TidalBlog

First attempt at a Biozone OAR

2012-01-22T21:46:00.004Z

As I am temporarily resident at Dreamland Metaverse, I took the opportunity to start to compile an OAR. In this case I think it is more awful than oarsome but I can't see my having the time to do much more in the immediate future and I don't want to come to the end of my stay without doing something (my flight from SL was chaos incarnate in retrospect).

It comes with more imperfections than explanations so please don't redistribute it at this stage. Readers of this blog will have a vague idea of what it's meant to be about even if it's riddled with bugs and errors.

Some small elements expect a MOAP- and mesh-enabled viewer. I haven't tried it with Sim-on-a stick and the file size is 17.6 Mb. I've left it uncompressed so you can upload directly if you or your provider prefer (Dreamland works that way). No warranty of any kind, thoughts on licence to follow (some form of CC).

Please play nice.

Nu Athens

2012-01-13T23:31:00.005Z

This is part of the atmospheric but alas unfinished Nu Athens RP build by Lordfly Digeridoo who is best known by educators for much of the Clever Zebra architecture in SL. I mention it here (a) because it's a great build and available as an OAR (well, more properly an xml2 file, iirc), and (b) because I have a temporary standalone rental with Dreamland Metaverse.

I need the space in the coming term as well as OpenSim 0.7.3 for mesh and OARs for flexibility. Kudos to Snoopy who runs DM for a very smooth and rapid registration and deployment system. I and my students can still hypergrid to NWG without problems and DM have a great web interface for support of OAR/IAR archiving so I can play with great builds such as this.

Mixing mesh with MOAP to faux texture molecules

2012-01-09T18:12:00.011Z

I now have a number of potential strategies for colour-coding the mesh molecules:

use 3Dcoat, BlackSmith3D or Blender to generate UV textures
split the molecules into structure-based components in Chimera, import, add colour conventionally inworld and reassemble (harder than it sounds as the parts seem to get distorted)
import the protein into Blender, split it there, make textures for individual parts and then reassemble inworld (it works for Austin Tait)
use prims to highlight the structural elements
use MOAP to live paint the mesh

The movie shows the latter two approaches. In the background with transparent prims added is the entire cholera toxin reduced to 21000 faces in MeshLab after export from Chimera in .wrl format.

In the foreground are the beta strands of chain A coloured using MOAP. The web app I am using is Twiddla and you can see two problems. Firstly, I have no menu and hence can't change colour and secondly I have a problem with brush strokes being replicated, either due to there being multiple repeats or too large a pen size. The balance is certainly not right yet.

Ultimately it may be possible to use a grid to direct texturing as is often done with sculpted prims and hence to have a mix of inworld and offworld texturing and perhaps more than one person active at a time. One approach would be to paint one part of the molecule in red, change the red colour offworld and then paint the next part inworld in red.

Whether a static texture could be imported subsequently to replace the MOAP remains to be seen. The twin redeeming features of this approach is that perfection is not required and the tools and conception are relatively accessible.

Mesh proteins: the quest continues

2012-01-06T22:01:00.008Z

You may recall that I made some mesh proteins and other biological structures in SL in the very early days following the release of mesh. I'm now trying to improve the process but it is far from simple.

The ribbon-like structures you can see above represent the A chain of cholera toxin [PDB: 1xtc] in cartoon format as exported from UCSF Chimera. The more bulky structure is a surface model for the entire toxin. You will note that some of the ribbon structures appear latticed. These were exported from Chimera in X3D format. By contrast, exporting in stl format preserves the cartoon structure intact (an improvement). In both cases the structures were further processed in MeshLab (using Quadric Edge Collapse Decimation) to reduce the face count to 20000 and convert the structure to dae (COLLADA) format. So far so good. (updated 7 Jan 2012 for latest Chimera version).

The problem comes when you try to generate a UV map to colour the three different structure types. I've tried a couple of approaches. Firstly, I broke the molecule into parts in Chimera and exported the three parts separately before colouring them inworld and attempting to put them back together (structure in background). Notionally that is very simple but in practice it had me going goggle-eyed, even with the white template structure to work from.

The second approach involved "painting" the molecule using one or more packages designed for the purpose. Again, using the obj format file seemed best in terms of compatibility. Thus far the packages that look most hopeful are 3DCoat (trial version) and the free version of BlackSmith3D. While the former appears much easier to use, the latter works OK too and I was able to generate and export a painted UV map from it. The problem I am now faced with, however, is aligning the texture on the mesh. The structure at the front right should be mostly red with a few green splodges (it's just a test); it's mainly splodges.

It may sound odd given the distressed image above (and do click through for detail) but I'm actually quite pleased with this progress, albeit that there's every chance I'm missing more obvious solutions (do tell!). At the moment I run OpenSim 0.7.2 as Sim-on-a-Stick, upload the mesh using SL Viewer 3 and use Dolphin 3 for viewing.

Don't yawn: yet another hypergrid group teleporter

2012-01-06T11:43:00.000Z

There has been interest lately in standardizing on a hypergrid teleporter design. Gates are much loved by sci-fi fans but there are other options such as the searchable hgurl boards. Personally, I think it too early to settle for one design, not least because the gizmos are not always in evidence and one design rarely fits all. That said, I do like the idea of a common icon to identify such devices.

Gates have the advantage that they are readily identified and groups of people can be channelled through them relatively easily. English people will also appreciate the opportunity to form a queue although this can be challenging for n00bs. Many variations on the gate theme have been devised. I like the in-sim teleport gates on the NWG Physics region as you can see what your destination looks like.

As far as groups are concerned, another option is a script that collects avatar touches and force teleports the "touchees" at intervals. This is particularly good for larger groups whose simultaneous arrival might otherwise overwhelm the receiving region. However, it does suffer from being somewhat mundane. The example used by the HGAC was based on a New York cab. While that's a nice touch, it is not very immersive -- you don't actually get in the taxi. Incidentally, the HGAC is back in session now that jokaydiaGrid has moved to OpenSim 0.7.2.

The design here involves the owner setting a destination based on a notecard-driven dialog (a search option would be nice but at least the teacher can specify/limit the regions available). A particle-based image of the destination then appears although this preseently suffers from persistence issues with the previous image. In a perfect world a map or a sculpted terrain prim might also appear, plus data on current occupancy. It would also be good to extend usage rights to named avatars on a notecard, e.g. other teachers.

The teacher then selects the Rez option to make the teleport sphere appear. The sphere senses nearby avatars and visits them one-by-one based on proximity to the teleporter (nearest go first). Avatars receive an alert by IM when their turn comes. If the avatar touches the sphere, it is teleported; otherwise (as with the first avatar in the movie), the sphere waits a short while before moving onto the next avatar in the list. It self-deletes when the list is exhausted.

The net effect is in my opinion pleasingly kinetic (although the sphere movement is physics-based so your avatar may get swiped), teleporting is phased (remember, good for groups) and avatars can readily see what is happening.

The downside is that avatars need to stay where they were sensed and there will be some lag generated by the script though that might be mitigated a little by using an OSSL function rather than llSensor. For some reason the physics movement also fails to run on at least one other grid I've tried (but that could be the sandbox settings). I think there's also a limit on the number of avatars that can be sensed though it would be easy enough to setup a second teleporter nearby. The teleport prim is current temprez but that is easily fixed.

With the proviso that I haven't tried this out for real, it looks like an interesting variation on the group teleporter theme. The main issue, of course, is finding good places to visit and there teleporters are of limited use. This is an issue I will return to in a later blog.

What's missing from this picture?

2012-01-03T18:30:00.004Z

Spacecraft? Prim dinosuars? A comical caption? None of these but rather the the green waves that emanate from the white blob/aerial that hovers above avatars when they are using voice to chat (the blobs and waves don't appear in viewer snapshots by default).

John Rogate has Vivox voice working on a couple of the Educator Enclave OSgrid regions including the one above. While I cannily demonstrated my lack of facility with voice in Imprudence, I did make a slight contribution by demonstrating that voice can be used by avatars arriving from other grids by hypergrid teleport (NWG in my case). The voice is also fully spatial; when you choose to attach it to the avatar camera, the volume changes as you move the camera around, just like SL.

