SImple VR Creation

One of the most under-emphasized areas in the booming field of virtual reality involves user-generated content. I’ve noticed at many tech conferences that a keen interest for student-created content options is resonating at an all-time high, especially for folks in higher education.

Enter WhooshVR. These folks are chiefly known for Whoosh3D, a 3D-enabled 9H tempered glass screen protector which comes with its own app.  Whoosh3D enables a conventional smartphone or tablet device to create, convert, stream, and display 2D and stereo 3D content, in a glasses-free format.  But WhooshVR is a pleasant addition to their platform, something I see as having high potential in the education market.

Basically, WhooshVR is an app that enables a conventional phone to capture a

2D photo with a single click, convert it to 3D VR format, and create tilt-view VR photos and video, whereby the edges of the frame expand beyond one’s peripheral vision. Its current photo capture constraint is 140 degree FOV with a phone’s camera and 180 degrees with a fisheye lens.  Interestingly, all photo capture is via a single photo shot; I do not need to rotate the phone or exhibit socially awkward photo capture behaviors, thank goodness. According to Simon Gemayel, CEO of 3DVT: “We're changing the face of  VR content by shifting people from being content consumers to “content creators” simply by using their phone – the camera we all carry around in our pocket – and using it in a way which is natural to human behavior; photo capture with a single click.” He gleams:   “This is a powerful change in paradigm.  Never before has 3D and VR3D been so simple, so affordable, and so accessible. “

The introductory app is free, yet basic. Users can upgrade for additional features, such as the ability to capture 180 and 360 without a fisheye lens; and to access virtually any photo from their device’s own photo and video libraries.  The upsell version will also allow users to access VR and 3D content on YouTube.

From the perspective of the consumer, I see this as a low-cost and non-complicated way to capture 3D pictures and video, enjoying the ability to click through a mass of images using my VR headgear or the auto-stereo display. I can print what I see on a either a color printer or 3D printer and can email or post my images from the app. From an educator’s perspective, I like the hands-free use, enabled through gaze control on an onscreen dashboard. The intuitive dashboard allows immediate depth editing, zooming, and quick visual tweaking. In my way of thinking, it provides an easy way for the youngest children, or beginning students at higher levels, to jump right into the fray, using a tool I consider a valuable precursor to more sophisticated and time-consuming content generation tools. 

VR: Back to School

VRCA.  “Virtual Reality Coding Academy: Teach Your Students to Code” is offering a four-course VR coding curriculum to middle and high school students, tapping into the potent coding meme so popular these days. By the way, VRCA is part of EYEQXL, a company with considerable VR heft, and I presume a contender soon to expand in a greater way into the public eye. 

VR for the Crayon Crowd

When I first saw this technology on display, I knew I had to write about it. I knew our readers needed to know about it, not just because this technology embodies two important trends now impacting education, but also because you really want to try this with your own children or grandchildren. Yes, it's that cool. Really.

This post is about VR for the youngest among us. The crayon crowd. This project emerges from North Carolina State University’s respected Immersive Experience Lab. One among many projects in this lab is the Panoform project. Payod Panda, the lead designer and developer for the Panoform project, explains the value proposition for their solution in this way: “When you think of kids, they really want to create things, but there is no way for them to create [easily] in VR right now.”

So how does Panoform work? Panda’s workflow explanation, along with the pictures shown below, helps explain exactly how Panoform is quite unique: "From our perspective, this is a tool which can let people create VR environments in a really quick way. So you just sketch on the template we have, you take a photo of it, you crop it, go to our website, and you then upload that photo. On a desktop, the website allows you to view your sketch on a flat screen, but the real magic happens when use your phone to do it—after loading your sketch on your phone, just switch to VR mode and put it in a VR viewer (like the Google cardboard). Instantly, you are teleported to the center of the sketch you just created." 

And here's the big change for the crayon crowd: Panda continues: "This is a complete shift in the way you look at a 'sketch'—you just went from creating a paper sketch, which is typically a tiny window into a world you imagine, to an environment that you are inside of and that you can look around in—all using paper and crayons.” 

