Get practical tools to successfully develop collaborative online learning projects! Virtual museums provide an opportunity to spark learning through online access to multi-sensory information, and collaboration between sources is needed to efficiently and effectively catalog and present material. Collaborative Access to Virtual Museum Collection Information: Seeing Through the Walls presents respected authorities exploring the world of virtual collections, from the identification and selection of objects to be included to providing online access using common terminology. Future possibilities and problems are fully detailed, taking into consideration the need for fixed metadata, descriptive standards, and negotiated compromise. Solutions to difficult issues are provided to allow successful development of collaborative virtual museum projects of all types. A virtual museum can provide users with direct, easy access to information, photographs, drawings, sound files, and video clips. However, discipline-based differences in terminology between collections are as much a challenge as integrating detailed locally-developed vocabularies with more general descriptors. Collaborative Access to Virtual Museum Collection Information: Seeing Through the Walls shows how to best achieve consistent information access by providing studies of successful collaborative museum projects which resulted in the creation of catalogs of material from a number of separate collections. The book helps you to understand the challenges of dealing with an unknown online user community as well as the opportunities for presenting information to the virtual museum visitor that differs from that information available during an on-site visit. Four case studies are presented in depth and highlight practical strategies on the development of collaborative common language for future projects. Extensive references provide opportunity for further research while tables clearly illustrate data. Collaborative Access to Virtual Museum Collection Information: Seeing Through the Walls thoroughly explores: cataloging and the digital collection at the Experience Music Project the collaborative cataloging efforts using Dublin Core to unite local heritage organizations the compromises and negotiations necessary to build a common catalog for multiple collaborating organizations the challenges of creating contextual information that places objects in relationship to their creators and the circumstances of their use the partnership between museums with Native American collections and tribally controlled schools the types of images indexed by museum practitioners indexing procedures and systems identifying potentially sensitive information for inclusion or exclusion in online collection databases Collaborative Access to Virtual Museum Collection Information: Seeing Through the Walls is cutting-edge information for museum archivists, librarians, collection curators, and anyone involved in creating catalogs or providing online access to existing museum collection information.

Virtual Reality is not real life. Instead it is life-like creations using computer-generated scenarios. Human behavior is replicated in virtual scenarios, where every detail is controlled by computers, and in situations that can be repeated under the same conditions. Based on technology and design, the user can experience presence. In the virtual world, users are embodied in avatars that represent them and are the means to interact with the virtual environment. Avatars are graphical models that behave on behalf of the human behind them. The user avatar is a proxy that also backs interaction with others, allowing computer-mediated interactions. Analyses directed to understand people's perceptions, personal and social behavior in computer mediated interactions, comprise a multidisciplinary area of study that involves, among others, computer science, psychology and sociology. In the last two decades a number of studies supported by Virtual Reality have been conducted to understand human behavior, in some cases the implications of the technology, or to reproduce artificial human behavior. This book presents a collection of studies from recognized researchers in the area.

The first full-length book of its kind to offer an investigation of the interface between theatre, performance and digital arts, Virtual Theatres presents the theatre of the twenty-first century in which everything - even the viewer - can be simulated.

In this fascinating volume, Gabriella Giannachi analyzes the aesthetic concerns of current computer-arts practices through discussion of a variety of artists and performers including:

* blast Theory
* Merce Cunningham
* Eduardo Kac
* forced entertainment
* Lynn Hershman
* Jodi Orlan
* Guillermo Gomez-Pena
* Marcel-li Antunez Roca
* Jeffrey Shaw
* Stelarc.

Virtual Theatres not only allows for a reinterpretation of what is possible in the world of performance practice, but also demonstrates how 'virtuality' has come to represent a major parameter for our understanding and experience of contemporary art and life.

A compendium of sweet and savoury recipes inspired by Blizzard's hit online card game, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. Featuring a dynamic in-world design, this fun and engaging cookbook is an exciting follow-up to World of Warcraft: The Official Cookbook. Including food pairings for each dish and tips on adapting meals to specific diets, this portable little cookbook is the perfect culinary guide for weary travellers from Azeroth and beyond.