If I was going for a quasi-comical caption it would probably be along the lines of "Dr Livingstone, I presume". However, the caption also underpins a resolution to get out and see more of the grid with an emphasis, of course, on education. Formerly this was done under the excellent auspices of the Hypergrid Adventurers Club but this hasn't met in its regular slot for months now and, rather than wait any longer, I think it's time for me to move on.

In which I pose some questions and return to Romenna

2012-01-02T19:21:00.008Z

I think this is where I'm supposed to make predictions but instead I'll ask some questions about 2012 without pretending to know the answers:

Will Kokua, the successor to the Imprudence viewer, be released and will it be SL MOAP- and mesh-compatible?
Will a useful hypergrid directory be compiled?
Will the HyperGrid Adventurers Club (HGAC) start meeting regularly again?
Will Kitely launch its subscription model and help educators and their students gain access?
Will Enclave Harbor open its doors?
Will New World Grid upgrade to OpenSim 0.7.2?
Will OpenSim move into beta?

If you want some good news, Vivox (the voice engine used by SL) is being made available gratis to non-profit OpenSim grids and many commercial grids are adopting it as well. That should make a big difference to language teachers and their students.

And just as importantly, I can report that the mythical city of Romenna has survived the transition to OpenSim 0.7.2. One of the earliest (24 Jan 2011) and most impressive destinations for the HGAC, Romenna was the creation of Nick Lassard and runs on the very low-power PMgrid (don't bring a friend, don't even cough). PMgrid is centred at 7000, 7000 and now runs OpenSim 0.7.2. Accordingly it is easily accessed via NWG and FrancoGrid using the address secondlife://www.pmgrid.org:8002/. Once on PMgrid, do a map search for Rom and the list of sims will appear. Select your sim and then be incredibly patient and expect to use your alt-zoom camera skills rather than move your avatar.

Then-and-now screenshots suggest that not much has changed since the HGAC visit apart from the move to 0.7.2 and it would not surprise me if the sim never saw its intended RP use. Tangentially, there is a conference in Cardiff in January on the subject of digital preservation of video games and virtual worlds. I have seen many excellent builds in OpenSim lately but have to say that Romenna would be a shoo-in for me even though it has some rough edges.

The bonus image below shows where I ended up when I fell through a gap and ended up in the sewers. I am happy to report that there was indeed light at the end of the tunnel.

Happy New Year!

Merry Whatever!!

2011-12-23T12:07:00.002Z

I had all sorts of great plans for the image above but apparently "Done is better than perfect". Whatever it is that you celebrate at this time of year, I hope it's a good one and that next year is kind to you too.

Clothes and spex courtesy of New World Grid. No idea where I got the skin/shape from (ReactionGrid?). Shoes (possibly). Windlight setting (it's a mystery). Single prim sculpty deck from The Fairy Godmother a.k.a. Linda Kellie, ditto icicles and tree.

Lives at War

2011-12-22T14:05:00.007Z

This is a Unity3D-based schools-level (KS2-4) history "game" that enables students to experience life during World War II in Bright Town, a coastal resort in the South of England. It was released in 2011 by Corporation Pop and I found it to be both immersive and evocative with high production values. The game can be played online in the browser or downloaded (you will probably need to install the Unity3D plugin). There is also a multi-player version though this requires you to make a special application; there is clearly some concern about potential misuse, e.g. no profanity filters.

You have the opportunity to enter the sim as a male or female avatar and to explore the centre of the town either by walking or running. It being wartime, many of the roads are blocked off so effectively you have access to the main street with the cinema at one end and a residential area with an wartime allotment at the other. Most of the houses and shops in the navigable area were inaccessible, including the pub (see sad avatar image above). I thought there was an opportunity missed here to see how commerce was conducted pre-mall, pre-supermarket but I suspect that was beyond the curriculum aims.

You can interact with objects or other avatars (NPCs) and progress through parts of the sim are conditional on successful completion of prior ones. Similarly the NPCs present on the street vary depending on the stage you have reached. The NPCs text chat with your avatar although in practice the chat on both sides is entirely pre-scripted (no AI, conversations repeated verbatim each time) although some chats end with your having to choose between two options.

At one stage you enter a house and navigation through the house involves moving between primary locations via the HUD though you can touch doors to enter rooms from the hallway. This is all fairly obvious but there are no cues as to the nature of the rooms. I was also expecting to open and walk through doors but the experience is closer to the forced teleport found in OpenSim and used by the Linden Realms game in SL. It certainly simplifies navigation in confined spaces.

The avatar camera had physics enabled and, while its motion was damped, it still seemed over-sensitive which made it difficult for this non-gaming SLer to navigate. On the other hand, in some interior scenes the camera is static which makes it much easier to locate clickable objects as these are invariably in the field of view and flagged with particles. However, the static camera position following the transition from hallway to parlour in the house felt akin to "crossing the line". This was compounded to some extent by a sudden and unexpected frontal view of my avatar.

Much of the context is conveyed by modal newsreel or personal archive video clips; there is no way to control playback other than an option to Skip. Some of the instructions issued at the end of clips are shown rather briefly although I managed to work out what was required easily enough.

Sometimes NPCs will intimate in chat that they are giving you objects to take elsewhere though there is no indication of the objects in the HUD or scene. However, recipient NPCs respond positively if you reply appropriately to their questions regarding object possession. NPCs are not animated beyond breathing and do not change location. This seems odd when some express a need to be elsewhere in short order!

The quality of the graphics was very good and contributed significantly though I have seen comparable sims in SL. In particular, I was reminded of the Kristallnacht sim. That is perhaps more oriented towards role play (the student is cast as reporter) with the nice conceit of starting out by breaking the wall between the news room (essentially the briefing area) and the city you are reporting on.

Inevitably Lives at War is somewhat "sanitised". Although some of the NPCs are clearly traumatised, only a little of the emotion comes over in the text chat (perhaps it is shock or the traditional "stiff upper lip"?). Similarly, while you see videos of casualties being evacuated from bombed-out buildings, no attempt is made to show this in the sim.

While billed as a "game" there is little in terms of puzzle-solving beyond locating particular places and NPCs. The gameplay is very straightforward (probably a good thing) and the website suggests that completing the game can take anywhere between 15 minutes and 3 hours depending on how much video you play (I played about two-thirds). The video is not integral to the game but provides essential contextual detail from a curriculum perspective.

The scene changes in the main town area are largely triggered by events that take place while you are in the few buildings you can enter. By my estimation there are 5-6 "levels". The ending, while hardly a surprise, feels somewhat abrupt although you are given the opportunity to continue exploring the sim. While the sim plays out over 1-2 days, there is no indication of time passing. The accompanying video necessarily covers a much wider timeframe.

Lives at War comes with a substantial PDF overview for teachers and the film clips (from Screen Archive South East) are also available on YouTube. It was developed in conjunction with students as well as people who had lived in the Brighton area during the period depicted.

I suspect the default sim is intended to be relatively "light touch", emphasising ease of deployment and use. While I certainly found it engaging, Corporation Pop, a well-known UK SL developer, possibly missed a trick in failing to produce a complementary OpenSim sim-on-a-stick version that students could annotate and remix. That said, I can appreciate that there might be legal restrictions on reuse of some of the material and that the priority was probably simplicity in use.

As a non-gamer, I found much of interest in terms of educational gaming, not least because the usual trappings (puzzles, scores, levels, etc) were either absent or under-stated. Given the current focus on this genre in SL and Jibe, the decisions underpinning the game's design merit close examination.

