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Location: Green Bay, Wisconsin , USA Photographer: Bruce Cantrall Event: Crossroads

Location: Central Switzerland Photographer: Erik Krause Event: Best Of 2009

Location: Essen, NRW, Germany Photographer: Tom! Striewisch Event: Gardens

Location: National Military Cemetery, Ottawa, Canada Photographer: Robert Agnel Event: History

Location: Elche, Alicante, Spain Photographer: Jaime Brotons Event: International Year of Forests

Location: Boddam, Aberdeenshire, UK Photographer: John Wilson Event: Best Of 2009

Location: Kingston upon Thames, UK Photographer: John Wilson Event: Time

QRator, the Museum focused ‘Internet of Things/Smart Places’ project developed jointly with us here at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, UCL Digital Humanities and UCL Museums, with funding from the UCL Public Engagement Unit , has won The Museums & Heritage Award for Innovation.  Known as ‘The Oscars’ of the museums world we are honoured to of won, to have a museum brave enough to trust and openly engage with the public via innovative software and devices (iPads) while taking on ideas based around the Internet of Things made all the difference.
QRator is a collaborative project between the UCL Centre for Digital Humanities (UCLDH), UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA), and UCL Museums and Collections, to develop new kinds of content, co-curated by the public, museum curators, and academic researchers, to enhance museum interpretation, community engagement and establish new connections to museum exhibit content. It is supported by the UCL Public Engagement Unit under the Beacons for Public Engagement programme – funded by the UK funding councils, Research Councils UK and the Wellcome Trust.
The project is powered by Tales of Things technology developed at UCL’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, which has created a method for cataloguing physical objects online which could make museums and galleries a more interactive experience. QRATOR takes the technology a step further bringing the opportunity to move the discussion of objects direct to the museum label and onto a digital collaborative interpretation label, users’ mobile phones, and online allowing the creation of a sustainable, world-leading model for two-way public interaction in museum spaces.
Notable thanks go to Steven Gray of CASA, Claire Ross of Digital Humanities, Jack Ashby and Mark Carnall of the Grant Museum of Zoology. With the support of Prof. Claire Warwick and Dr Melissa Terras of Digital Humanities and Sally MacDonald, Director of UCL Museums  it goes to show what can be achieved via cross disciplinary research and a drive to just go and do it. Thanks also goes to Susannah Chan from UCL Museums and Public Engagement for inventing the mounts for the iPads and Emma-Louise Nichols and Simon Jackson from the Grant Museum who moderate the content day in and day out.



Finally thanks to the UCL side of the TalesofThings team -  Dr Ralph Barthel and Dr Martin De Jode for working behind the scenes and putting the technology in place. TalesofThings is funded by the Digital Economy Research Councils UK.
Other museums shortlisted in the category were Glasgow Life: Riverside Museum Pin Point Visualisation Ltd: Exhibita Pro The Public Catalogue Foundsation: Your Painting Victoria and Albert Museum: Five Truths
You can find our more from http://www.qrator.org see also the post from UCL Museums on the award and a write up over at DigitalNerdosaurous.

Location: Maturation Room, Reichenbach Butchery, Glottertal, Black Forest, Germany Photographer: Carsten T. Rees Event: Food

Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada Photographer: Randy Kosek Event: Sustenance

Location: Point Betsie Lighthouse, Benzie County, Michigan USA Photographer: Tommy Turner Event: Best Of 2008

Location: The Central Exhibition, Moscow, Russia Photographer: Andrew M. Zubetz Event: Transportation

Location: Lido di Dante, Ravenna, Italy Photographer: Claudio Lanconelli Event: Best of 2006

Location: Brussels, Belgium Photographer: 360 Spin - Malcolm Maybury Event: Best of 2006

Location: Oxborough, Norfolk, UK Photographer: John Houghton Event: Best Of 2010

Location: Providence, Rhode Island, USA Photographer: Edward Huff Event: Diversity

Over the last few weeks we have been looking at ESRI's CityEngine and how it can be used to create rapid urban scenes. As we noted it moves GIS visualisation a step forward while at the same time bringing procedural city modelling into the mainstream game engine world. Of course the heart of the CityEngine is the ability to import real world data but to get to grips with the interface it is sometimes easier to look at creating urban scenes from simple procedural rules.


As part of the MRes in Advanced in Spatial Analysis and Visualisation, here in CASA we have been looking at various techniques to visualise urban data. One such technique is the creation of a 3D exhibition space, allowing agent based models and urban data to be visualised within an architectural space. 




Music by Portoponte

The movie above combines the use of CityEngine in Lumion with SketchUp and 3DMax to insert an exhibition space into a city while burning the CASA logo into the street network. CityEngine is a notable step forward for ESRI, both in terms of visualisation and analysis, linking it with Lumion and SketchUp allows it to be taken even further, towards the ultimate city creation toolkit...

Location: Olten, Switzerland Photographer: Rolf Ris Event: International Year of Forests

Location: Vienna, Austria Photographer: Thomas Rauscher Event: Borders

Location: Porthgwarra, Cornwall, England, UK Photographer: Ken McMahon Event: Elevation