Digital Urban

Can Weblogs and Microblogs Change Traditional Scientific Writing?

2009-11-19T13:59:00.002Z

The papers are coming thick and fast at the Future Internet Journal - the latest paper describes a follow up Web 2.0 approach to a technology enhanced master course for students of Graz University of Technology.

The lecture “Social Aspects of Information Technology” has a long tradition for using new didactical scenarios as well as modern e-Learning technologies. After using a blogosphere one year ago, this year microblog channels helped to expand the traditional lecture. Students choose (on a voluntary basis) whether they want to participate in a blogging/microblogging group instead of using conventional methods called Scientific Writer/Scientific Reviewer. This study addresses the question whether this method can change the learning outcome into a more reflective one. Furthermore, peer-reviewing groups judge the quality of essays and blog contributions. In this paper we examine if microblogging can be an appropriate technology for assisting the process. This publication comes to the conclusion that an amazing potential and a new way to work with information is opened when using microblogging. Students seem to be more engaged, reflective and critical in as much as they presented much more personal statements and opinions than years before.

The paper is an interesting look at Web 2.0 and blogging in academia - something we know a little about having come under notable criticism a few years ago for putting everything we do in a blog. Personally, the Future Internet Journal is indicative of these changes with fast turn around times and publication in terms of weeks rather than months/years.

You can read/download the full paper via the Future Internet Journal site.

The Sentient City Survival Kit

2009-11-18T11:58:00.007Z

The Sentient City Survival Kit is a design research project that explores the social, cultural and political implications of ubiquitous computing for urban environments. It takes as its method the design, fabrication and presentation of a collection of artifacts, spaces and media for survival in the near-future sentient city.

- edit, video is now back, via YouTube -

As computing leaves the desktop and spills out onto the sidewalks, streets and public spaces of the city, information processing becomes embedded in and distributed throughout the material fabric of everyday urban space. Pervasive/ubiquitous computing evangelists herald a coming age of urban information systems capable of sensing and responding to the events and activities transpiring around them. Imbued with the capacity to remember, correlate and anticipate, this “sentient” city is envisioned as being capable of reflexively monitoring our behavior within it and becoming an active agent in the organization of our daily lives.

The movie above is a work in progress of an intriguing project by Mark Shepard documenting the development of a set of artifacts, spaces and media for survival in the near-future sentient city.

Of note is the view that 'many are likely to protest when they are denied passage through a subway turnstile because the system “senses” that their purchasing habits, mobility patterns and current galvanic skin response (GSR) reading happens to match the profile of a terrorist'. Personally we quite like the idea of a Sentient City, but perhaps that's just us, head over to http://survival.sentientcity.net/ for more thoughts and views.

Valencia, Spain 3D City

2009-11-18T09:57:00.003Z

The 3D cities roll out continues at increasing pace - the movie below captured by YourWorldIn3D details Valencia, Spain:

Its certainly impressive, Google's increasingly strong focus on geographic information is of note...

Metropolis Art Prize: Drift

2009-11-16T16:44:00.005Z

The Babelgum Metropolis Art Prize now has over 450 individual entries from five continents. Launched in September 2009 the Babelgum Metropolis Art Prize sought videos, of no more than 5 minutes in length, representing the work of the best and edgiest artists working in any medium, from performance art, painting and photography to sculpture, installation and new media. Last week we featured 'London' by Luke Jackson, this week we embed 'drift', captured using a still camera it is supremely well done:

Artists are competing for three prizes worth a total of $30,000 and prize winners and runners-up will see their videos screened on New York’s famous Times Square monitors on the 17th December. The “Grand Prize” and the “Best Street Art Video Award” winners will be selected by an illustrious judging panel led by iconic art-house actress and video artist Isabella Rossellini and the online and mobile community will vote on the winner of the “Audience Award”.

Head over to http://www.babelgum.com/metropolisartprize to start viewing and voting - click on the thumbs up under a video to vote...