So that was 2011

2011-12-20T21:23:00.007Z

[festive additions/corrections made 21/12; 22/12]

My finger was arguably less close to the pulse this year but this is what registered:

What happened: mesh and MOAP support in SL and OpenSim 0.7.2, Jokaydia leaves SL completely for OpenSim (nooooo, still there, it downsized -- humble apologies), Linden Realms (for promise of extra functionality rather than the game itself), VWBPE11 (great steampunk builds), SL Viewer 3 (FUI configurable interface), Unity3D (special mentions for ReactionGrid Jibe, Tipodean BuiltBuyMe SL/OpenSim viewer), official OpenSim educator email list, Educator Enclave on OSgrid, iED European Chapter inaugural conference in Madrid (notable for realXtend sessions and Daden OPAL), HTML5, Overte Foundation

Apparently no longer with us*: Second Shakespeare/Primtings (now on OSgrid), Sydenham Crystal Palace (also moving to OpenSim), Dresden Art Gallery (from SL), Kirsten's viewer (closing as of 31/12/11), Jacek Antonelli (formerly lead dev on Imprudence/Kokua, still on Plurk), Rezzable (no longer using SL or OpenSim NB demoed OpenSim ST.ART project in Madrid though preferred platform is Unity3D), Bryn Oh's Immersiva (hopefully a temporary glitch), Dusan Writer's Metaverse blog (temporary since Feb 2011), LEGO Universe (closing soon), Teleplace, virtual worlds category in eduBlog awards, and, on a slightly different note, HEA Biosciences.
* I'm using "with" in the sense that they've moved on, not passed away (but let's not forget Steve Jobs)

Enough already: mesh changes everything (apparently not quite yet)

Drumroll...

Highlighted best support for newbie avatars: Linda Kellie, Fleep Tuque, Vanish Seriath (content creators & purveyors), David Deeds (author)
Highlighted best educational tool developer: Nebadon Izumi & Ina Centaur (for the NSF-funded Universal Campus**), Devi
Highlighted best educational sim: Pic du Midi Virtuel on New World Grid; 1939 New York World's Fair on ReactionGrid
Highlighted best developer educational build: Gronstedt Group NYC Emergency Shelter simulation
Highlighted best RL talk on VW: Ilan Tochner at MetaMeets, Patty Rangel at SLCC
Highlighted best inworld talk on VW: Justin Clark-Casey in conversation with Robin Teigland
Highlighted best blog/Twitter: Nalates Urriah (general/techie), John Kirriemuir/VWW (education), NVWN (Robin Teigland & colleagues, innovation/strategy), Ener Hax (building/strategy), Bevan Whitfield (wider metaverse/strategy), Nik Peachey (Web 2.0), Stephen Downes (OLDaily)
Highlighted best conference: VWBPE2011; MetaMeets2011; SLCC2011
Favourite machinima: The Avatar Machine by pallina60 Loon
Grids to watch in 2012: Kitely, MOSES

** While UC is a sim/OAR, I see it as generic edu-themed tool rather than directed at a particular subject (hence the category)

There has been some comment on a far more illustrious blog to the effect that the label "best" in this context is somewhat mean-spirited given the wonderful work done by so many across the wider metaverse. Given my very limited ability to track such efforts, the above represent my impressions, no more, but ultimately I tend to agree with the criticism so don't look for this post in 2012. And well done, everyone! :)

PowerPoint meet Sikuli

2011-12-11T11:53:00.007Z

This year the students again used the autopositioning prims to locate their multi-texture displayboards. For the most part this worked but the end-product doesn't really do justice to their efforts as most of the textures are not visible at any one time. Laying out the alignment prims is also a somewhat tedious.

The option is for them to use multiple single-texture prims which is, however, a lot of prim work so I'm exploring alternatives. One possibility is to add all the textures to a base prim and have boards rez on touch. I've extended this idea to having a simple PowerPoint layout on the base prim with Sikuli (MIT's innovative image recognition tool about which I've blogged previously) doing the rest. This involves it recognising the appropriate spots, generating a virtual touch and the base then rezzing and texturing the prim which subsequently relocates under its own steam (memo to self: add steam effect).

The video above shows that this works. I've added a camera control seat so that camera shifts to a Sikuli-friendly view without any alt-zoom skills being necessary. That said, the routine eventually falls over because it can't find the centre spot (07) as it is obscured by a rezzed prim. There are ways of fixing that, either in Sikuli or LSL (by rezzing under the sky platform).

The display prims themselves could be customisable, e.g. in terms of orientation and format (sprite vs texture), and joined by particle paths. Indeed, we could go one step further and rez other objects (e.g. molecular models) from the base prim inventory in their stead.

Daden recently demonstrated a 2D web-based scene layout tool as part of their OPAL dynamic scene management system which is the next generation of their PIVOTE solution. Sikuli is rather more prosaic in providing support for staff laying out classes and to students exploring alternative layouts in PowerPoint as a familiar reference point.

Another potential use for Sikuli is in instructing students in the use of the viewer. The latest version comes with an extension called Sikuli Guide which can generate dynamic screen overlays so you don't need to do screen captures or record video. The downside, of course, is that you need to be able to program Sikuli.

A review of my 2011 predictions

2011-12-09T22:35:00.006Z

This year has, for good or ill, seen more than its fair share of surprises and that seems to have affected my predictive powers as applied to virtual worlds in education.

1. Region concurrency will increase to 150 in SL and Intel will further develop their tech that allows 500-1000 avatars on an OpenSim megaregion. Global SL concurrency will start to trend upwards again but stay short of 100,000 (it's about 65-70K at the moment according to Tateru Nino).

Maximum SL concurrency at the moment is just under 70K according to gridsurvey.com and apparently in slow decline so I strike out there. The Lab hasn't addressed concurrency and, while Intel's quest continues (and the US Army project MOSES has adopted it), some unanticipated kudos goes to Aurora-Sim for getting 1001 server-side NPCs on a sim in July using their OpenSim fork. 1 (out of 3)

2. More inworld advertising and advertising-supported web viewer options (already more prominent in inworld search). More revenue generating activity on edu sims that pay full tier.

Er, no. 0

3. Increased gamification in SL and better support for mobile use on iPad and Android, including low-fi graphics. Functional Kinect interfaces will appear but have only niche edu applications at first.

Not gamification per se but SL went more social with its profiles feature and the new-ish CEO championed SL as a platform for lightweight games. Some nice Kinect stuff did appear but it did stay niche. 1

4. Resumption of interest in use of SL and OpenSim for edu marketing purposes, student recruitment, schools liaison, etc.

Seriously? 0

5. Mesh will arrive in SL in February and OpenSim 2-3 months later (as far as the Diva Distro is concerned) but have limited impact initially except in niche areas where mesh content is readily sourced.

Over-optimistic: grid-wide mesh didn't arrive in SL until August and didn't really arrive in OpenSim until the release of OpenSim 0.7.2 in October (a couple of months later). Hard to assess effect, not least because of the high land impact values and the relatively slow adoption by third-party viewers. 2

6. Educators using OpenSim will become major users of the HyperGrid. The corollary is that they will favour hosting solutions that are HG-enabled and that better HG directories will appear.

Hard to say. Educators certainly used the Hypergrid though I had no cause to encourage my students in that direction this year. Hypergridding into FleepGrid did save my virtual bacon on one occasion. The migration to 0.7.2 seemed to break some of the existing Hypergrid directory gadgets. Fleep Tuque setup a list of RL educational institutions on OpenSim grids though it is far from complete. I added a 3D build and a (very) small tp board: 1

7. There will be increased use of OER repositories for dissemination of virtual world content created outside SL.

Investment in Open Educational Resources has generally been substantial (e.g. by JISC) although, oddly, the benefit to OpenSim educators has been negligible. I say "oddly" as there are now a significant number of web and inworld freebie distribution centres for OpenSim content from avatar apparel right up to region level OARs. OpenSim educators are basically doing OER for themselves. That said, distribution of teaching gadgets and subject-specific content is much less advanced. 1

8. Most VW edu users will continue to explore a multi-location strategy, using hosts best suited to particular purposes, e.g. high concurrency vs low-cost student building.

Hard evidence is lacking but I suspect that some of this is going on except where a significant institutional commitment to SL precludes migration. 1

9. Sim-on-a-stick will find new uses, e.g. for pre-event orientation, textbook supplements.

Not yet as far as I know. 0

10. Educators will be involved in maintaining the SL edu wiki.

The wiki history tab shows some minor evidence of non-Linden editing though the Lab focus is now on the Destination Guide and the wiki has many links that are either broken or erroneous. 1

I make that 8 out of a possible 30 or 27%, by some way my worst score to date, largely because of unreasonable levels of optimism given the current climate.

