ESRI CityEngine - Creating Cities inside Logos and Logos inside Cities

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The best way to learn new modelling software is to step away from complex data and take a side look at its capabilities. We have used this approach to run through the various features of CityEngine, producing a series of movies based around the logo of the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, here at University College London.

First up we integrated the CASA logo into the cityscape by manually tracing the logo and building a network around it. Via an import into iMovie the result is a playful fly around the logo:




Taking the concept further we built the city around the logo, using the nodes and hubs as interconnected cityscapes. With the city base rising out the sea it presents a different feel to the original movie:

Finally, we used an alpha channel on the logo, allowing us to lower the outline onto the cityscape:

The combination of Adobe Illustrator, ESRI CityEngine, AutoDesk 3DMax and finally Lumion make for a rapid way to create unique cityscapes. The next steps are to integrate actual data.....

Introducing QRator - iPad and Web Based Living Labels for Museums

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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.

The interactive system is designed to be non intrusive while enabling members of the pubic to simply type in their thoughts and interpretation of museum objects and click ‘send’. Their interpretation become part of the objects history and ultimately the display itself via the interactive label system to allow the display of comments and information directly next to the artefacts.

The project is powered by Tales of Things technology which has developed a method for cataloguing physical objects online and capture memories and stories via the Internet of Things. 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.


At its heart QRator is an iPad/iPhone and web based system that allows everyone to be a curator and share their views on an exhibition. Visitors can examine an object before leaving their thoughts via an iPad to create a digital, ‘living’ label that subsequent visitors can read and respond to.

By downloading a free application to an iPhone or android phone, visitors are able to see rolling updates to the digital label after they leave the museum, or via twitter. Participants are also able to take part in the conversation online via the QRator site with comments appearing live within the museum.

Content currently covers two museums at UCL; The Grant Museum of Zoology and The Petrie Museum of Egyptology. he Grant Museum of Zoology is one of the oldest natural history collections in England, dating back to 1827. The collection comprises over 68,000 skeletal, taxidermy and wet specimens, covering the whole of the animal kingdom. Many of the species are now endangered or extinct including the Tasmanian tiger or thylacine, the quagga and the dodo. The Grant Museum is the only remaining university zoology museum in London.

The Museum will offer a continual programme of ‘Current Questions’ for visitors to engage in. UCL is taking the opportunity to rethink what a university museum can be; a place not simply for a passive experience but for conversation – a cultural laboratory for the meeting of minds. Positioning the Museum as a place of experimentation, dialogue and debate.

You can join the conversation by visiting either the Petrie or Grant Museum or by simply heading over to http://www.qrator.org all comments appear live on the iPad screens in the Museum and on Tales of Things.

UCL Campus Life and 2011 Open Day

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With our new MRes in Advanced Spatial Analysis and Visualisation (ASAV) now open for 2011/2012 entry. We thought we would post a couple of videos to get a flavour of the unique UCL campus:




UCL Open Day 2010:




Bookings for the 2011 open day will go live at the end of April, in the meantime you can take a self guided tour which is a great way to understand UCL, the campus and the goings on at London's Global University.

The Weeks Media Update

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A quick post with info on how the work of CASA (home of digital urban) has been used and featured in the media this week:

CNN USA and The Discovery Channel both made use of Tweet-o-Meter to demonstrate the use of social media after the earthquake in Japan, including an interview with Steven Gray:

http://www.discoverychannel.ca/Article.aspx?aid=31124 we of course wish the work used in happier circumstances.

Ollie's Cycle Network Map in Wired is now online at:

http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2011/04/start/bike-routes-for-a-city-with-no-tube

Tales of Things was featured on ABC Australia, looking into Mass urbanisation: why do we flock together?

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/futuretense/stories/2011/3153206.htm#transcript

It was described as a mix of Facebook, The Antiques Roadshow and eBay.

QRator (our QRCode Museum interactive signage work in association with The Centre for Digital Humanities) featured on the New Scientist site:

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2011/03/a-new-lease-of-life-for-extinct-animals.html

Finally, QRator can also been seen on BBC Science with a nice video showing QRator in action:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12711455

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