It was article for 3IA conference

1. GAME TEChnologies usage FOR USERS ATTRACTION TO EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES Lavrov a.lavrov@3dteam.ru Moscow State University of Art and Culture 3DreamTeam LLC., Moscow N. Ilyina ni@3dteam.ru 3DreamTeam LLC., Moscow Abstract. Статья представляет исследование вопроса о популяризации получения знаний внутри развлекательной среды на примере проекта Vizerra.com. Он разрабатывается в настоящее время с привлечением коммерческих и академических ресурсов в течение последних двух лет. В статье представлены текущие результаты проекта. Keywords. 3d graphics, cultural heritage, e-learning, computer games, serious games Introduction Currently the education faces two important problems to solve: It is necessary to attract people to studying. The development of video, TV, multimedia services and computer games is forming the new type of students. The new age learners are more particular for the form of the information provided [1]. Creation of applications that combine both educational and entertainment features (edutainment) [2] is one of the effective approaches towards the problem solution. Edutainment applications allow to present large volume of education materials in fascinating form. It is necessary to organize distant learning in the way that the course efficiency, materials quality and knowledge management and control would be at least the same with traditional ways of teaching. In history and culture teaching one of the most important tasks is to involve the student into the process. The interactive technologies usages is more difficult here comparing to technical disciplines teaching [3]. While solving these problems it is necessary to keep in mind that the access to the information should be provided not only to the advanced internet and media resources users, with experience and developed technical skills, but to casual users as well. It is important to provide all the students with easy to use and intuitively clear tools for work with informational resources. This resource provides access to 3-dimentional interactive informational models of world heritage sites [4]. 3D models are created by computer graphics artists on the base of satellite data and photos, modern and historical documents. Vizerra (Fig. 1) project is being realized by 3DreamTeam company under support of technological partners: Emergent Technology, Interactive Data Visualisation, Scaleform, Audiokinetic, Allegoritmic, Umbra Software, Illuminate Labs. Fig 1. Vizerra.com website Previous works Компания 3DreamTeam является крупным разработчиком приложений в области serious games. В конце 2007 года компания имела большое количество наработок в области создания real-time 3d environments. В результате поиска возможностей дальнейшего развития этого направления, была рождена идея создания 3д виртуального культурного наследия. В начале 2008 года был создан первый прототип будущего приложения - локация Мачу Пикчу на движке quest3d (Fig. 2). Fig 2. 3D model of Machu Picchu Прототип был показан на выставке siggraph2008, ряду музеев, историкам и культурологам. В результате, была подтверждена высокая привлекательность получения знаний внутри фотореалистичной интерактивной 3д среды. С середины лета 2008 года начался процесс разработки платформы vizerra. 3D visualization The Vizerra.com project aims to use high-quality computer 3D visualization technologies to attract maximum number of people to educational information on world heritage sites. Due to the projects unites both educational and entertainment tools of interaction with users we expect that it will gather both gaming and educational audiences and provide maximal involving the users into educational process. Both the industries (gaming and internet educational projects) are currently in the fast growth and development stage. The technologies used for 3D content production are the same with computer games industry (Fig. 3), but additionally the detailed information about each location is gathered. All the information used in the application comes from expert sources and is proofread by professional editors. Fig 3. 3D models of Taj Mahal (India) and Tatev Monastery (Armenia) Currently API directX 9.0C is used for 3D content visualisation. To widen the number of operating systems in use the openGL will be implemented soon as well. Besides, while number of PCs of 2008-2009 generation grows, the DirectX API of later versions will be used to improve the visualisation quality. The initial platform for the project is PC. Taking into consideration the popular game consoles we think that project launch for consoles is also possible. In order to provide multi-platform use of the 3D content we have chosen the unified data format - this is nif file format of GameBryo game engine. This format allows to keep semantically organised 3D data for different platforms. Content distribution For content delivery the system of 3D and informational data distribution is supposed to be created. The system will be used by all the applications from Vizerra Suite. The open API for access to 3D models base and information layers will be realized. To provide high failure-resistance and minimise the servers load while users exchange the content (basic locations content and user generated data layers over) the de-centralised torrent network will be used (Fig. 4). Fig 4. Conception of content exchange network Project features Vizerra has following features: Combination of high-quality visualization and detailed information for experts; Support of large number of 3D interactive models that are exact copies of real world objects; The technologies in use allow to represent the information in the most natural way for human perception as a 3-dimentional model of reality. It provides user absolute freedom within the model; The system works via Internet that makes it accessible by maximum number of users and allows to update the content regularly. Resolved tasks At the current stage of the project the following tasks are resolved: A client-server application has been developed. The application allows users to download (update) locations on the local PC and interact with the content. The methods of location data gathering and analysis have been developed. The full cycle production process has been developed. It allows to repetitively produce the exact copies of real objects. The beta version of the project has been launched in internet at http://www.vizerra.com. Further works For the future development of the project there are the following tasks: To widen the audience of the project thanks to reducing the system requirements (both the performance to reduce the requirements towards the users’ PCs and the volume optimization of the downloadable files); To find partners in technical, production and scientific questions all over the world including the sites planned to be modeled; Multilanguage support implementation (currently all the materials are available in English and Russian); To implement the technologies of production and optimization of digital copies of existing world heritage sites; To make the application more interactive and involving; To fill the 3D space with the hierarchically organized multimedia information that will allow the users to get and master substantial volume of historical, geographical and cultural information in the most natural way; To create additional toolset according to the modern e-learning standards that will allow to use the project as the basis for creation of educational programs on history, geography and culture. References [1] A Learner, is a Learner, is a User, is a Customer - QoS-based Experience-aware Adaptation, http://pel.ucd.ie/files/smoebs_multimedia2008_ds.pdf [2 ]Edutainment // Special issue Computer & Graphics. – 2006. – Vol.30, Num.1. – pp. 1-28. [3] E-learning historyEvaluating European Experiences - Edited bySirkku Anttonen, Tapio Onnela and Henri Terho, Department of History, University of Turku, Finland [4] Meehae Song, Thomas Elias, Ivan Martinovic «Digital heritage application as an edutainment tool» // Proceedings of the 2004 ACM SIGGRAPH international conference on Virtual Reality continuum and its applications in industry, Singapore, -с. 163-167