Eats, shoots, glides

2011-11-26T22:03:00.003Z

This is just a brief blog on a new build, viz some content related to bacterial differentiation. First up is Myxococcus xanthus and I thought I would try to show how the organism uses its pili to drag the cell along on solid surfaces, a mechanism that underpins a rather mysterious mode of motility called gliding. The bug normally dwells in soil as a swarm and feeds on other bacteria. With the proviso that almost everything is wrong (cell length, rigidity, additional motility systems, for example), I was quite pleased that I managed to get the cell to shoot out and retract pili (represented by flexi-prims) and move (three touch-activated cycles shown here). Quite how well this mirrors the real-life organism is, of course, the whole point so expect further iterations and hopefully some insight into whether pilus extension is more or less synchronous as shown here (yes, further research required). Ideally, I guess one would use physics-based prims to retract and drag the cell but that is for another day.

What's going on?

2011-11-20T10:09:00.002Z

I'm currently "attending" the annual JISC Online E-Learning Conference. I won't pretend that there's been a lot of interest in what I do but that notwithstanding I have a little space to which I can post on the topic of virtual worlds and hope that people read and reflect. Here is a kind of catch-up post, a bit techie perhaps but I'll try to do the issues and pedagogy in a separate post (assuming time permits). Apologies for the lack of links -- Google is your friend.

One aspect I forgot to include was the Hypergrid. If you're interested in the metaverse more generally, you might like to check out Mal Burns interviewing Fleep Tuque on his Crossworlds programme (and yes, the Hypergrid model gets a mention). Anyway, here is my "pitch":

So what is going on in desktop immersive spaces? Here are a few interesting developments over the past couple of years:

2,400 avatars attended the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference held primarily in Second Life but with visits to many other environments used for education.
Intel with OpenSim and the independent Aurora-Sim project, derived from OpenSim, both demonstrated regions with hundreds of active avatars.
The US East Coast hurricane preparedness training done in SL by the Gronstedt Group was put to the test! Imperial College in the UK have been contracted by the UK Health Protection Agency to demonstrate the use of virtual worlds for emergency preparedness.
UK company Daden demonstrated the Virtual Library of Birmingham to UK and Dutch Prime Ministers two years in advance of the real-life building opening. The aim is for library users to provide feedback to architects and library staff that can be fed into the final implementation. Daden have also been contracted to develop immersive visualization spaces for BAE as well as implementing training and visualization projects for the University of Leicester.
The US military upgraded its OpenSim development facility under Project MOSES so that they could support "hundreds" of regions.
Tipodean demonstrated a new browser that converts OpenSim regions to Unity3D on-the-fly so that they can be viewed using a web browser with the Unity3D plugin. Linden Lab demonstrated use of the Gaikai video streaming service to deliver SL in the browser.
Kitely opened the beta of a cloud-based commercial on-demand OpenSim service supporting OAR uploads and Facebook login. This means that spaces can be readily implemented and scaled according to need. OARs are backup copies of entire regions.
Mesh arrived in SL and OpenSim meaning that some of the less complex content in the Google 3D Warehouse and commercial sites such as TurboSquid (which also has freebies) is now available in virtual worlds. Tools that generate COLLADA output such as the molecular visualization package UCSF Chimera can also be used, as can photo-based services such as Autodesk's 123D.
Both web-based and inworld content resource sites have emerged and designers such as Linda Kellie and Ina Centaur have made freely available significant amounts of generic content (hair, clothing, etc). The US NIH sponsored development of the Universal Campus OAR for UC Irvine which is freely downloadable and covers four regions with high quality multi-purpose buildings and content in a landscaped setting.
Release of the Microsoft Kinect has spawned a sub-culture of hacks, including animation of avatars via real-life motion offering the potential of low-cost motion capture-derived animations for educational use.

Of course, the scene is not 100% unalloyed joy but neither is it the doom and gloom of yesterday's technology that some would have you believe. I'll cover some of the "issues" in a subsequent post.

Go Hypergrid!

2011-11-19T21:02:00.006Z

I extended my orientation to include a level with suggested destinations, both on NWG and further afield in OpenSim but with an edu/cultural emphasis. There are only 10 places in this first edition but I did at least go and take snapshots of them. This first one (above) is the Universal Campus at its home campus (University of California at Irvine) where by chance I bumped (literally) into the creator, Nebadon Izumi.

Rutgers (above) and the University of Cincinnati (below) on the other hand have incorporated replicas of real-life buildings into their regions. Rutgers has some interesting trails to follow as well as the first football field I've seen inworld.

Other institutions include Edinburgh (Scotland), Sabanci (Turkey) and Masaryk (Czech Republic).
I've put the details in a notecard that drives the destination board. You just touch the left and right sides of the image to page through the sites and touch the middle to jump! The board uses osTeleportAgent but also chats the destination so you can use the link in chat history if your viewer supports it (e.g. Imprudence). If the destination is more than 4096 regions away, it warns the avatar that this is too far. Ultimately it should be possible to send it to an intermediate region while chatting the address of both that and the final destination so the second jump can be made with minimum fuss. Wouldn't it be great if a few more TPVs supported chatted Hypergrid addresses?

For those who want the detail, the paper by Crista Lopes on all things Hypergrid is on open access (pdf) this month only.

Hello, 'moto

2011-11-15T23:40:00.002Z

It's been a while since I made an Animoto video. This is just a very basic one pulled together for the JISC E-Learning Conference where I'm offering a session on OpenSim (well, the bits I know about). I don't know whether it will attract any interest but it seemed like an opportune moment to grab a few snaps and let Animoto do its "worst". I used Imprudence to grab the images, shadows, WindLight and all...

SL Viewer 3.2 in OpenSim

2011-11-12T18:23:00.005Z

I finally got a chance to try SL Viewer 3.2, albeit briefly. It basically works as well as any other viewer 2-alike on OpenSim but lacks Dolphin 3's grid chooser. As a consequence you have to use the --loginuri commandline fix to access an OpenSim grid. However, your most frequently used grid may persist in the Linden chooser which is handy at a personal level but no use for classes. As with all viewer 2+ series clients tested to date, it fails to load my main avatar on my admittedly very busy region.

Shared media worked fine on New World Grid but I was unable to test mesh as we are still on OpenSim 0.7.1.1. Accordingly, I used a scripted hypergrid teleport to visit a sandbox on FleepGrid and was able to upload, rez and rerez a simple mesh bison. FleepGrid was a little slower than usual to rez, especially the (sculpted?) trees. The ground texture was also mainly white but apparently that has been an ongoing viewer 2 issue on 0.7.2 (fixed this week).

In terms of the interface, the major change is removal of the widely reviled righthand toolbar. To be honest, I never had major issues with this once it could be popped out without displacing the main viewing area. That said, I do like the new layout whereby you can customise the button arrangement around the left, right and bottom of the viewing area. This means that you can hide irrelevant SL-specific buttons, e.g. to the Destination Guide and the new avatar swap menu.

The file named commands in the app_settings folder seems to determine what is available in the "toybox", the drag-and-drop button repository. There is also a file called toolbars in the same folder which appears to designate the default appearance rather than the set currently displayed (which logically would be in avatar-specific settings). I have yet to play with this extensively but it suggests it should be possible to configure initial button settings for a class, albeit that those displayed subsequently are user-specified unless you use the Restore button in the "toybox".

Anyway, the net effect is that you feel you are getting additional control and potentially extra viewing space. The icons used are good though you also have informative tooltips and optional captions.

The (rather small) IM chiclets have moved to the top right but do the job well enough. Likewise, the chat bar is now summoned by button and manifests as a (too?) small window which can be expanded to show chat history.

While Map search works, the map tiles themselves are not displayed although avatar dots are visible. Again, this appears to be the norm for viewer 2+ on OpenSim 0.7.1.1.

