22/7/11: I’ve added an update to this post at the end.
25/9/13: Daden’s slideshow on the finished project added
I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for Birmingham. I visited the museums when I was a kid, and particularly liked the Museum of Science and Industry. Then I spent six years studying engineering and researching at the University during the 1980s: many happy memories there too. But I don’t think in all that time I visited the main public library; at the University we seemed to have everything we needed on campus.
Anyhow, I’m making up for it now with a visit to Birmingham’s NEW library – all from the comfort of my armchair, and at six o’clock in the morning no less.
While construction of the actual building is ongoing, this virtual world simulation in Second Life has been built to help the designers test out the design and make some fine tunings based on public reaction.
Regular readers might know I’m quite sympathetic to virtual worlds, although I’ve often felt I’m ahead of the curve in my enthusiasm. This simulation by virtual world consultants and builders Daden Ltd reminded me of a similar pilot the London Strategic Health Authority built in association with Dave Taylor‘s team at Imperial College, to test out peoples reactions to getting around a building delivering centralised medical services. I found out about the Library project from a post on Hypergrid Business Magazine; so hats off to them.
Anyhow, I think one of the points of these exercises is to judge first reactions and impressions, so this post is just my unedited walk-through, stopping now and again to take virtual photographs, with a few of my thoughts along the way. For the avoidance of doubt, I’m the guy with the NASA 50 tee-shirt and angry ant buried in my shoulder – don’t ask. I’ll remind you how to make your own visit at the end of the post.
Birmingham sure has changed since I lived here. You appear in the simulation next to an explanatory board outside the library in a large piazza. Real photographs on easels are scattered around the simulation showing how real-life construction of that particular bit of the library is progressing.
I thought I’d get cute and do what I’d do in real life, arriving at, say, the British Library in London: get my priorities right and suss out the coffee, toilets and restaurant. The other important resource is a place to plug in my computer and recharge my phone. And w-fi of course. And a place to sit. And on-line catalogues. And books.
Anyhow, they were way ahead of me. The first little bit of interaction that hits you is a survey of how you like to take coffee: with friends, with a good book, place to meet up with folk etc. There’s instant feedback on the poll in the form of coloured pillars proportional in size to the response. I could have ticked several boxes, but plumped for coffee with a good book.
As it turned out, there are quite a lot of toilets.
On to a cafe / restaurant area. This all has a great feel to it by the way, with a good sense of space and scale. On the eating front though, I wasn’t clear quite what will be on offer; i.e. will there be various grades of bar, cafe, restaurant, fine-dining etc. Maybe they don’t know yet.
More loos.
Looks like a theatre, although I didn’t manage to get into the auditorium itself. I think I’ll pop back later in the day and see if any of these desks are manned by virtual people. I did bump into one other visitor on this crack of dawn visit, but no project people.
This is cute: kiddies area with kiddy-size furniture and cuddly penguins and stuff lying around. Middle-age man with ant on shoulder hanging around. There was also some attractive Spanish Steps-style cushioned seating in this zone; think my camera jammed on that one.
Here’s a bunch of those wind-open walk-in book cabinets you find in libraries.
This is the Youth Zone again, with practice booths on the left. Not sure what’s being practiced – languages maybe?
Working up the building, here’s a suitably dark-tomed business area.
Interesting to see if this artwork makes it to real thing. Again, this sort of thing in the simulation conveys the tone and attitude of the place. More loos, notice.
Some empty spaces still to be developed: meeting rooms maybe? Incidentally, I like the way this simulation lets you walk through the occasional unopened door, or even wall. Interaction adds realism, but fiddly interaction for no purpose – like aligning yourself with a revolving door to get through it – is just irritating. They got the balance here right I think.
This was quite something. Towering walls covered in books. Guess we’re in a library.
Near the top of the building is a roof garden. Some nice views over the piazza. Reminded me of the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank – only better.
Top floors are staff only: explains why I couldn’t get up there.
The only weird techno-hiccup I found. Sit down to play the piano and you fall into the floor.
Free of the Carbonite, taking in the cultural vibe. Looks like some Friday evening entertainment, drink in hand, can be had.