Interestingly, Panoform is currently provided to schools, educators, and in my case—grandparents—free of charge. Considerable thoughtfulness has been applied to this product in its design, at least for education, in that schools can create their own private directories for storage of student work.  Aside from being a tool for artistic VR creation, the Panoform team is also thinking of ways for using the tool in middle- and high-school curricula for subjects that can benefit from the modaility of spatial thinking. 

Panoform represents a continued and formidable echo of the user-generated content theme, albeit at a much lower grade level. Panda explains: “Our main idea is to get more kids to become ‘creators’ of the art form more than ‘consumers’ of the art form.” Although the technology is neither new nor proprietary, it also represents a creative 'rethinking' of existing technology. No doubt, we are increasingly in the business of producing little geniuses.

Color Me!

The good news just keeps whooshing in on the VR front, doesn't it? 3D Vision Technologies just announced their new app, ColorMe360, an app which lets you “create and live inside your own virtual reality”.  (Here's the Android and the iOS link.)

Here’s how it works: you print a downloaded grid on an ordinary piece of paper. The child draws a scene (like a park, a castle or an underwater vista) and colors it in, using the full reach of her/his creativity. The conversion from paper to digital VR360 then takes place directly on the phone – without a need for a web link or specialty device.  

According to company founder, Simon Gemayel, “we need to shift consumers from being content consumers to being content ‘creators’”.  This is a move consistent with most educators worldwide. He elaborates: “Facebook and YouTube are historic examples of user-generated content being the life force of a vibrant ecosystem. Virtual Reality will not be the exception”.  Sounds like a winner. 

Whoosh! VR

One of the most under-emphasized areas in the booming field of virtual reality involves user-generated content. I’ve noticed at many tech conferences that a keen interest for student-created content options is resonating at an all-time high, especially for folks in higher education.

Enter WhooshVR. Having exhibited in the past at CES and other events, these folks are chiefly known for Whoosh3D, a 3D-enabled 9H tempered glass screen protector which comes with its own app.  Whoosh3D enables a conventional smartphone or tablet device to create, convert, stream, and display 2D and stereo 3D content, in a glasses-free format.  But WhooshVR is a pleasant addition to their platform, something I see as having high potential in the education market.

Basically, WhooshVR is an app that enables a conventional phone to capture a 2D photo with a single click, convert it to 3D VR format, and create tilt-view VR photos and video, whereby the edges of the frame expand beyond one’s peripheral vision. Its current photo capture constraint is 140 degree FOV with a phone’s camera and 180 degrees with a fisheye lens.  Interestingly, all photo capture is via a single photo shot; I do not need to rotate the phone or exhibit socially awkward photo capture behaviors, thank goodness. According to Simon Gemayel, CEO of 3DVT: “We're changing the face of  VR content by shifting people from being content consumers to “content creators” simply by using their phone – the camera we all carry around in our pocket – and using it in a way which is natural to human behavior; photo capture with a single click.” He gleams:   “This is a powerful change in paradigm.  Never before has 3D and VR3D been so simple, so affordable, and so accessible. “

The introductory app is free, yet basic. (In the basic version of Whoosh VR, photos are captured through the app and viewed on the app’s library.) The upsell version will also allow users to access VR and 3D content on YouTube.

I have been playing with the WhooshVR app at work and home, experimenting with both fish hook and other lenses. From the perspective of the consumer, I see this as a low-cost and non-complicated way to capture 3D pictures (and soon, video), enjoying the ability to click through a mass of images using my VR headgear or the auto-stereo display. I can print what I see on a either a color printer or 3D printer and can email or post my images from the app. From an educator’s perspective, I like the hands-free use, enabled through gaze control on an onscreen dashboard. The intuitive dashboard allows immediate depth editing, zooming, and quick visual tweaking. In my way of thinking, it provides an easy way for the youngest children, or beginning students at higher levels, to jump right into the fray, using a tool I consider a valuable precursor to more sophisticated and time-consuming content generation tools. It’s pretty slick.

VR production suggestions

We continue from last week's post:

For students making their own content, the team from NYTedu makes a number of suggestions:

Storytelling matters. Have students put the story first.

Presence matters. “Take us there. Mecca. Antarctica. Yes, take us to an environment, but instead of just seeing it, put us in the middle of it." And don’t just focus on a single experience, but find a way to focus on all that surrounds you.