Colorama - Tilt Shift - Large and Small

2009-11-16T11:17:00.003Z

At the moment our iMac round the back of the office is churning out our first 'fake' tiltshift test. Its been running for 3 days and has given the poor thing a notable level of screen burn, while that processes and we wait for the results, below is how it should be done:

Colorama - Makeover from Upper First on Vimeo.

The 'giant hand' makes for an interesting take on tilt shift movies. Developed by UpperFirst for Colorama, the idea is to create a visually absurd situation using displacement of scale between the people in frame and the giant hand. It is meant to underline the contrast of small and big, where the hand symbolizes the consumers ability to effect the environment and in the extension his or her own environment.

Toyota - Norwegian Visualisation

2009-11-11T10:04:00.004Z

The Toyota advert below was created by Gimpville, a production house based in Oslo, Norway. We don't normally include adverts, but it is so well done its worthy of a post:

Toyota from Apt on Vimeo.

Simple, but charming...

Epic Announces Free Unreal Development Kit

2009-11-10T16:39:00.004Z

Epic Games, Inc. has announced the launch of the Unreal Development Kit (UDK), a free edition of Unreal Engine 3 that provides community access to the game engine and toolset.

The software release is available to anyone interested in using 3D game engine technology, including game developers, students, hobbyists, researchers, creators of 3D visualizations and simulations, and digital filmmakers:

There is no charge for noncommercial or educational use of UDK. Over 100 academic campuses currently use Unreal Technology as part of teaching game development-related courses.

Anyone can start working with the industry-leading Unreal Engine 3 toolset by downloading UDK at www.udk.com, where detailed product features, technical documentation, commercial licensing terms, support resources and more are also available. This is quite an interesting development as it could enable some neat architectural ports into the engine.

Goodbye London - Metropolis Art Prize Entry 2009

2009-11-10T15:13:00.003Z

Babelgum Metropolis is looking for the globe’s best and edgiest artists for what is being termed'the world’s biggest art show'. Winners will have their work shown on giant advertising screens this December in Times Square, the neon heart of New York City.

Out of the notable nominees is Luke Jackson's Goodbye London video, directed by Murray John. The video features a mix of stop motion photography and drawn 2-D animation using After Effects. Having just moved to the heart of Camden Town ourselves we really like the video, in fact we love it:

Luke and Murray collaborated on the video via email, attempting to capture the bittersweet sentiment of the song's lyric. They didn't actually meet until the video was almost finished.

You can vote for your favorites by clicking the thumbs-up icon beneath the videos over at http://www.babelgum.com/metropolisartprize.

There are some fantastic videos featured, the voting period is 4th November – 2nd December.

Automating Geospatial Dataset Metadata

2009-11-10T14:08:00.003Z

James K. Batcheller, Bruce M. Gittings and and Robert I. Dunfey of the
Institute of Geography, School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh have just published 'A Method for Automating Geospatial Dataset Metadata' in Future Internet Journal of which we here at digital urban are Editor-in-Chief.

Abstract

Metadata have long been recognised as crucial to geospatial asset management and discovery, and yet undertaking their creation remains an unenviable task often to be avoided. This paper proposes a practical approach designed to address such concerns, decomposing various data creation, management, update and documentation process steps that are subsequently leveraged to contribute towards metadata record completion. Using a customised utility embedded within a common GIS application, metadata elements are computationally derived from an imposed feature metadata standard, dataset geometry, an integrated storage protocol and pre-prepared content, and instantiated within a common geospatial discovery convention. Yielding 27 out of a 32 total metadata elements (or 15 out of 17 mandatory elements) the approach demonstrably lessens the burden of metadata authorship. It also encourages improved geospatial asset management whilst outlining core requisites for developing a more open metadata strategy not bound to any particular application domain.

Its an interesting paper tackling the laborious task of metadata creation, as ever with Future Internet you can read/download the paper for free via http://www.mdpi.com/journal/futureinternet

Normal Service Resumes Next Tuesday...

2009-11-05T12:12:00.003Z

A quick post as we are taking some time out to move flats here in London town. The bad news is that this means we are without internet access for a few days so posts will be limited to say the least.