Speaking of which. The whole consumption thing in virtual worlds is a little weird by the way; but you can imagine what this area will be like with folk milling around after work.
And off I go.
In conclusion, it’s fair to say I got a pretty good overall impression of how the building is likely to feel and the facilities on offer. If you want to know how the actual library activities will work: how to access databases and such like, that’s not what this is about.
I just whisked round quickly today, but I’ll go back later and leave some feedback. The Hypergrid piece talks about various feedback mechanisms – virtual Post-Its and such like, although I can’t say they jumped out at me. I’m also guessing the library may add more interactive tools, videos and such like explaining more detail on the facilities, as time goes on.
It will also be interesting to see if the simulation is kept alive after the library-proper is built; I’m thinking simultaneous broadcasts of events from the lecture theatre for example. Very handy for us London-dwellers.
As promised: if you want to visit, you’ll need a Second Life account (free), and then teleport to the Library of Birmingham region. You can find me in Second Life as Erasmus Magic.
Overall, looks like a great library in the making; and a friendly, intuitive job on the simulation by the library staff and Daden.
UPDATE 22/7/2011
That was one fast whistle stop tour. So fast, as Soulla Stylianou from Daden kindly pointed out, that I completely missed the Library Guide I should have picked up on the way in: a sort of Heads-Up-Display that lets you take a self-guided tour and draw on extra info from the various giant turquoise i’s floating around.
So I’ve just made a return visit to virtual Birmingham – suitably equipped this time – also taking in the aptly named ‘Book Tour’, an annotated ride taken magic carpet fashion on a giant book. And why not?
I now know amongst other things about the close integration on the project with Birmingham Reperatory Theatre (REP) and, for example, that the practice rooms are for musical instruments, not, as previously suspected, languages.
I also found that for more background to the project, the best starting point is this briefing area, where there’s also DIY training on offer for the Second Life novice.
Lastly, I checked out the interactive control and feedback tools; the simulation lets visitors:
– in ‘annotated spaces’, make comments in the form of smiley-ball graphics that other visitors can in turn comment on , voting an idea up (agree=green) or down (disagree=red). Active votes range from an appeal to ensure desks are made user-friendly for disabled people, to someone who doesn’t like the yellow carpet.
– with a click change the furnishings / decor / mood of an area, i.e. gallery, music, seating :
– vote on multiple choice answers to questions posed by the organisers.
Second time around, I’m still of the view simulations like this, while not perfect, bring an angle to communications – and in this case I guess a consultation – that can’t be achieved any other way. I like the comment/voting system; it will be interesting to see how many green and red smileys appear over the coming months.
Update September 2013
Slide presentation on the project by Daden on Slideshare
When Nature Materials asked if I would write a Commentary on how I saw virtual worlds impacting our lives and science in particular, I was more than happy to share my thoughts. You can access the Commentary(1) and accompanying Editorial(2) by Joerg Heber in the December edition of Nature Materials. The following earlier draft on which the commentary is based, will I hope give Zoonomian readers unfamiliar with virtual worlds a broad introduction to some of their strengths, weaknesses and future potential.
Imagine an online phenomenon that you can engage with today, but which in ten years time will be bigger than the web, run on an infrastructure that makes Google’s hardware look like a pocket calculator, and can already deliver productivity and efficiency gains running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. You would be there for that – right?
Be it ever so humble. The author’s Zoonomian Science Centre
Well – maybe. Because despite some futuristic projections and perhaps a little wishful thinking, we are still not seeing full-on mainstream engagement with virtual worlds: the three-dimensional immersive environments where, video game style, you use a mouse and keyboard to walk and talk your personal avatar around a simulated world.
Yet recent numbers coming out of Linden Lab, owners of the dominant simulation Second Life, give pause for thought. For starters, Linden Lab say the virtual economy based on the in-world exchange of goods and services is now running at the equivalent of $500,000,000 per year. (Linden’s own income derives from virtual land sales and rentals, and virtual-real currency exchange.) Then there is the continuing enthusiasm shown for virtual worlds by big name business users like IBM, Sun and Intel – some of whom have developed their own simulations; and the host of educational and cultural institutions busily setting up their virtual shop, of which the University of Texas is the most recent and sizable example.