Virtual Geographies explores how new communication technologies are being used to produce new geographies and new types of space. Leading contributors from a wide range of disciplines including geography, sociology, philosophy and literature:
* investigate how visions of cyberspace have been constructed
* offer a critical assessment of the status of virtual environments and geographies
* explore how virtual environments reshape the way we think and write about the world.
This book sets recent technological developments in a historical and geographical perspective to offer a clearer view of the new vistas ahead.

The concept of immersive multimedia, which is closely related to concepts of augmented reality, brings opportunities in art, education, entertainment, and technology. As such, it is vital to explore the connections between consumers of media content and information parts that come from multimedia platforms. Trends, Experiences, and Perspectives in Immersive Multimedia and Augmented Reality is a critical scholarly resource that offers solutions to the problems that appear in both theoretical and practical dimensions of immersive multimedia experiences on an interdisciplinary platform. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as cyber behavior, human-computer interaction, and transmedia, this book is geared towards digital artists, media professionals, developers, academicians, researchers, and upper-level graduate students seeking current research on the exploration of immersive multimedia through the perspectives of technology, communications, and art.

The intersection of two disciplines and technologies which have become mature academic research topics in the 1990s was destined to be a dynamic area for collaboration and publication. However, until now no significant book-length treatment of the meeting of GIS and Virtual Reality has been available. This volume puts that situation to rights by bringing these together to cement some common understanding and principles in a potentially highly promising area for technological collaboration and cross-fertilisation.
The result is a volume which ranges in subject matter from studies of a Virtual GIS Room to Spatial Agents, and from an Environmental Multimedia System to Computer-Assisted 3D Geographic Education. All the contributors are well-known international scientists, principally from the computational side of GIS. It will be a valuable resource for any GIS researcher or professional looking to understand the leading edge of this fertile field.

Virtual Geographies explores how new communication technologies are being used to produce new geographies and new types of space. Leading contributors from a wide range of disciplines including geography, sociology, philosophy and literature:
* investigate how visions of cyberspace have been constructed
* offer a critical assessment of the status of virtual environments and geographies
* explore how virtual environments reshape the way we think and write about the world. This book sets recent technological developments in a historical and geographical perspective to offer a clearer view of the new vistas ahead.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203169425

Digital worlds and cultures-social media, web 2.0, youtube, wearable technologies, health and fitness apps-dominate, if not order, our everyday lives. We are no longer 'just' consumers or readers of digital culture but active producers through facebook, twitter, Instagram, youtube and other emerging technologies. This book is predicated on the assumption that out understanding of our everyday lives should be informed by what is taking place in and through emerging technologies given these (virtual) environments provide a crucial context where traditional, categorical assumptions about the body, identity and leisure may be contested. Far from being 'virtual', the body is constituted within and through emerging technologies in material ways. Recent 'moral panics' over the role of digital cultures in teen suicide, digital drinking games, an endless array of homoerotic images of young bodies being linked with steroid use, disordered eating and body dissatisfaction, facebook games/fundraising campaigns (e.g. for breast cancer), movements devoted to exposing 'everyday sexism' / metoo, twitter abuse (of feminists, of athletes, of racist nature to name but a few), speak to the need for critical engagement with digital cultures. While some of the earlier techno-utopian visions offered the promise of digitality to give rise to participatory, user generator collaborations, within this book we provide critical engagement with digital technologies and what this means for our understandings of leisure cultures. The chapters originally published in a special issue in Leisure Studies.

We are constantly being told that we are living through an image revolution. In this sceptical exploration of the politics of visual culture, Kevin Robins assesses the nature of our emotional and imaginary investment in the visual media from photography to virtual reality. He looks at how modern image technologies allow us to monitor and survey the "real" world while maintaining a distance which somehow denies its reality. He asks what pressures lie behind the utopian fantasies of cyberspace with its alternative realities and virtual communities. Rather than accepting the fashionable idea that the new visual technologies are displacing the real, "Into the Image" examines them sociologically, as shaped by forces and events in the real world, and demonstrates that what continues to matter is the relation of image and screen culture to the way we interact with that world.