The good news is that the new place is in a perfect position for some tilt-shift timelapses so a tutorial will be forthcoming along with thoughts and techniques for urban HDR.

We are back at du headquarters early next week when a normal, perhaps slightly enhanced, service will resume...

Unity - Now Free

2009-11-02T10:52:00.005Z

Unity, our current development platform of choice here at digital urban, is now available free of charge. The Indie version of its Unity engine previously sold for $200 and is quite simple one of the best and indeed easiest game engines to work with.

We will be ramping up our Unity development in the coming months, for now if you haven't had chance to use Unity yet, what are you waiting for.

Head over to http://unity3d.com/unity/ for the download.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in...

Mattepainting Toolkit: Creating Photoreal Environments in Maya via Multiple Camera Projections

2009-10-28T09:24:00.005Z

The clip below was shot was modeled, textured, and rendered with the help of the Glyph Software Mattepainting Toolkit. The Mattepainting Toolkit is a newly released plugin suite for Autodesk Maya that allows artists to efficiently manage multiple camera projections for the creation of photoreal environments.

gs_mptk city demo from Glyph on Vimeo.

The toolkit has been developed by Michael Breymann who identified a need to more efficiently model and render scenes that rely heavily on reprojected matte paintings.

For more information take a look at glyphfx.com/mptk.html, Michael provides series of videos looking at how the toolkit can facilitate the creation of a full-CG environment for a feature film - from a first look it certainly looks impressive and we like the way it has developed out of a specific identified need.

London Aerial Tour - Panoramas taken from a Helicopter

2009-10-27T09:42:00.005Z

Google may rule the roads with their panoramic images but the true panoramic artists have taken to the skies to show how it should be done. VR Web Design are currently the only company in the UK offering helicopter based HD aerial virtual tours fronted by known photographer Tom Mills the results are simply amazing.

The short clip below provides a preview:

Panoramic imagery on the web has come a long way since the early QuickTime VR days, take a look at the London Aerial Tour to see the current cutting edge.

Final Call - International Conference on Theory, Data Handling and Modelling in GeoSpatial Information Science, Hong Kong

2009-10-23T12:23:00.003+01:00

We have a final call for papers in geographic/urban visualisation - the deadline for abstracts has passed but as we are running a workshop send them to us via the contact page and we will sort out the initial submission process.

The Joint International Conference on Theory, Data Handling and Modelling in GeoSpatial Information Science will be held on May 26th to 28th 2010 in Hong Kong.

This conference will be a notable event in the international community of Geo-spatial information Science (GISc) in 2010, organized by: Commission II of the International Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) and Commission of Geographic Information Science and Commission of Modelling Geographical Systems of the International Geographical Union (IGU). The conference will join together the Symposium of Technical Commission II of ISPRS, the Symposium on Spatial Data Handling and the Conference on Modelling Geographical Systems from IGU.

ISPRS is a society regrouping scientific societies from more than 100 countries working in domains related to photogrammetry, remote sensing and geographical information science. 2010 will be a special year for the society as it will be celebrating its centenary anniversary. The ISPRS Technical Commission II Symposium is organised every four years alternately with the ISPRS Congress and is among the major events in ISPRS calendar regrouping leading scholars from the GISc and related communities. Last editions of the symposium were held in Ottawa, Canada (2002) and Vienna, Austria (2006) jointly with SDH.

You can find the submission guidelines and template from here.

Also take a look at the new Geovisualisation and Virtual Reality site (its hosted here in CASA) where you can sign up to become a member.

Small Life

2009-10-23T11:37:00.001+01:00

We really need to take two days out and do a tilt-shift timelapse of London, the clip below is both charming and inspiring:

Small Life in Saxon Switzerland from Christoph Schaarschmidt on Vimeo.

Picked up via UrbanTick

Google Street View Guys: 'We Have to Do the Whole Earth'

2009-10-22T13:30:00.004+01:00

We love this:

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Created by Dan Meth, Dan has also created a next timelapse entitled 'Road Trip' using Google Street view:

The Promised Land from Dan Meth on Vimeo.

'We are in Tiawain, is bordering on genius...