Click on the ground and the avatar does an average job of getting to the spot assuming there are no obstacles in the way. Once in the vicinity, however, he does not settle which is oddly discomfiting.

I haven't played around with appearance but I get the feeling that most of the changes are at the top level anyway. Going deeper, and much as I may have grown used to it, one thing I still dislike is the green arrow that backs you out of lower level menus. All too often you do not know where you are backing out to, choose unwisely and waste time. As a minimum there should be a tooltip on the arrow indicating the next level up. Likewise many important functions are encapsulated in obscure buttons (with gear and plus icons) at the bottom of dialogs. Also, we still have Show, Discard and Block on dialogs where notecards etc are given. Please bring back Keep; this is a much better description of what is going on as notecards, for example, are generally shown by default but only kept if Show is pressed.

On balance I think this viewer represents progress and I would very much like to see an OpenSim-specific version of it. I assume that Search, Profiles and Help can be redirected to their grid-specific OpenSim equivalents or switched off though do not know whether they adapt during hypergridding. All that is required is to remove (or make optional) the currency and shop icons, add a grid chooser and enable chatted SLURLs (or the OpenSim equivalent) for hypergridding. My main avatar loading issues are annoying but not not peculiar to this viewer. More importantly, it remains to be seen quite how the new viewer will be regarded by the key constituency of Third Party Viewer developers.

Primtings on OSgrid

2011-11-07T20:28:00.005Z

I was sad when the Primtings art gallery closed in SL, both for its owner Ina Centaur and for the avatars that would be denied the opportunity to visit. I have long regarded it as an iconic build that I could unreservedly recommend to others so was delighted to see a tweet saying that it was being relocated to OSgrid. There is clearly still a lot to do but the essence is there already. It's easily found using map search; its coordinates are 10055, 9960.

Playing games in Second Life

2011-11-05T16:13:00.007Z

Linden Lab's LR project in Second Life has introduced some new features which will shortly be available more generally, to whit NPCs (non-playing characters), the ability to automate addition of a HUD and the capacity to force teleport avatars to specific locations (in this case if they are killed by rock monsters or other hazards). A demo game has been launched for premium account holders. Further details are available from New World News and the Lab. Some uninformed reportage from yours truly follows.

[CORRECTION: It transpires that the rock monsters are probably not NPC but just scripted prims. 2+2=5]

The HUD feature was requested many moons ago by, among others, Rezzable so it is good to see it surface finally. In the demonstration game the HUD addition is triggered by colliding with a hypergate-type device which at the same time teleports your avatar to the twelve game sims. Once there you visit Tyrah's workshop. As far as I can make out (and remember, I am not a gamer) Tyrah is trying to arrange her evacuation by sending signals via flare cannons and your role is to track down crystals that can be used to make flares.

You then head out to collect the requisite number of differently coloured crystals, all the while attempting to avoid the NPC rock monsters. The HUD keeps track of your score as well as reminding you of the task at hand. Rock monsters are fairly quick but not all that clever so generally you need to be running and, if necessary, get an object between you and them as per the image at the top of the page (note also the crystal under the toadstool). If you get unlucky, you are force-teleported to Resurrection Circles, suggesting that this is not mediated by the standard damage system which would otherwise send the avatar home.

The score is maintained on an out-of-world server so you can take a break and resume play at a later date. It's not clear whether that service is part of the project but crystals of colours other than those required for flares can be traded for credits at the collectors at basecamp (the SL Marketplace is opened but I didn't notice whether any L$ were actually transferred to my account -- remember, this is just a demo).

The sample images were taken without shadows enabled so they are probably not doing the graphics justice. The (not unreasonable) assumption by the Lab is that residents will take these developments forward in some fashion and create experiences that others will want to play. Of course, there are complex combat systems already available for SL (and OpenSim) but, not being an expert, I'm unable to say whether they will have anything significant to gain from these developments. I can, however, imagine that the LR project will be useful in providing a social gaming context for n00bs. My guess, however, is that there will be some significant issues in terms of permissions being handled behind the scenes as being teleported in this fashion would otherwise allow griefing.

OpenSim already has NPCs though I suspect the code will not be interoperable with the SL version at present. The capacity to teleport on collision (and other events such as touch) is, of course, widely implemented via devices such as Hypergates. For me therefore the main feature missing in OpenSim is the ability to automate the addition of a HUD. This presumably involves both server and viewer work but nonetheless would be most welcome in allowing tailored experiences for students to be accessed with minimum friction.

Yay, new phone

2011-10-29T11:53:00.004Z

My not-very-smart phone died and I needed to replace it PDQ. Not having time to comparison shop, I went with the market leader, Samsung, and the (just) sub-£100 "student-affordable" theme of the recent "tabloid" purchase. I'm not a major mobile user but I do recognise the need to familiarise myself with this area.

The eventual purchase was the new Samsung Galaxy Y. "Y" apparently stands for "Youth", i.e. budget-oriented. A quick web search suggests there is doubt as to whether this mobile is much of an advance hardware-wise but it does at least sport a recent Android mobile operating system, namely version 2.3 aka Gingerbread.

It has a low-res 3" capacitive screen and I'm using my mifi for web access which seems to work pretty well. Downsides thus far include the absence of Flash (odd unless I'm missing something) and Unity3D, most likely a consequence of the low-res screen (240x320).

It does, however, have GPS which was something missing from the Tabloid. That said, Wikitude has problems in that you can't interrogate the POIs (Points of Information) by touch (probably the low-res screen again) and Layar and Google Goggles don't want to know. That said, I was suitably intrigued by Wikitude and may explore further.

Pinch-zoom works as expected on the Map app and the web browser. Legibility in the latter is not great so being able to zoom is a necessity. Even so, I can't imagine reading a novel on it (as opposed to newspaper articles from the Guardian app). The phone comes with the Quickoffice document suite. The PDF reader did a competent job of reflowing one of my documents for reading on the mobile. I haven't gone further thus far.

It runs the new Blackboard Learn app and the beta AndTidWiki TiddlyWiki app works fine as does Notestorm, a TiddlyWiki "notebook", albeit with a bit of zooming (I've only tested on the web in read-only mode).

Likewise, I can't see my writing anything significant using the rather cramped virtual keyboard (it comes with Swype too but I'm dubious about that being much better). On the upside there is a radio as well as an MP3 player and YouTube app.

I haven't played much with the camera but, again, it's low-res (2 MP) but reads QR and 1D barcodes fine using the Barcode Scanner app.

The only software issue thus far was getting Google Calendar to sync -- that required clearing app data and cache.

If that all seems a little downbeat, I have to say that, as with the Tabloid, I'm reasonably pleased with the purchase in a bang-per-buck sense. I like the form factor, the phone is reasonably lag-free and its modus operandi is much as expected for Android so the learning curve has been swift. If it doesn't do everything, it does enough.

Mesh-on-a-stick (again)

2011-10-27T12:34:00.009Z

I have a student who is creating a learning activity for a local school. It's only a single lesson but we are investigating the possibility of using simonastick (SoaS) as it is single-user and there is no registration or connectivity required, i.e. reduced complexity, rapid startup. Accordingly, I wanted to know whether she might use mesh as it might save a lot of time if suitable content could be found. I've tried mesh previously but much has changed since then and Ener Hax has just updated SoaS to OpenSim 0.7.2 which supports SL-type mesh. Time to re-visit.

As an experiment I located a free DNA COLLADA model on TurboSquid (use sort by price to surface the freebies), downloaded it, simplified it a little in MeshLab and then uploaded it using Second Life Viewer 3.1, resizing as I went. As you can see, it works fine apart from my having lost the texture and some minor blemishes that I probably introduced in MeshLab.

I then repeated the process with the bison. This was low-poly to start with so all I did was export it in COLLADA format from MeshLab. I lost track of the texture again so I had to upload this separately but it was easy enough to apply in the usual way.