Comfort matters. VR designers consider the participants as a “guest, not as a viewer." Design "as if you were literally holding your viewers heads." Kevin Alster recommends avoiding the PPS or "potential puke shot” in the design of VR content.

Journalistic integrity matters. “Be a journalist" first. That means designers need to "look and listen more” and “take time to decide what to tell your guests."

Learning matters. The speakers noted the importance of learning learn from each project you undertake. Each time you create, "come up with more…improve over time."

Make the Content

At a recent SXSWedu conference in Austin, however, some of the activities being conducted in the field of user-generated content came into clear sight. Kevin Alster, a learning designer, and Dr. Audrey Heinesen, the VP for product development, both working for the School of the New York Times, provided a presentation on the topic of best practices for user-generated VR content.

At the School of the New York Times, students, budding entrepreneurs, and other interested individuals are able to work with the award-winning New York Times VR Team to learn how to create VR content from scratch. Teaching virtual reality at NYTedu includes design, development, and production in the process, but after running their programs for a full year, they identified some interesting best practices in educational VR content development.

According to Dr. Heinesen, students become excited with “full-on engagement and presence in VR,” but that doesn’t last. Certainly, “VR is just so cool—then we see a drop off.”

 What I learned from NYTedu is that, while the content industry dawdles forward, another revolution is slowly gathering steam. Students are heartily learning to craft their own content. Dr. Heinesen concludes: "We have to move from consumers of high quality content to producers of high quality content.” “[We have to] be conscious creators, not conscious consumers.” Watch out, VR content industry! You may play second fiddle. 

Not Much Content

While recently perusing my LinkedIn feed, I encountered this softly repining graphic:

Of course there's more than a smidgen of truth in the notion being alluded to here. I completely get it. Lots of talk at VR conferences, not much content, though. But there may be some sleight-of-hand at play here. While everyone's eyes are on production companies, and their inability to churn out content fast enough for our virtual appetites, the real action is taking place behind the scenes, and on a hugely grand scale. You see, no one is paying attention to the users themselves, many of whom are busy creating the content needed to speed the virtual reality revolution along its way. That's a big mistake, to not pay attention to user-generated content. I guess you could miss if, if you weren't paying much attention. For more insight, see next week's post.

3D Competition

‘Shufti’ is an Arabic word meaning ‘look!’ It was brought back to Britain after the Second World War by returning soldiers who learned the word from Arab peddlers. Its meaning now suggests taking a quick look around. That’s the purpose of the previous and the next four posts—taking a 3D shufti—a speedy reconnoiter of some happenings in the area of educational 3D.

Competition Announced for Educators

Five talented educators will win a free trip to SketchUp’s 3D basecamp in June of 2016, in Steamboat Springs, Colorado! 

The prize includes:

• Roundtrip airfare and transportation to 3D Basecamp from the U.S. or Canada 
• Free admission to 3D Basecamp and lodging at the event (June 13th - 15th)

How to enter: SketchUp want to see examples of how you teach using SketchUp. Examples may include; class videos or photos, lesson documentation, SketchUp templates, student worksheets, student presentations, pretty much anything else that can be digitized.  Entries are accepted until March 31st, 2016. Learn more about the competition here.

Learning About 3D

In classrooms, educators use 3D for teaching difficult subjects. We call this visualization. In technology education or ICT classrooms, students employ 3D to create authentic products using the tools of the trade, e.g., 3D cameras, 3D video cameras, 3D scanners, and 3D design software. We call this student content creation. Increasingly, students are not only learning with 3D or creating 3D content—they are learning about 3D technology itself. 

The previous three posts in this series focus on the use Google Trends as a tools for learning about 3D in classrooms. (In a future post, I will also show how educators or business leaders can use another tool, Google Books nGram Viewer, to learn more about 3D.) 

These are simple examples, but Google Trends is a powerful tool for learning about 3D and for exploring 3D potential in the marketplace. Two additional resources will support your efforts to apply Google Trends in your own setting:

1. See this support guide for using Google Trends and constructing/conducting effective Google Trend searches.
2. See this article for ideas on how to use Google Trends to support your educational or business goals.