Phoenix Digital Media Bursary

I recently applied for a digital media bursary from Phoenix Media and am proud to announce that I got one of the two bursaries!

This will give me proper justification to set time aside for an investigation of timelapse photography and panoramas, along with having a goal/deadline to aim for.

The current plan is to start by going out and about in Exeter (the county capital) shooting assorted timelapse footage and also shooting a series of panoramas from fixed points over several months. Then to explore ways of presenting the resulting timelapse panoramas, such as 'unwrapped' 360 degree videos, trying out panoramic video viewers and also playing around with multiple layered panos in SPi-V. I'll also be playing around with a new version of my QTVR2MOV software, generating video sequences from multiple panoramas and layering that up in Final Cut Pro.
The final output for the project has not been fixed yet but may end up concentrating on some kind of installation or performance. All kinds or ideas such as linking motion trackers to a projected panorama spring to mind, with people's position in the room controlling navigation of the panorama, and even navigating through time by fading from one panorama to the next.

The other digital media bursary boy (Ben) is a circuit-bender, doing all kinds of wacky stuff generating audio from hacked recycled electronics, which is also likely to end up as an interactive installation. We may even try to combine the two - so people move around the real space to navigate through the virtual panoramic space, only to realise that they are also affecting the soundscape. ;-) Add in some RF transponders tucked into people's leaflets/programmes for the event and full chaos ensues...

Due to current work commitments, the IVRPA conference and a potential commercial shoot (in Bulgaria, of all places) work won't really get going until early-mid July. I'll be bringing the work in progress with me to Berkeley and also using this blog to do updates, so expect to see plenty of weird stuff over the next five to six months!

Ian

P.S. I'll be watching Aldo's 'Delivering on the promise of VR' talk very closely, along with the new stuff from the Microsoft Lab...