Moving Stories: Digital Tools for Movement, Meaning and Interaction

dates 2011-2015

Collaborators:  Principal Investigator Thecla Shiphorst, Simon Fraser University

The School of Interactive Arts & Technology, Simon Fraser University, the eDream and Illinois Informatics Institutes at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies (LIMS), along with other partners, have received a grant of $3.1 million (US$ 2.9 million) from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) for a project that will create new knowledge and improved understanding of human movement through information science. The interdisciplinary research team will develop and apply new data intensive analytic techniques to multimodal sensor data guided by movement knowledge representations already highly developed for dance.

Digital Video Navigation and Archival Content Management Tools for Non-linear Oral History Narratives

dates: 2012-2013

Collaborators: Peter Asaro, The New School; Stasa Milojevic and Selma Sabanovic, Indiana University Bloomington.

eDream/AVL collaborates on a non-linear, multimedia history of robotics. The project will enable the intuitive navigation of a large archive of video interviews with the pioneers of robotics, and will present hyperlinked information from other sources such as academic publication archives. This project will enable public oral history archives of audio and video materials to present history in a way that makes it more accessible to public web users, students and educators, while allowing historians to present a curated non-linear historical narrative.

vMaya application enables artists to develop agricultural safety training

dates: 2011-2012

Collaborators:   Professor Lance Chong and students, University of Lethbridge, Canada.  

eDream/AVL will work with Professor Lance Chong and his students to develop an interactive Maya-based software program using AVL's vMaya plugin, physics dynamics and Logitech controller.  The goal is enable artists to work with agricultural engineers and to develop an agricultural safety training prototype for large tractor equipment.

Digital Cultural Heritage Project using Remote Virtual Collaboration  

dates 2011-2012

Collaborators:  Cyprus Institute Researchers and Students, Cyprus

eDream/AVL is adapting Virtual Director to enable remote collaboration among archeologists.  The software allows archeologists to share spatial environments in real-time and move through out the virtual archeological environment and to position artefacts. Each remote user retains their independent point of view while navigating the environment and seeing other remote users as Avatars within the share environment.  Current environments include a world cultural heritage sites such as an historic Roman theater.