Magic in the Museum

I worked on a great multimedia exhibit that is on display at this national museum with a primary focus on accessibility for all. The result enables the museum to show artefacts in a dramatic and invigorating way.

I programmed the software for 4 centrepiece exhibitions that tell of Wales’s industrial and commercial history. The museum is the first fully Disability Discrimination Act compliant museum to open in Britain so central to the challenge was making the software and its interface accessible to as many people as possible. The interface had to be easy to use for people with a variety of disabilities and had to function in both English and Welsh Language. It also had to incorporate an interface for video material containing sign language.

Gesture tracking

This interactive showcase allows visitors to pull items from a virtual display cabinet and manipulate them for a thorough look. The system gives access to films and information covering a range of Wales-wide communities and ideas.

Working alongside London agency Newangle, I coded a completely virtual interface that was based on the movie Minority Report. Users simply point at the screen and the computer and a clever bit of gesture recognition software does the rest. It senses movements as people use their hands to navigate their way through the depths of the exhibit touching everything in virtual reality. The system ingeniously allows the museum to display artefacts that are too delicate, valuable or obscure to be on open display.

I programmed the software for 4 exhibits that sat side-by-side. Each exhibit had different content provided by the museum. Newangle digitised the artefacts in 3d, designed the final look-and-feel of the content, audio and graphics, and gave me all the raw files to put together. Hardware was provided by Gesturetek and Sysco AV.

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