There are lots of issues to resolve but in principle mesh could be very useful. By no means all mesh are suitable for uploading so I'm keeping a record of the freebies I've managed to upload in Delicious under the tag mesh4opensim. That doesn't necessarily imply the models are free for unfettered redistribution as they typically come with their own terms of use. I'm hoping, however, that others might find it easier to start their explorations with something known to work, at least after a fashion. The more I use TurboSquid, the more I think I need a budget for content acquisition.

Is Second Life education "pining for the fjords"?

2011-10-24T16:51:00.005Z

The blog title is, of course, a reference to the classic Python Dead Parrot sketch. The short answer is "no" or, possibly, "not yet", the response depending on whether you are a glass half-full or half-empty type of person.

Using Tyche Shepherd's wonderful gridsurvey.com I compiled a list of 275 regions that at some time in the past four years incorporated the title University or College in their name (and yes, the vast majority looked like legitimate institutions). Compare that with the highwater mark total of 600-ish institutions inworld last year owning, with the non-profits, an apocryphal 2000-ish regions and you can see that I've almost certainly missed a lot. That's expected as many colleges and universities use their familiar institutional abbreviations and hence would not show up in the search. That said, I suspect that this sample is broadly representative.

If I make the (admittedly unlikely) assumption that all these regions date back to 2008, then a surprisingly large number departed in the post-hype 2009 (35 or 13.3%), followed by a consolidation in 2010 (21 left or 9.2% of those remaining) and a not unexpected increase in departures in 2011 (39 or 18.8%) with the end of edu discounts (and despite the Lab extending the discount for those willing and able to pay in advance). If one assumes that this figure will reach 20% by year end, that figure of, say, 1750-ish edu regions last year will likely have declined to 1400 or thereabouts by the year end, equal roughly to a loss of 6 edu regions per week. That seems on the high side; I'd have estimated 3-4-ish from the weather eye I cast on gridsurvey.com, say 150+ per annum.

Of course, that does not necessarily mean that these educational institutions have left SL. They may have shed one sim among several or downsized to an unbadged shared or rented sim. Some will doubtless have withdrawn from virtual world education altogether, others migrated to OpenSim or similar, conceivably on a private grid, and no longer readily countable.

The number of subscribers on the new opensim-edu.org email list now totals in excess of 100 although that is small beer compared to the 6000-ish, albeit mostly inactive, on SLED. There are just 21 edu regions listed on the new site though that again is a major underestimate as few of the sims from the main OpenSim edu providers, ReactionGrid and jokaydiaGrid, are present. They alone currently have 117 and 90 public regions respectively, a total of 207 compared to 144 and 71 (total: 215) at the end of December 2010 (statistics courtesy of Hypergrid Business). It is hard to escape the conclusion, however, that those dropping sims in SL have not gone to the main commercial OpenSim edu providers nor conceivably to OpenSim at all.

In the grand scheme of things, the loss of, say, 150-350 regions from SL is not a huge number compared, for example, to a current total of 24260 private regions. Education notwithstanding, the SL grid lost and subsequently regained about 250-300 sims over the past month, the latter effected by the Lab foregoing setup fees on sales over last weekend.

The question, of course, is what happens next. In principal a focus in SL on gaming and creativity (as a stimulus to becoming economically active) is not necessarily anti-education though I suspect the environment will not be an easy sell to administrators on tight budgets. However, institutions with well-embedded content and courses will be reluctant to go elsewhere. I suspect the Norwegian Blue has some life in it yet.

#change11: third time lucky?

2011-09-17T06:36:00.003Z

This is my third attempt at an introductory post. The first was too boring (this is my third MOOC, hope I last a bit longer this time), the second too whacky (a meta-story based on discovery of a strange calendar device in a space colony mysteriously abandoned by its inhabitants).

I wil, however, use OpenSim (an open source immersive environment closely based on Second Life) and, provided time allows, create artefacts that model my understanding of the course even if I abandon the concept of a meta-story. If anyone is interested in OpenSim, do let me know.

Most likely I will dip in for sessions rather than aim for blanket attendance. Clark Aldrich and Diana Laurillard are standout contributors for me though many of the others familiar and deserving of equal attention. Even if I falter, I will scan the daily newsletter and follow a few links to keep pseudo-current.

Anyway, good luck to the spaceship #change11. Prepare for launch!

In which I attempt to keep track of the future

2011-09-16T15:53:00.007Z

According to what I could gather from the iffy audio of John Naughton's talk at ALT-C (better version here), it's impossible to predict the future. The best we can do is recognise:

The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed (obligatory Gibson quote; I suspect the timescale here is about 20 years)
What's "here" gets mashed together in ineffable ways to generate stuff that gets adoipted or not

Not that this stops people guessing (or my blogging it interminably so I don't forget).

As far as the Gartner Hype Cycle is concerned, virtual worlds, for example, are still in the Trough of Disillusionment, at least five years from mainstream adoption. However, the criteria for emergence from the Trough include evolution of second generation products and this is happening at Linden Lab and more generally.

One approach to second-guessing the future is to get some wise people together and get them to prognosticate. The JISC has done this recently in a joint project with the New Media Consortium. Their "ones to watch" in the near term:

Time to adoption: One year or less
Cloud computing, mobiles, open content, tablets

Two to Three Years
Game-Based Learning, Learning Analytics, Semantic Applications, New Scholarship

Four to Five Years
Augmented Reality, Collective Intelligence, Smart Objects, Telepresence

Many of these have some overlap with virtual worlds. We are seeing more open content, we want to be able to use virtual worlds on tablets and mobiles, they have potential for game-based learning and AR was one of the components of the original Metaverse Roadmap. Telepresence is interesting as it seeks to provide a more authentic shared presence, albeit at significantly greater cost, than virtual worlds.

JISC CETIS also does an informal horizon scan.

Some times it helps to see where we've been. There's a great presentation on the history and future of learning technology by Nick Shackleton-Jones from BP (via Seb Schmoller). While virtual worlds get short shrift around 2003, Nick can't quite kick the futuristic habit as (spoiler alert) we come back to the post-tablet sci-fi glasses in 2020 (or virtual retina devices if you prefer the Rainbows End version).

In terms of what is accessible now, Keele is doing interesting work with CAVE approaches at the molecular, anatomical and simulated ward levels (via Kali Pizzaro). A combination of the virtual and face-to-face has much to offer as Rich White has demonstrated with OpenSim.

Finally, if you want to see a Second Life-oriented perspective on the future, Patty Rangel's SLCC talk based on her graduate studies at Singularity U is interesting. While she talks about VR contact lenses, not to mention mind-control, she also references the heliodisplay technology which does away with the glasses/CAVE altogether (though I guess they could be used to overlay the real-world overlay). Patty's vision is a billion users in 10 years so some way to go yet.

So nothing new really but that's what we expected. Right?

Hypergrid Educators Map and Meetup this Friday

2011-09-07T07:15:00.007Z

There was supposed to be an informal meeting this Friday for OpenSim/Hypergrid educators. Unfortunately a variety of factors have conspired to make this difficult so it is going to be more of a dropin than a meetup. I'll be on BioZone on New World Grid from 14-15:00 BST (06:00 SLT) on Friday 9th September so do come and say hello. New World Grid is now on OpenSim 0.7.1.1 so you won't be able to jump from ReactionGrid or JokaydiaGrid but you can register a NWG avatar and jump to the OSGrid Educator Enclave and visit John Rogate's freebie centres, including the new full-sim OAR from Linda Kellie (but remember to delete any inappropriate couples animations before use in teaching).

I'm not planning any formal talks now (maybe we can schedule a session another time) but if you want to catch Justin Clark-Casey, he is speaking in SL TODAY (7th Sept). Further info here.

If you come inworld at NWG Welcome, you can either do a map search for BioZone or walk into the adjacent building. There's a scripted teleport in the gallery at the end on the right. Just touch the image and that should get you to the sim. Once there, touch the big blue arrow and you should arrive at a sky-platform as per the picture. As ever, arrive a little early if possible. If you're using a series 2 viewer, don't be surprised if you freeze and have to close the viewer and login a second time. This seemed to be less of a problem last week (I suspect caching is part of it) but latterly has reappeared. Regrettably I've not had time to delag the sim so you will have to take us as you find us.

