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National Museum of Australia viewed here under construction in 2001.

Children from a Canberra Primary School were asked to draw their imagined future vehicles and homes.

As a framework for the children's creations, an entire future city was sketched out by Stephen Duke and developed into a complex computer model.

A sample screen-shot from the interactive design program.

A child in silhouette views her creation onscreen inside the kSpace Theatre.

One of the most popular exhibits at the National Museum of Australia, kSpace is a virtual reality experience that asks children to "imagine what life will be like for future generations". Children use interactive touch-screen displays to design futuristic vehicles and buildings prior to entering a VR theatre to collectively view their models embedded in a 3D world of their own creation.

This highly successful exhibit was crafted by the Australian National University Supercomputer Facility Vizlab. Vizlab staffer and EDM Studio partner Darran Edmundson was responsible for creating the design station software, a project subject to fairly unique constraints:

• Simple enough for a 6 year-old but interesting for age 14 (and up)
• Self-teaching with no prior instruction
• Cannot fail, all attempts must succeed
• 4.5 minutes for a completed design

The solution was a constructor-set approach with constraints to prevent "flawed" designs. Using feedback from test groups of children, artist Stephen Duke and designer/programmer Darran Edmundson created an intuitive interface that starts simply and expands in functionality as experience is quickly gained. Children are empowered to work with colour and texture, functionality, and form as they see fit. Does your house "pod" have a soccer field, a garden, or a swimming pool? What colours and textures should you use? Is your vehicle powered by solar, diesel or hydrogen fuel cells?

In its first year alone, over 165,000 children experienced kSpace, creating buildings and vehicles that were merged to form unique visions of the future. It is a truly marvellous experience to loiter at the back of the theatre and hear the delighted cries of "there it is, that's mine - I made that!"

Pre-Planning

The kSpace concept was the result of a week of brain-storming sessions between Vizlab members and curators from the National Museum of Australia. Financial issues aside, the design constraints were onerous:

• incorporate an interactive VR experience
• be entertaining, but with a theme and dignity befitting a museum environment
• appeal to a wide age range, from children to young teens (ages 6-14)
• handle throughput of up to 200 participants per hour
• delivery within eight months (coinciding with the museum opening)

To guarantee throughput, we quickly settled on a 4-5 minute theatre show. Interactivity would take place outside the theatre in a design stage with children creating models of future vehicles and buildings for subsequent insertion into the customized 3D show. Each child's image - captured by a camera at the exhibit's entrance - would appear somewhere in the show. Including the large screen display in the waiting area to view old models and snapped photos, we had a 3-stage pipeline of photo-capture, design stations, and 3D theatre.

Interactivity

Given that the interactive design stations had to work over such a wide range of ages - all in four minutes with no prior instruction, we opted for a constructor set approach with constraints to prevent "flawed" designs. Even with a limited set of pieces, choice of colour, patterns and location of components yields a staggering number of possibilities.

With a database of components, a grammar for specifying how pieces can attach to one another, and custom computer code to build actual models, we set about creating an intuitive user interface.

The final version that appears in kSpace is the result of a continuous feedback loop of testing and modification. Dozens of children were involved, the success of the interactive portion of kSpace a testament to their helpful advice.

The City

Using his concept art as a starting point, artist Steven Duke spent several months laying out an entire future city, replete with transportation corridors, recreation areas, suburbs, schools, and areas zoned for manufacturing, agriculture and commerce. Even though the flythrough would only last a few minutes (and much of the model would be culled away during optimization), we felt it important to have an authentic framework in which to embed the creations of the children. kSpace might be candy-coloured, but there's every chance the citizens inhabit an enjoyable metropolis.

With the city model complete and a basic trajectory mapped out by interactive navigation in the Vizlab's virtual environment, Drew Whitehouse moved to 3D Studio Max for final animation, integration of the buildings and vehicles sent over by kSpaceDesign, and addition of the secondary animation that brings kSpace to life.

Integration and Control

In the final months, as all the above systems came online, Ajay Limaye set about writing kSpaceControl, the integration and control program that manages the photo-station, plasma display, interactive workstations and the theatre computer. kSpaceControl is a robust Python-based system that continues to handle upwards of 100 shows per day.

Copyright EDM STUDIO INC. 2006-2007