We are constantly being told that we are living through an image revolution. In this sceptical exploration of the politics of visual culture, Kevin Robins assesses the nature of our emotional and imaginary investment in the visual media from photography to virtual reality. He looks at how modern image technologies allow us to monitor and survey the "real" world while maintaining a distance which somehow denies its reality. He asks what pressures lie behind the utopian fantasies of cyberspace with its alternative realities and virtual communities. Rather than accepting the fashionable idea that the new visual technologies are displacing the real, "Into the Image" examines them sociologically, as shaped by forces and events in the real world, and demonstrates that what continues to matter is the relation of image and screen culture to the way we interact with that world.

Like the first edition, the central question this book addresses is how virtual reality can be used in the design, production and management of the built environment. The book aims to consider three key questions. What are the business drivers for the use of virtual reality? What are its limitations? How can virtual reality be implemented within organizations? Using international case studies it answers these questions whilst addressing the growth in the recent use of building information modelling (BIM) and the renewed interest in virtual reality to visualize and understand data to make decisions. With the aim of inspiring and informing future use, the authors take a fresh look at current applications in the construction sector, situating them within a broader trajectory of innovation. The new edition expands the scope to consider both immersive virtual reality as a way of bringing professionals inside a building information model, and augmented reality as a way of taking this model and related asset information out to the job-site. The updated edition also considers these technologies in the context of other developments that were in their infancy when the first edition was written - such as laser scanning, mobile technologies and big data. Virtual Reality in the Built Environment is essential reading for professionals in architecture, construction, design, surveying and engineering and students on related courses who need an understanding of BIM, CAD and virtual reality in the sector. Please follow the book's Twitter account: @vrandbe http://buildingvr.blogspot.co.uk/

This volume presents a wide range of methodological strategies that are designed to take into account the complex, emergent, and continually shifting character of virtual worlds. It interrogates how virtual worlds emerge as objects of study through the development and application of various methodological strategies. Virtual worlds are not considered objects that exist as entities with fixed attributes independent of our continuous engagement with them and interpretation of them. Instead, they are conceived of as complex ensembles of technology, humans, symbols, discourses, and economic structures, ensembles that emerge in ongoing practices and specific situations. A broad spectrum of perspectives and methodologies is presented: Actor-Network-Theory and post-Actor-Network-Theory, performativity theory, ethnography, discourse analysis, Sense-Making Methodology, visual ethnography, multi-sited ethnography, and Social Network Analysis.

This volume addresses virtual reality (VR) -- a tantalizing communication medium whose essence challenges our most deeply held notions of what communication is or can be. The editors have gathered an expert team of engineers, social scientists, and cultural theorists for the first extensive treatment of human communication in this exciting medium.
The first part introduces the reader to VR's state-of-the-art as well as future trends. In the next section, leading research scientists discuss how knowledge of communication can be used to build more effective and exciting communication applications of virtual reality. Looking ahead, the authors explore pioneering approaches to VR narratives, interpersonal communication, the use of 3D sound, and the building of VR entertainment complexes. In the final section, the authors zoom out to view the big picture -- the psychological, social, and cultural implications of virtual reality. Thought-provoking discussions consider important communication issues such as:
* How will virtual reality influence perception of reality?
* What are the legal issues defining communication in virtual reality?
* What kind of cultural trends will this technology encourage?

Virtual Reality Filmmaking presents a comprehensive guide to the use of virtual reality in filmmaking, including narrative, documentary, live event production, and more. Written by Celine Tricart, a filmmaker and an expert in new technologies, the book provides a hands-on guide to creative filmmaking in this exciting new medium, and includes coverage on how to make a film in VR from start to finish. Topics covered include: The history of VR; VR cameras; Game engines and interactive VR; The foundations of VR storytelling; Techniques for shooting in live action VR; VR postproduction and visual effects; VR distribution; Interviews with experts in the field including the Emmy-winning studios Felix & Paul and Oculus Story Studio, Wevr, Viacom, Fox Sports, Sundance's New Frontier, and more.

