Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
to objects from the past supported reconstruction
of medieval mosaics, the mural works of Rome,
of Saint Mark's Church and Torcello at Venice,
treasures of architecture in Palermo, Monreale,
and Cefalù in Sicily, and the medieval marble and
mosaic floors with geometric patterns. Simulated
reconstruction of the ruined monastery at Georgen-
thal, in Thuringia, Germany provides the viewer
with an insight how the monastery looked like in
the past (Interactive Storytelling, 2008).
Alan Price (2011) created several virtual inter-
active and immersive reconstructions of historical
places that are no longer accessible to the public,
to install them permanently in a museum setting.
The real time interactive simulation shows two
Marlborough Apartments from the 1930s where
Etta and Claribel Cone amassed a collection of
over 3,000 works of early 20th century French art
by Matisse, Gauguin, Picasso, Cezanne, Van Gogh,
Renoir, and others. A touch plasma screen ver-
sion was developed to give viewers an immersive
experience; interactive floor plan of the building
allowed moving to a specific room, and interactive
polygonal models of sculptures with detailed mesh
and texturing could be opened and their contents
explored (Virtual Tour, 2005). The Marlborough
Apartment building no longer exists as it did dur-
ing the sisters' lives. Paintings and furniture were
donated to the Baltimore Museum of Art, which
in 2010 organized a travel exhibition to the Jew-
ish Museum in New York and the Vancouver Art
Gallery. The immersive stereoscopic experience
was based on research, rendering, creating mod-
els, and digital reproductions (LoPiccolo, 2003).
A real time simulation The Sun Dagger Ex-
plorer (Price, 2011) is an interactive computer
model based on laser scanning, reconstructed in
collaboration with an archeoastronomer Anna So-
faer, of the ancient calendar site in Chaco Canyon,
New Mexico. This is a part of an exhibition on
cultural astronomy at the Adler Planetarium and
Museum in Chicago, and then a Space Frontiers
exhibit at the New Mexico Museum of Natural
History and Science, Albuquerque. It reconstructs
the solar and lunar calendar created in stone ap-
proximately one thousand years ago by ancient
Chacoans or Anasazi - the ancestral Pueblo people.
The assembly of three nine foot stone slabs lines
up sunlight into patterns of light and shadow onto
a spiral petroglyph in the cliff wall (petroglyphs
are carvings or line drawings on a rock, many of
them made by prehistoric people). The patterns
mark the year's solstices and equinoxes and are
believed to track the 18.6-year cycle of the moon.
Solstices are astronomical events that happen twice
each year when the sun is at its greatest distance
from the celestial equator. The summer solstice
is the longest day of the year when the sun is over
the tropic of Cancer (about June 21). The winter
solstice occurs when the sun is over the tropic
of Capricorn (about December 21) and the day
is the shortest. Equinoxes take place two times
during a year, when the sun crosses the celestial
equator and when the length of day and night is
approximately equal: the vernal equinox or the
autumnal equinox.
UBIQUITOUS COMPUTING
There is no single definition of ubiquitous comput-
ing and not all possible properties are supported in
particular cases. Scenarios for ubiquitous models
require working on several system designs at
once, for example, communication, data storage,
sensors controllers, and processors. They involve
human computer interaction and physical objects
interaction. Constructing pervasive applications
requires the design tools that can be used in an
interdisciplinary setting (Forsyth & Martin, 2012).
Mobile devices embedded in everyday objects
and surroundings or implanted into humans can
communicate and interact with the users and
with each other. Active software agents organize
and arrange such activities making them flexible
and adaptive to changes in an unsupervised, self-
governed way. As a result, ambient computing
becomes second nature.
