Research Projects: Media Space
Research activities in our group revolve around the Media Space, a next-generation interactive room that allows users to work collaboratively not only with traditional "static" (non time-based) media such as text and images, but also with audio, video, and other media types in a fluid way. It will provide multiple large-scale interactive display surfaces, and an integrated solution to manage multiple streams of spatial audio from a variety of computer sources in the room. Gesture and speech recognition and other input modalities will allow several users to collaborate using complex mixed-media contents, using input techniques appropriate to the medium (such as using conducting gestures to move through a musical piece, for example). Physical user interfaces for the room that go beyond the desktop metaphor will be easy to prototype using the iStuff toolkit we presented at CHI 2003.Location & Floor Plan
- Location: RWTH Aachen University, Computer Science Center ("Informatikzentrum"), Main Building ("Hauptbau"), second floor, room 2212
- Street address: Ahornstr. 55, 52074 Aachen, Germany
- Size: 7.4m by 6.4m, windows facing east
- Floor plan
- Full room view
Features
Teamspot: The teamspot software suite allows fluid collaboration and sharing in the space. Connect to "http://teamspot" while in the media space for download and installation instructions. Teamspot is a product of our former colleagues at Stanford University who have founded Tidebreak.Floor: The entire room has a raised floor (about 1ft high) for cable connections and supporting devices like an extra wireless base station. All floor tiles can be lifted by one person to provide quick access to this space. Many of the tiles include connector boxes for power and optical gigabit ethernet cabling which is translated to copper for increased robustness and device compatibility above the floor. These tiles can be disconnected, moved to a different spot in the floor, and reconnected there easily, for example to provide a larger cluster of connectors in one part of the room.
Ceiling: The ceiling is covered with a grid of open mesh trays for cables and small devices such as media converters, power adapters, cameras, microphones and extra lights. This complements the raised
Furniture: Chairs and individual tables are chosen to provide spatial flexibility. Both are on wheels, and the tabletops can be folded up quickly and stored in a corner taking up little space if they are in the way. Users often just grab a chair and table and arrange themselves in whatever works for their current group situation.
Media Boards: The Media Boards serve to provide interactive display space as a commodity where you need it. They are also on wheels, therefore easily moveable, and consist of a stand (PETA X-TRA Design Stand, see manufacturer's brochure), a 40" NEC LCD screen and a SMART Board camera-based touch screen overlay.
Audiospace: The media space is equipped with a MOTU 828mkII Firewire sound system, 4 Alesis RA150 amplifiers, and 8 Alesis Monitor One Mk2 speakers. These components (and a dedicated Power Mac G5) make up the Audiospace (see Audiospace Project) which allows any computer in the room to use this audio system via the TCP network.
Related Links
- Media Space presentation containing general information about the Media Space
- Media Space gallery containing imgs of the Media Space in use
- Treasure map showing where everything is under the floor(see attached Graffle src) :
Created by borchers. Last Modification: Monday 21 of September, 2009 10:32:52 by dennis.
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