So what do the 70,000 or so users typically online in Second Life represent – a small entrenched community, or a portent of paradigm change in the nature of online human interaction? And what are they all doing there anyhow?
Based on my virtual wanderings, I can safely assure you that most Second Life residents are not visualizing scientific data, developing business strategies, or attending conferences and virtual universities. No – they’re mostly just having fun dressing up and forming a variety of friendships and relationships with real people projected into a fantasy setting. They’re also creating some magnificent artwork. I’m all for experiment – so good luck to them.
My own excitement about virtual worlds relates more to serious applications than fancy dress, reflecting perhaps my past life in physical and mathematical fluids modelling, or the sympathy I have as a former private pilot for flight simulation. I’m a recent convert, having discovered virtual worlds only last year while scanning for new and unusual science communication tools. Basic Second Life membership is free but, keen to establish a presence and experiment with building techniques, it wasn’t long before I’d purchased the modest plot of virtual land needed to do that. My initiation was complete when I met up with a team from Imperial College using virtual worlds for medical training – more of which later.
A visitor at a Science Comics exhibition held in June at the Zoonomian Science Centre
Yet mine is a minority interest. Even within my real-world community of science communicators, barely a handful of colleagues have avatars, and virtual worlds are only now starting to figure in the curriculum of science communication courses. Contacts in the UK museums sector likewise give the impression they are in no rush to engage – the argument being that the public are just not equipped or interested.
So what is the perception of users? Geeky at best. That the purpose of virtual relationships can be sexual (use your imagination) is a mixed blessing for Linden Lab: attracting some users and scaring others away. Recent measures taken to separate adult content should improve the balance.
What might it take then for virtual worlds to really take off? Can we expect another Facebook or Twitter-style growth event any time soon? Well, ask yourself why anyone might take the virtual leap? People engage where they perceive value, and that perception changes with perspective. The socialite or keen party animal, scientist, manager, and communicator will each focus on, understand, and value different aspects of virtual worlds.
First, there is a fundamental quality to virtual worlds that makes their use so attractive and could be the key driver for mainstream uptake. This special quality is a sense of space and, strange to say, something akin to a feeling of physical presence. That experience is enhanced by directional audio, such that you can hear footsteps behind you and voices get louder as avatars approach. Regrettably, this defining quality is also the most difficult to convey – you really have to experience it, which is worth remembering if you ever have to sell the concept. Significantly, those implementing the University of Texas Systems’s virtual university – covering 16 campuses no less – cite how important it was for part of their pitch to the sponsor Chancellors to be made in Second Life itself.
Talking points
I have been most impressed by the present and potential role for virtual worlds in education, and more generally as a platform for presentations and even full-blown conferencing. The many hundreds of educational establishments represented in Second Life, including major universities, attest to a pervasive interest in applying virtual worlds to learning. The arrival of large scale, well funded, projects like the Texas University System pilot, which has a research program for systematized knowledge capture built in, illustrates just how serious the ‘game’ of Second Life has become. From pilot studies like this will flow the best practices, methodologies and protocols on which the virtual universities of the not too distant future will operate.
For conferencing, substitution of the many experiences that make up a real-world event is unrealistic, but that still leaves scope for one-off lectures, classroom-less teaching scenarios, and those occasions where the trade-off of a virtual presence outweighs having no representation at all.
Scott Gaudi discusses life on other worlds – beamed in from Chicago’s Adler Planetarium to an event held by ‘Astronomy 2009’ Island – the official SL presence of the International Year of Astronomy 2009
A good example is the Solo09 Science Online conference, organised in August this year, that ran simultaneously in real life at the UK’s Royal Institution in London – where I was sitting – and in Second Life for anybody who couldn’t make the venue. Virtual attendees participated fully in the discussions, and one of the speakers joined from Second Life. And importantly, the cameras were set so that we could all see each other.
The events I have joined have mostly been technically flawless, although the occasional outright disaster illustrates the danger of relaxing real world conference planning standards. Bad planning of virtual world events damages not only the organiser’s reputation but, in these early days, the credibility of the concept. Third party providers like Second Nature and Rivers Run Red with their Immersive Workspaces Solution are offering services to help clients get it right first time.