Written as the successor to Virtual World Design: Creating Immersive Virtual Environments, this book carries the ideas brought forward in its predecessor to new levels of virtual world design exploration and experimentation. Written by an Emmy award-winning designer with 22 years of experience creating virtual environments for television and online communities, Extending Virtual Worlds: Advanced Design for Virtual Environments explores advanced topics such as multi-regional design, game-based sims, and narrative structure for environments. The book provides bedrock knowledge and practical examples of how to leverage design concepts within the intertwined structures of physics engines, level of detail (LOD) systems, and advanced material editors. It also shows designers new ways to influence the experience of virtual world visitors through immersive narrative and storytelling. With over 150 illustrations and 10 step-by-step projects that include the necessary 3D models and modular components, it delivers hours of stimulating creative challenges for people working in public virtual worlds or on private grids. By using this book, novices and advanced users will deepen their understanding of game design and how it can be applied to creating game-based virtual environments. It also serves as a foundational text for class work in distance learning, simulation, and other learning technologies that use virtual environments.

This book explores the nature and importance of sound in virtual reality (VR). Approaching the subject from a holistic perspective, the book delivers an emergent framework of VR sound. This framework brings together numerous elements that collectively determine the nature of sound in VR; from various aspects of VR technology, to the physiological and psychological complexities of the user, to the wider technological, historical and sociocultural issues. Garner asks, amongst other things: what is the meaning of sound? How have fictional visions of VR shaped our expectations for present technology? How can VR sound hope to evoke the desired responses for such an infinitely heterogeneous user base? This book if for those with an interest in sound and VR, who wish to learn more about the great complexities of the subject and discover the contemporary issues from which future VR will surely advance.

Build and create your own Roblox world with this updated, easy-to-use guide. Roblox, the largest user-generated online gaming platform that allows users to create and share their own game worlds and gaming creations, has taken the digital world by storm! With updated screenshots and instructions, The Ultimate Roblox Book, Updated Edition provides brand-new information on game changes and the latest features so you can make the most out of your Roblox game. With everything from instructions for playing the games to tips on creating your own worlds to the basics of coding, this updated guide gives you all the tools you need to get started.

Written as the successor to Virtual World Design: Creating Immersive Virtual Environments, this book carries the ideas brought forward in its predecessor to new levels of virtual world design exploration and experimentation. Written by an Emmy award-winning designer with 22 years of experience creating virtual environments for television and online communities, Extending Virtual Worlds: Advanced Design for Virtual Environments explores advanced topics such as multi-regional design, game-based sims, and narrative structure for environments. The book provides bedrock knowledge and practical examples of how to leverage design concepts within the intertwined structures of physics engines, level of detail (LOD) systems, and advanced material editors. It also shows designers new ways to influence the experience of virtual world visitors through immersive narrative and storytelling. With over 150 illustrations and 10 step-by-step projects that include the necessary 3D models and modular components, it delivers hours of stimulating creative challenges for people working in public virtual worlds or on private grids. By using this book, novices and advanced users will deepen their understanding of game design and how it can be applied to creating game-based virtual environments. It also serves as a foundational text for class work in distance learning, simulation, and other learning technologies that use virtual environments.

The current popular and scientific interest in virtual environments has provided a new impetus for investigating binaural and spatial hearing. However, the many intriguing phenomena of spatial hearing have long made it an exciting area of scientific inquiry. Psychophysical and physiological investigations of spatial hearing seem to be converging on common explanations of underlying mechanisms. These understandings have in turn been incorporated into sophisticated yet mathematically tractable models of binaural interaction. Thus, binaural and spatial hearing is one of the few areas in which professionals are soon likely to find adequate physiological explanations of complex psychological phenomena that can be reasonably and usefully approximated by mathematical and physical models. This volume grew out of the Conference on Binaural and Spatial Hearing, a four-day event held at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in response to rapid developments in binaural and spatial hearing research and technology. Meant to be more than just a proceedings, it presents chapters that are longer than typical proceedings papers and contain considerably more review material, including extensive bibliographies in many cases. Arranged into topical sections, the chapters represent major thrusts in the recent literature. The authors of the first chapter in each section have been encouraged to take a broad perspective and review the current state of literature. Subsequent chapters in each section tend to be somewhat more narrowly focused, and often emphasize the authors' own work. Thus, each section provides overview, background, and current research on a particular topic. This book is significant in that it reviews the important work during the past 10 to 15 years, and provides greater breadth and depth than most of the previous works.