That's not to say that I haven't been doing at least some of what I'd envisaged. The picture above shows a model of the lower left quadrant of the hypergrid centred on the plywood structure on which my avatar stands (click through for more detail) which is at 10000, 10000. This corresponds to Wright Plaza on OSGrid. OSGrid now extends to 20000, 20000 but I'm not aware of any educators beyond the area shown though I haven't investigated ScienceSim in sufficient detail (this has the Newton region at 10000, 10000 -- remember that grids are essentially separate or, if you prefer, overlap as shown here).

Looking into the distance, the nearest blue platform represents the central areas of New World Grid with some green markers for regions of particular educator interest. Below it is the OSGrid Educator Enclave showing as mainly green. Note that these are magnified 100x compared to the region they represent. The maps were made on a best endeavours basis using Microsoft ICE to meld together screen captures and ImageMagick to cut them into suitable sizes for upload.

In the distance you can see JokaydiaGrid and ReactionGrid, the latter being the lower of the two.

The blue and pink quadrats show distances of 4096 regions in either direction, the limits for grid jumps. I've used different colours as the two lower grids are currently on different versions of the Hypergrid so there is no possibility of direct movement between them and NWG. Hopefully that situation will change soon but even then you will need to use an intermediate Hypergrid Gateway (there's a green marker for one on the platform in the overlap area). The maps themselves are possibly dated and in most cases small fragments of much larger ones. Other grids with edu content are missing, most notably closed institution-run grids and non-grid based entities such as Kitely. Of course, presence on the map does not necessarily reflect access but I thought it worth marking the fact that Drexel and UC Irvine have a presence on OSGrid, for example.

Most of the map-based markers are generated on-the-fly from notecards. The data from these are stored in a Google spreadsheet. A separate doc contains a list of educators whose id is used as contact in the region database (well, the list is just me at the moment). Clearly it would be better at some stage if these migrated to a database but I like the idea that anyone can edit, at least at this early stage. I want the markers themselves to be interactive, e.g. to offer a teleport and display metadata visually, but that is for the future. I'll post the URLs for the spreadsheets nearer the time.

Hope to see some of you on Friday!

(hat-tip to Jeff Kelley for the prototype of the map display)

A new day

2011-09-01T07:04:00.000Z

Thanks to Olivier, New World Grid is now running on OpenSim version 0.7.1.1. There are a few things that are broken, most notably landmarks and, until yesterday, llHttpRequest (now fixed -- thanks, Olivier!), but it is very early days and the crucial aspect is that regions and inventory are functional. The llHttpRequest script function is used by a number of my gadgets and presumably also by the HGURL boards that I often use for hypergrid jumps as these are also temporarily broken (now working again after a fashion).

Although mesh is supported in this version of OpenSim, it is not compatible with current viewers and the Linden Lab version rolled out recently. You can upload mesh with Kirstens S21r7 viewer (an old release). However, when you view with SL Viewer 3, only the mesh bounding box is present (the avatar bumps into an invisible prim) and nothing else renders, not even the markers normally present in viewers that do not support mesh. If you want to use mesh (and I've only played briefly), you have to use Kirstens S21r7 to view as well and even then the bounding box does not resize when you change the size of the mesh. The bounding box also seems to persist after the object is deleted so that a region restart is required to remove it. In short, I think mesh is best left alone for the present.

While many of the problems I reported previously have been resolved (my avatar now rezzes in Series 1, 2 and 3 viewers, I can access my main sim from those viewers and shared media works), the hypergrid remains an issue. That said, osTeleportAgent appears to work so I can now use a scripted teleport to get to Wright Plaza on OSGrid as OpenSim versions 0.7.1.1 and 0.7.2 both use the same Hypergrid version. FrancoGrid has also made the transition and I briefly visited the Orion sim on that grid. The viewer map is also non-functional in the viewers tried thus far though map searches do work.

I've been using SL Viewer 3, Kirstens S21r9 and Dolphin 2. At the moment I am leaning towards Dolphin 2 which is simpler than some and feels less laggy too though slightly more prone to crash during scripting. It handles shared media and has a grid manager I can configure. It lacks mesh but that's no longer a major prerequisite. One slight annoyance when building is the absence of support for prim dimensions greater than 10 m.

Another option would be Firestorm which is apparently due out with a grid manager and mesh in the next two weeks but I really have to make a decision before that.

Although some things that were broken now work and, to a lesser extent, vice versa, my general feeling is one of definite progress and things coming together, both for me personally and for the wider OpenSim community.

Given that mesh is a no-show for molecular structures, I decided to play a little with those I already have. I used Pipemaker to build a pathway round the multi-sculpted LysinB model. The model is phantom and the pipe is hollow so an experienced, sensible-sized avatar can walk and fly it. It's probably not the last word in such things as it is actually very hard to navigate, the problem being one of disorientation and steep climbs with twists that require jumps or flight. It's quite easy to double back on yourself so I set a feature that colours a prim. Anyway, a good test of camera and avatar control, a bit of fun and maybe I can build some science into it too.

Tabloid Update: Part 2

2011-08-24T16:30:00.002Z

Good news and bad news.

Good news first: the tabloid (my cheap Android 2.2 tablet) still works!

I've started using Graffiti for input. This is a replacement for the onscreen keyboard and basically involves your drawing shapes on an area at the base of the screen. The majority of the shapes correspond to upper-case letters so are not hard to learn. There's a separate area for numbers and you can easily popup a list of shapes by drawing upwards off the top of the input area. Swapping back to the app can sometimes be problematic though. I first used this app on my HandSpring Visor PDA back in, erm, 1999 so it feels both familiar and retro. It also does word-prediction but some of the guesses are weird and/or earlier typos. Given that input is entirely silent, with not even the tiny pattering of virtual keyboards, it is also potentially seminar-friendly. Retro affection notwithstanding, I am purchasing a (similarly cheap) case with in-built (if somewhat cramped) keyboard.

One thing I didn't expect was the possibility of being able to program on these machines but I note that not only is there potential scripting support for the likes of Python via SL4A (not tried it) but also more generally via IDEdroid which sends your code off for remote compilation. OK, you can't do anything fancy but it's still a neat idea. Again, haven't tried it but goes on my to-do list, admittedly somewhere near the bottom. Proper cross-OS support is always going to be a challenge. I've only spotted LiveCode and PhoneGap as platforms thus far. I'm sure more will emerge but it's not a priority for me. The platform-specific Scratch-inspired App Inventor seemed off the agenda with the imminent closure of Google Labs but MIT stepped in at the last moment.

I'm still hoping to use TiddlyWiki/Space, i.e. the web, for mobile but the interface design issues are somewhat hard to get to grapple with if you don't have access to the hardware. I'm presently playing with a plugin that lets you change the stylesheet and hence tailor the layout to the platform. There's a couple of useful summaries of testing tools/strategies for mobile phone browser (iPad included as link in the second). Of course, you necessarily lose something in the transition so I hope Mozilla come up with something in this era of HTML5. At present, however, Firefox is one of the few browsers that doesn't run on the M009s so that is all for the future.

I am trialling Do It Tomorrow as a simple to-do list app. I suspect I may want something a little more fine-grained though, possibly a TiddlyWiki-based GTD tool. Workflowy also looks nice but does not run well on my system or offline as yet. I suspect it needs to be an app rather than a web tool.

I'm still using and liking Thinking Space. It does play very nicely with Freemind (and the related Freeplane).

In an effort to get out more now the weather has improved, I've used the tabloid both on the train and in a shaded outdoor area of a cafe. Not much good in bright sunlight, of course. Another indoor cafe has free wifi and it worked fine there too. Probably need to find out more about Firesheep and sidejacking issues though.

Bad news: the 30-pin connector was always a disaster waiting to happen and as I wandered round looking for a better signal for my 3G dongle, the USB adaptor and attached dongle detached, fell to ground and the dongle is now an ex-dongle. More generally, picking up wifi can also be a tedious process and I am still getting occasional freezes that require a hard reset. No progress with EduRoam (actually, I suspect it is a dead duck so have not pursued further) so I've bought into mifi instead (basically a mobile wifi hotspot for up to 5 devices). I've dropped this once but it survived OK. It works well on the train except when in tunnels (of course).