In the context of public lectures, there is a unique type of speaker-audience dynamic at work in virtual worlds that I really like, whereby protocol has somehow evolved such that audience members can comment and question, via a communal text box, during the presentation itself.
It’s o.k. to talk in class….. A popular astronomy lecture at MICA
This would be pretty rude behaviour in the real world, but virtual speakers in the know seem to engage with it well, taking comments as cues to amplify audience points or elaborate on areas of the talk where there is special interest.
On the other hand, I have a real problem with the absence of any meaningful facial expression on avatars. We take expressions for granted in real life, but they deliver a lot of conscious and subconscious information that is simply lost in virtual reality. Next time you are at a real world event, make a mental note of where you are looking – it will not be the guy’s shoes. And I’m not impressed by the counter argument that expressionless anonymity makes strangers less intimidating to approach.
Private individuals and companies can hold their own virtual meetings and mini-conferences, which is a boon for geographically dispersed teams that need to work collaboratively. The benefits come through as reduced travel time, budget, and carbon footprint – with Intel claiming savings of $265,000 against one real-world meeting. Yet I suspect many traditional corporate managements are struggling to see the benefit of virtual worlds over good video-conferencing; and I do not envy anyone charged with selling virtual worlds to an unenthusiastic management.
The virtual versions of traditional collaboration aids that exist in Second Life, such as whiteboards and laser pointers, are good for highlighting features on slides and building basic flowcharts,but will disappoint those expecting the spontaneity of a flipchart. Yet workarounds that integrate ‘conventional’ two dimensional collaboration tools are possible, and we should remember that for the display of complex three dimensional objects – that can be walked around and entered – virtual worlds represent an improvement over real life. This kind of functionality is attractive to product designers, scientists, and engineers alike. A civil engineer might share a new bridge concept with a focus group, while an automotive designer might explore a vehicle prototype concept or visualise crash simulations.
In a purely commercial role, I can only envisage the most mechanical and uncontentious negotiations taking place across a virtual table; but that still leaves plenty of scope for collaborative activities including product and supply chain development. (IBM holds its most sensitive meetings behind a firewall in their own virtual world, and Linden Lab have just released a special ‘Enterprise’ version of Second Life for businesses.)
Scientific visualisations
Data visualisation and simulation are core functionalities in the virtual world where, in the scientific sphere, chemists manipulate complex molecules, climatologists visualise weather systems, and astrophysicists simulate stellar motion.
Interactive molecule at the American Chemical Association
Modeling of fundamental physical phenomena in Second Life is constrained by the limitations of the simulation’s HAVOK physics model which, designed to support the games and movie industries, is only partly faithful to the laws of physics. Some tweaking is possible, but complex simulations require that visualisations be tied in to external processing. For example, mass in Second Life is independent of material composition but increases uniformly with object size. Different materials exhibit levels of ’slipperiness’ approximating to friction – yet viscosity and buoyancy are not represented. The delays in processing large amounts of information make accurate real time simulation problematic.
3 body star simulator at MICA
Yet within limits, some impressive visualisation tools – often open source and customizable – have been produced. As ever, third party solutions specialists such as Green Phosphor are on hand to help you move data between worlds.
To explore the possibilities of data visualization for yourself, you might set up a multi-body star system simulation with the help of MICA, or get up close and personal with some carbon nanotubes at the UK National Physical Laboratories nanoscience and nanotechnology hub in the NanoLands.
Nanotube animation at NPL’s NanoLands
Public engagement
Virtual worlds are opening up new vistas in public engagement, ranging from the use of interactive but primarily educational displays and visualizations, through to immersive virtual consultations that impact real world policy-making.
A good example of the former is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s presence in Second Life, where visitors can select weather systems from the Earth and other planets, and see them displayed on a giant walk-around globe – complete with audio commentary. While at NASA, the visitor can inspect and be photographed sitting atop a full size reproduction of a Saturn V launch vehicle.
