning.




In Flickr,  to get the image URL, go to the "share this" tab above the picture you'd like to put on the globe. You need to select the one that says "Grab the HTML", as shown below:

Select ONLY the code that comes after "src=" and before "width".

Then repeat. You can add place-marks that contain URLs that link to additional information about the subject of a picture, such as blog posts with embedded videos and/or text related to a picture, and so forth.

The process of building a photo-globe in Google Earth is a bit tedious.  If someone has a short-cut to share, please let me know!


TAG GALAXY - A "shortcut":
If you have a burning desire to create a quick photo-globe using random pictures, you see what the Tag Galaxy has to offer.  Enter "dogs" or whatever theme you want for your photo-globe, and in an instant, it will be created from publicly available pictures from Flickr. The application uses the Flickr API.

Here is an example of a "Dog" Tag Galaxy:

You can spin the Tag Galaxy globe by using a mouse, or if you have a touch screen computer or a SMARTBoard, with your fingers.

Here is the slideshow from the pictures selected for the photo-globe:


Why is this important to me?
The students at one of my schools started back last week, due to the school's "year-round" schedule. The students in this program have multiple special needs, including severe autism, and most learn best through visual and multimedia representations of information. I devote some of my spare time creating interactive content for the students, and I thought this might work out nicely.

To address the student's special learning needs, a number of new SMARTBoards were recently installed at the school, and now every classroom has an interactive whiteboard, including the room I usually use with students. We also have a few Dell Studio One All-in-One touch screen computers and a multi-touch SMARTTable.  Interactive multimedia content works nicely on these screens! (I'm planning on making a "how-to" video when I get the chance.)

RESOURCES
Google Earth
Flickr
Programmable Web (My hunch is that this site might provide some information about shortcuts for creating a photo-globe in Google Earth.)

Collaborative Travel Planning App for Microsoft Surface, by Object Consulting

Information from the Microsoft Surface YouTube Channel:
"Object Explore is a collaborative travel planner for use by travel consultants and consumers on Microsoft Surface. Explore deep levels of interactive content through intuitive navigation, ensuring the customer doesn't get lost in the process. All content is tailored to the current client and can be taken away through mobile or email. Object Explore is built upon Object Consulting's Object Zoom framework, which brings intuitive Zoom exploration to sectors including retail, finance and museums." - Object Consulting


SOMEWHAT RELATED
I worked on a collaborative travel planning application a few years ago for an HCI class project- before the Surface was unveiled by Microsoft.  It would have been fun to implement it in a Surface environment, since applications on the Surface can easily interface with mobile devices.

Below is a screenshot of a working prototype of "navSmart", a mash-up using photo-overlays linking to travel related information, including YouTube videos of related travel videos and information. You spin the globe around to explore possible destinations and vacation activities.   This concept worked best on a large touch-screen display.