A rare look at the role of special effects in creating fictional worlds and transmedia franchises From comic book universes crowded with soaring superheroes and shattering skyscrapers to cosmic empires set in far-off galaxies, today's fantasy blockbusters depend on visual effects. Bringing science fiction from the studio to your screen, through film, television, or video games, these special effects power our entertainment industry. More Than Meets the Eye delves into the world of fantastic media franchises to trace the ways in which special effects over the last 50 years have become central not just to transmedia storytelling but to worldbuilding, performance, and genre in contemporary blockbuster entertainment. More Than Meets the Eye maps the ways in which special effects build consistent storyworlds and transform genres while traveling from one media platform to the next. Examining high-profile franchises in which special effects have played a constitutive role such as Star Trek, Star Wars, The Matrix, and The Lord of the Rings, as well as more contemporary franchises like Pirates of the Caribbean and Harry Potter, Bob Rehak analyzes the ways in which production practices developed alongside the cultural work of industry professionals. By studying social and cultural factors such as fan interaction, this book provides a context for understanding just how much multiplatform storytelling has come to define these megahit franchises. More Than Meets the Eye explores the larger history of how physical and optical effects in postwar Hollywood laid the foundation for modern transmedia franchises and argues that special effects are not simply an adjunct to blockbuster filmmaking, but central agents of an entire mode of production.

EPUB and EPDF available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Since the mid-2010s, virtual reality (VR) technology has advanced rapidly. This book explores the many opportunities that VR can offer for humanities and social sciences researchers. The book provides a user-friendly, non-technical methods guide to using ready-made VR content and 360 Degrees video as well as creating custom materials. It examines the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches to using VR, providing helpful, real-world examples of how researchers have used the technology. The insights drawn from this analysis will inspire scholars to explore the possibilities of using VR in their own research projects.

The long-standing cultural imperative of augmenting human intellect continues to move ever closer to its full manifestation, described by Marshall McLuhan as an extension of the human nervous system. The escalating blending of immersive technologies with advanced computation has created an emerging domain which increasingly allows socio-technical system makers to produce not only human-computer interactions, but advanced, multi-minded human+computer (H+C) systems. The critical shift toward user immersion within systems of digital information and simulation makes the scale of immersive media's potential impact on human life, culture and well-being unlike that of any previous medium. In Designing XR, Peter (Zak) Zakrzewski presents H+C immersion as a multi-dimensional design problem - a Research Through Design (RTD) zone which addresses the question of: How can transformative design-thinking-based knowledge system complement the existing human-computer interaction (HCI) invention model to contribute to the creation of more participatory, socially viable, and humane immersive media environments? The book lays out a proposal for ushering the creation of ecologically sound augmented mind based on two essential tasks. The first involves a framework for the design, implementation, and iteration of purposeful, multi-minded, participatory immersive H+C systems. The second focuses on the extended reality experience (XRX) design practice that rhetorically invites users to actively engage with immersive systems while fully exercising their autonomy and agency based on informed choice.

A manual for both designers and users, comprehensively presenting the current state of experts' knowledge on virtual reality (VR) in computer science, mechanics, optics, acoustics, physiology, psychology, ergonomics, ethics, and related area. Designed as a reference book and design guide to help the reader develop a VR project, it presents the reader with the importance of the user s needs and various aspects of the human computer interface (HCI). It further treats technical aspects of VR, hardware and software implementations, and details on the sensory and psycho-sensory interfaces. Providing various concepts and technologies, including mathematics and modelling techniques, it allows the reader to formalize, conceptualize and construct a virtual reality project from original thought to application. This book is intended for engineers, computer scientists and computer game developers working on various VR applications. It can further serve as an educational tool in Virtual Reality courses for senior graduate and postgraduate students.