Procedural Building Generator v0.5 Launched

2009-10-20T11:39:00.005+01:00

Tyson Ibele, over at http://tysonibele.com/ has released the latest version of his Building Generator for 3D Max 9 and above. Development has been swift with the addition of textures a couple of weeks ago and now a notable update to the creation of windows/details on the buildings.

With the creation of digital cities the 'detail' is crucial, from shutters on windows to lights and blinds, they all add up to create a sense of place. We have not had chance to run the latest version yet as its just been released, but if its anything like the previous iterations it is one of the 'must' have scripts for building digital cities.

Two Tenure-Stream Appointments at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, University of Toronto

2009-10-20T09:49:00.002+01:00

The John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, University of Toronto, invites applications for two tenure-stream appointments with expertise in (1) applied theories of urbanism, landscape, and/or architecture and (2) histories and practices of architecture, landscape, and/or urbanism. These appointments are to be made at the rank of Assistant Professor or Associate Professor, effective July 1, 2010.

Set at once within one of North America’s most cosmopolitan cities and a preeminent research university, the Daniels Faculty uniquely combines the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design in undergraduate, professional, and post-professional programs. Daniels is invested in finding the intersections between nature, technology, architecture, and various geographies in a way that instantiates design to meet its contemporary challenges.

An emphasis on the connections between all of the design disciplines at work in the remaking of the built environment is apparent in the scholarly research and built work of many of its faculty. Daniels is particularly committed to exploring new modes of practice by drawing on the community of minds at the University of Toronto, thereby becoming a focal point for research and speculation on better ways to design and inhabit the built environment. Daniels enjoys significant ties with a number of adjacent disciplines within the university (engineering, geography and planning, art, literary studies, information, health) via both cross-disciplinary teaching appointments and various forms of research.

Following a decade-long transformation of its faculty and professional programs, and a recent major gift, plans are in place to both expand the school’s physical plant and to raise the ceiling of its curricular offerings to the doctoral and PhD levels.

(1) Applied Theories of Urbanism, Landscape, and/or Architecture (Job Number 0900826)
The Daniels Faculty would be an especially engaging environment for someone whose research explores the specificities of contemporary practice from a perspective that is both historically informed and theoretically acute.

Candidates would be expected to bring a substantial research program and to demonstrate not only an ability to fuse their agenda with the interests and commitments of the faculty, but to build new research capacities and relationships.

The search will focus on individuals with a demonstrable background in design and/or the built environment, including but not exclusive to architecture and landscape architecture, who possess a PhD (or one that is substantially complete) or doctoral credentials. Salary and rank will be commensurate with qualifications and experience.

(2) Histories and Practices of Architecture, Landscape, and/or Urbanism (Job Number 0900809)

The Daniels Faculty would be an especially engaging environment for someone whose research explores the historical underpinnings of design theory and practice. Candidates would be expected to bring a substantial research program and to demonstrate not only an ability to fuse their agenda with the interests and commitments of the faculty, but to build new research capacities and relationships.

The search will focus on individuals with training in the histories and theories of architecture, landscape architecture, and/or urbanism. Candidates are required to possess a PhD (or one that is substantially complete) and to give evidence of an active engagement in teaching and scholarship. Salary and rank will be commensurate with qualifications and experience.

We encourage you to submit your application online at http://www.jobs.utoronto.ca/faculty.htm providing the following:
1. curriculum vita
2. statement of research objectives
3. representative examples of publications, research, or design work
4. list of three potential references, including contact information

If you are unable to apply online, please send your submission, referencing the corresponding Job Number, to:

Richard M. Sommer, Dean
John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design
University of Toronto
230 College Street
Toronto, Ontario M5T 1R2
CANADA

Enquiries should be directed to Dean Sommer (dean@daniels.utoronto.ca, T 416 978 3089, F 416 971 2432).

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: November 30, 2009

The University of Toronto is strongly committed to diversity within its community and especially welcomes applications from visible minority group members, women, Aboriginal persons, persons with disabilities, members of sexual minority groups, and others who may contribute to the further diversification of ideas. All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority.