Visualisation of Martian weather at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
My most memorable virtual experience happened on this campus, when I found myself guiding and chatting with some of the 1000 or so visitors who had appeared from all over the world for an open day. Such an assembly of individuals – with the multitude of interests, professions, and languages they represented – could only happen in virtual reality. I’ve blogged about this aspect of virtual worlds before, and you can listen to the short radio documentary I made at the time here:
That event showcased techniques for the training of medical professionals, but virtual worlds are also used for direct patient treatment. It is thought stress levels in patients facing surgery can be reduced by walking them through procedures ahead of time. And for the psychologically disturbed, virtual worlds can provide a controllable, non-threatening environment in which their condition can be monitored and improved – a technique the US military has used to gain a better understanding of combat stress.
The future
While the limited processing power of users’ computers prevents an immediate Twitter-style boom in avatar births, I firmly believe we will see huge growth in both the application and awareness of virtual worlds over the next two to five years.
As hardware costs fall and broadband becomes ubiquitous, the themes of integration and interface will dominate the technical and cultural horizons of virtual worlds.
Technically, a closer integration with communications and social media applications like Facebook, Twitter, Skype, and Google has already started; for example, I can now tweet from inside Second Life. At Second Earth, a ‘mash-up’ of Google Earth data with Second Life visualization is signposting the way ahead.
Second Earth – A mash-up of GoogleEarth with Second Life
An inevitable move to more open standards will free avatars and virtual goods to move between different virtual worlds and other media platforms. The underlying physics models will improve, as will graphics and display technology. We will control our avatars via sensors that attach to, or remotely scan, our body and face; or we might use our brainwaves directly.
Culturally, we may find our daily routine moving seamlessly between the real and virtual worlds, in a future where avatars look and move exactly like their real world counterparts. Throwing off geek status, virtual worlds will become mainstream as more scientists, teachers, engineers, business people – and even some politicians – recognize the possibilities they offer.
All of which makes now a great time to put prejudice aside, get ahead of the game, and start checking out some of the amazing creative content and ideas that await you in the virtual universe.
Update 7/7/20011 – The Zoonomian Science Centre is no longer active, but you can still contact me in Second Life as Erasmus Magic. Or or course drop me a real-life email from the blog.
Tim Jones’s name in Second Life is Erasmus Magic
References
(1) ‘Getting real about our virtual future‘ in Nature Materials 8, 919 – 921 (2009)
The Dutch Royal Academy of Arts and Science ‘Jonge Akademie’ invited me to talk about the themes covered in this paper and virtual worlds in general. Here are the slides from the event.
August 2010 – Linden’s attempt at a business only product just didn’t work for them. Interesting analysis here at Hypergridbusiness.com, including comments from IBM.
In this podcast I meet a team from Imperial College who are leading the field in the application of virtual worlds for medical training. The package was originally broadcast on the radio show Mission Impossible on ICradio.com on 23rd June 2009.
It was inevitable. The indefinable, yet almost tangible buzz of excitement that has for weeks held cyberspace in a grip of nervous anticipation: it all makes sense now. For yesterday evening, to tumultuous public acclaim, the Zoonomian Science Centre opened its doors to residents of Second Life.
Zoonomian Science Centre in SL
O.K. – if my brother hadn’t monopolised model railway construction when we were kids, maybe I’d have gotten this sort of thing out of my system earlier. But all the same, putting this creation together has been a lot of fun and there is a serious side to it all.
A visitor explores the Conference Floor on opening night
Virtual worlds have been with us for a while, as has their use for promoting interaction in science and technology; and indeed, for science communication.
There are many real world businesses, universities, museums, and even embassies represented in Second Life; most of which you can just turn up to and walk right in. I particularly like NASA’a site, despite their copy restrictions preventing my placing the Saturn V launch vehicle as sentinel to the ZSC. The NASA site is part of what is probably the major nexus for science and technology in Second Life: the SciLands Virtual Continent. The Nature Publishing Group and Macmillan Publishing also have a substantial SL presence at the Elucian Islands – Second Nature – which hosts events such as the recent Virtual Conference on Climate Change and CO2 Storage, held in association with my own Imperial College.
Second Life is the best known virtual world, but there are dozens of others – some, like OpenSim, snapping at its heels.