Sketch Shapes in Augmented Reality - iPhone App (Hacked)

2009-10-19T10:22:00.003+01:00

The excellent ReadWriteWeb site has a neat article on 'Devs Hack iPhone API for True Augmented Reality '

In short - take a look at the movie below and note the ability to draw shapes and then render via AR, complete with attached physics:

It has notable potential for designing buildings - see http://www.readwriteweb.com/ for more.

Indoor Autonomous Mapping and Navigation

2009-10-17T13:05:00.002+01:00

The movie below details the work led by Nick Roy at the Robust Robotics Group at CSAIL, MIT. It is extremely impressive, while a little scary at the same time, note the real-time mapping and 3D model production as the helicopter scans the environment:

You can find out more about the research and the robotics group in general at http://groups.csail.mit.edu/rrg/

MapTube: Now with 145 Census Maps

2009-10-16T12:36:00.006+01:00

As part of work on the JISC funded National e-Infrastructure for Social Simulation project, CASA has put online 145 census maps. Running within the MapTube system, each map can be mixed and matched with any other map to create unique overlays.

The system was developed as a quick and easy way to view maps of census data without having to go through a slow cumbersome list of drop down boxes only to be left with a .shp or .csv file to download. Future versions will include direct links to the raw data and the possibility to directly query the fields.

Of note in the development cycle of MapTube, each map is now created dynamically, this is in preparation for a new 'mapping service' which will be open to beta testers in early 2010.

You can take a look at the maps via http://www.maptube.org/census/

CryEngine 3: Demo Movie

2009-10-16T10:03:00.002+01:00

The movie below provides an insight into possible new workflows for urban and geographic visualisation - detailing the new sandbox of the CryEngine 3 from Crytek it has us flicking through the pages of PC World to upgrade our graphics card:

Take a look at http://www.mycryengine.com/ for full details.

Auckland 2100 Visualisation

2009-10-15T12:19:00.002+01:00

Anything that includes a distopian city vision complete with 'blimps' gets our attention - below is a vision of Auckland in 2100:

Auckland 2100 Visualisation from Media Design School on Vimeo.

The clip was chosen as 'best of' as part of a project at the Media Design School (MDS) in downtown Auckland, New Zealand. The school offers courses covering 3D Animation, Advanced 3D Productions, Game Development, Interactive Gaming, Visual Effects, Digital Media, Creative Advertising and Graphic Design.

It is well worth taking a look at their Vimeo Channel as well as their main site at mediadesignschool.com

Google Building Maker: CANOMA(ish) + The Crowd = 3D Cities

2009-10-14T09:48:00.006+01:00

Google's Building Maker is a stroke of genius, essentially a mix of CANOMA with the crowd to get users to populate the earth with 3D buildings. We know SketchUp and the 3D warehouse has already gone down this route to some extent, but this takes it to a whole new level:

In essence all you do is select a city from around the world, make a building with photos Google provide, save the building where it will be reviewed, your building becomes part of the Google Earth 3D layer.

So in short, you do the work and then your building is tied up with the terms of conditions. Such is life, we however just love the access to the imagery and the ability to model, terms and conditions are the subject for another post...

See 'Great Software form the past - CANOMA' for more insights into the simularities, CANOMA is up there as our favorite software of all time.

Ordnance Survey: 3D Cities and Accuracy Never Seen Before

2009-10-13T10:37:00.008+01:00

We have a lot of time for the good people down at the Ordnance Survey Research Labs and they have just released an interesting video of some 3D Cities work they are carrying out:

The Telegraph has a good story on this along with a quote from Glen Hart, head of research at Ordnance Survey who states that - “Three-dimensional maps in themselves aren't new, but what we've achieved in Bournemouth is a level of accuracy and detail that's never been done before,".

It'll be interesting to see how this stacks up against Infoterra's Skape initiative, embedded below:

The Ordnance Survey plan to roll out the rest of the UK over the next 5 years and with Google/Microsoft and various other commercial outfits also scanning our cities these are interesting times.

A whole post without a dig at the Ordnance Survey, we are almost proud :)