Entrance lobby (I'm most comfortable constructing as a meerkat)
I’ve previously discussed Second Life here, in the context of societies with boundless resource; and most recently here, when I first bought land and installed a giant gibbon on it. (If anybody is missing the gibbon, don’t worry, she and others are likely to return with a vengeance.) In the former post, I referred to owner Linden’s claim that 70,000 thousand residents were ‘in-world’ at any one time; I’ve seen between 45,000 and 75,000, so that seems realistic.
Entrance lobby and conference level
So, much more importantly – what am I going to do with this space?
As a conventional museum with exhibits, there are no limits – save those dictated by the bounds of copyright and creative ingenuity; but mainly cost – of time and money. Media: such as web pages, music, and movies, can be streamed into the Centre via two media panels. The default is set to this blog, with which you can interact from within SL.
There is also the potential for groups to meet up at the centre to share media materials, films, podcasts etc, and to hold mini-conferences to which a broader public might be invited.
Conference Level
And I guess this brings us to the big difference bewteen a straight web page interaction and an interaction in Second Life. SL and its ilk are spaces where people who are geographically far apart in the real world can meet to share content and have discussions. You might say you could do that sitting at your PC? But then of course that’s exactly where you would be. The claim is that a virtual world gives you more degrees of freedom for expression. For sure, if during an SL discussion at the conference table, a guest gets up and orders a drink from the bar (did I not mention the bar?), then spends the rest of the meeting pacing around, that would send a certain kind of message.
If you want to visit the Zoonomian Science Centre, you will need to register for free at Second Life and get yourself a name. Then come to this location in the Haddath Region. Haddath has ‘mature’ status – so adults only please. The Centre is normally open to all, but just come back later if not; it just means I’m working on the place and don’t want to jump out of my skin when someone walks up behind me and starts chatting.
Of course, the main pupose of the Zoonomian Science Centre has been as a learning exercise for me; Second Nature can relax after all. That said: “from small acorns……”
Oh yes – if you are reading this at the Centre…..Welcome ! Enjoy!
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While construction of the actual building is ongoing, this virtual world simulation in Second Life has been built to help the designers test out the design and make some fine tunings based on public reaction.
Anyhow, I think one of the points of these exercises is to judge first reactions and impressions, so this post is just my unedited walk-through, stopping now and again to take virtual photographs, with a few of my thoughts along the way. For the avoidance of doubt, I’m the guy with the NASA 50 tee-shirt and angry ant buried in my shoulder – don’t ask. I’ll remind you how to make your own visit at the end of the post.
Birmingham sure has changed since I lived here. You appear in the simulation next to an explanatory board outside the library in a large piazza. Real photographs on easels are scattered around the simulation showing how real-life construction of that particular bit of the library is progressing.
I thought I’d get cute and do what I’d do in real life, arriving at, say, the British Library in London: get my priorities right and suss out the coffee, toilets and restaurant. The other important resource is a place to plug in my computer and recharge my phone. And w-fi of course. And a place to sit. And on-line catalogues. And books.
On to a cafe / restaurant area. This all has a great feel to it by the way, with a good sense of space and scale. On the eating front though, I wasn’t clear quite what will be on offer; i.e. will there be various grades of bar, cafe, restaurant, fine-dining etc. Maybe they don’t know yet.
More loos.
Looks like a theatre, although I didn’t manage to get into the auditorium itself. I think I’ll pop back later in the day and see if any of these desks are manned by virtual people. I did bump into one other visitor on this crack of dawn visit, but no project people.
This is cute: kiddies area with kiddy-size furniture and cuddly penguins and stuff lying around. Middle-age man with ant on shoulder hanging around. There was also some attractive Spanish Steps-style cushioned seating in this zone; think my camera jammed on that one.
Some empty spaces still to be developed: meeting rooms maybe? Incidentally, I like the way this simulation lets you walk through the occasional unopened door, or even wall. Interaction adds realism, but fiddly interaction for no purpose – like aligning yourself with a revolving door to get through it – is just irritating. They got the balance here right I think.
So I’ve just made a return visit to virtual Birmingham – suitably equipped this time – also taking in the aptly named ‘Book Tour’, an annotated ride taken magic carpet fashion on a giant book. And why not?