Someone alerted me to problems entering text in fields in Blackboard wikis using the default web browser. HTML source mode works though and apparently this is a problem for iOS as well.

I continue to use Google Reader for RSS feeds. I've added a few Google Groups and Twitter feeds as well. While I eventually got the hang of scrolling without firing up the record I was touching, the text display sometimes gets lightly corrupted. How to get stuff out of Reader isn't immediately obvious though there is a "send to" option under Settings for the likes of Delicious. JoliPrint can create a very nicely formatted PDF of a list.

I also have a corrupted icon.

I have learned to live with the battery life. It helps that you can use the tabloid while recharging.

Other news:
In terms of reference management, there's a third-party app for Mendeley called Referey though I haven't tried it and don't know whether it will be compatible. Doubtless an official app will be along in due course (there is one already for iOS).

Surprised to see even a basic Android PDB molecular viewer called PDBs.

ReactionGrid have an early version of Jibe running on Android.

The little company I bought the tabloid from has apparently sold 6000 to date! They now have a slightly more expensive version (£140) with a larger (still resistive) screen with GPS and HDMI output so you can project (on the iPad this is also a function of the app, not sure here). It also has built-in USB sockets (yay). As I'm not convinced that peering at the 7" screen is good for my eyes (though it's a good size for busy commuter trains), this sounds all good although it presently only runs Android 2.1 so I probably will not rush. No feedback either (feedback on the M009s tends to be mixed depending on whether you expected iPad quality for the price). Nice to see manufacturers exploring the low-end given that Android has not thus far been a huge success at the other end.

Indeed, the withdrawal of HP from WebOS tablet development and the large discounts now available on stock have driven the tablet to the top of the Amazon US charts and spurred initiatives to port Android to it. There are also new low-cost Android tablets on the immediate horizon such as the AndyPad and AndyPad Pro, the latter with capacitive screen and HDMI output. Meanwhile Seton Hall University in the US is trialling the new Lenovo ThinkPad. Many are expecting Amazon to enter the fray as well.

The other big surprise was that Google bought Motorola Mobile, in large part for its patent portfolio. Google, Apple and Microsoft look set for litigation wars. Quite how that will impact the various platforms and cost of low-end tablets remains to be seen.

Using Twine to make a path through an OpenSim build

2011-08-24T14:54:00.003Z

I haven't been blogging as regularly as I ought. I have, however, been reading blogs and a couple of articles caught my eye this past week.

First Robin Heyden has some excellent tips for running virtual training sessions. One important point she makes is the need to train students only for the task at hand to avoid overwhelming them with detail.

The second article was by Cathy Moore who describes use of the TiddlyWiki-based Twine to generate e-learning scenarios. Twine itself is a visual editor for interactive fiction stories with passages (aka as tiddlers/chunks) linked to show pathways through the story (see lefthand side of picture above for really crude example).

Underpinning Twine is a specialist language called twee that provides useful macros to manage the reader experience. I looked at twee in the very early days of this blog with the intention of using a third-party information manager called Treeline to generate twee code for processing into standalone TiddlyWikis. However, being purpose-designed, Twine helps a lot in implementing paths through a scenario, visualizing them and outputting versions in special TiddlyWiki formats (Jonah or SugarCane) or as plain twee-formatted text for proof-reading. See Cathy's blog for a better explanation together with the videos by Twine's creator, Chris Klimas.

Putting these two ideas together, I wondered about the possibility of using the client web browser to display a story or backstory to a class, including branches for optional just-in-time help in the client browser. Bear in mind that not all of the following has been developed or tested.

The Twine and twee documentation give the background though some of it, text-formatting for example, is standard TiddlyWiki markup. As with any TiddlyWiki, you can include embed images and html in the document using the appropriate tags.

More interesting, however, is the notion that you could use OpenSim http-in functions to provide links from the backstory to inworld and thereby deliver objects, notecards, etc as avatars click links in the backstory. The problem here though is that the relevant function, llGiveInventory, requires the avatar's key while Twine by default appears to have no macro to set user-specified variables such as the avatar's name or key.

The simplest way round this for my small class (20 maximum) would be to give students a list of numbers as backstory links so that choosing one takes the student to a page that sets the twee variable $avatar_id to a string between 1 and 20 (the maximum number in my first semester class) and a link that returns them to the main pathway. (I've only included two options as branches in the lefthand side of the image above). I'm using a string in this instance because I want to concatenate it to other strings to generate twee code that will represent the URL.

When students login, they touch a prim that allocates a unique number in the aforementioned range while at the same time recording their name and key against that number and opening the backstory in the in-client browser using llLoadURL. You might use OSSL to store this data in a notecard. The connection between the browser is made when they follow the number-specific branch I described above.

Subsequently any backstory URLs that generate http-in links are generated on-the-fly. For example, the code shown on the righthandside window in the picture would create a hyperlink that tells the receiving prim inworld to give a notecard to the avatar who clicked the link. Of course, that requires some complementary inworld scripting in LSL. The prim might just as easily give a landmark for a teleport step, an object for them to rez or, indeed, temp-rez an object automatically.

This strategy doesn't as things stand prevent one student from pretending to be another but I'm trusting the them not to play games with the system!

One of the avatars on NWG has written a much more sophisticated inworld quest system but it depends in part on an external database. Here the "database" resides in the TiddlyWiki JavaScript and I am hopeful that the same system should be usable from sim-on-a-stick without internet connection. We shall see.

Of course, there are downsides, notably coping with sim and viewer issues (crashes, restarts) and communicating back from the sim (not crucial unless you are making the TiddlyWiki the focus or attempting to create VLE/LMS-type functionality). Reloading the TiddlyWiki in the event of accidentally closing it may also be an issue. Bugs in twee macros are also problematic, not least with the continued evolution of TiddlyWiki and web browsers generally and the fact that Twine/twee and the version of TiddlyWiki used are no longer under development.

How would you use it? Clearly you could be very prosaic and just employ it to step students through some inworld activities (as per the example above). Alternatively, you could develop some more or less fanciful role-play scenario ("there's an outbreak of a previously unknown disease -- go at once to the virtual situation room" or "you are gene id xyz: what is your sequence, what's nearby on the genome, what do you interact with and how is your activity regulated?"). You could also have different stories for the same space and have students compose stories to explain a space and then try each others out.

If you read Cathy Moore's blog, she suggests interspersing text scenarios with activities rather than integrating the two as here. Clearly, that's an option as well. As the TiddlyWiki will run fine in the browser on my Android tablet, you also potentially have a means of generating content that can be read out-of-class without access to the sim. As Twine can import and export twee code, you can also author from a simple text editor.

Linden Lab are becoming increasingly interested in using Second Life for games so it would not surprise me if we see more of this kind of activity. For me it is yet another way to integrate the complementary strengths of text and 3D immersive environments.

Mesh viewers and accessing OpenSim grids

2011-08-24T12:46:00.008Z

Mesh was rolled out on the Second Life grid yesterday and a new viewer, SL Viewer 3, was deployed so you could actually see it. Despite concerns voiced by others over the future of the prim-based economy, I'm hopeful that this will be good news once the dust has settled. Linden Lab has evolved a costing mechanism based on prim equivalence that is not implemented in OpenSim where it is left to the good sense of the builder as to what to use (in terms of sim performance) and where to source it (in terms of intellectual property issues).

In OpenSim 0.7.1.1, the version New World Grid will be using from Monday, mesh is very experimental, being an early version of the one the Lindens have deployed. The experimental version in the developmental 0.7.2 code is closer to the current SL experience but still experimental. That said, I've used mesh on 0.7.1.1 running on a USB stick and it worked OK for single avatars. That required Kirstens viewer S21r7, a series 2 viewer, albeit an old one now. According to Daniel Voyager, the latest iteration of Kirstens remains the only third-party viewer supporting the current version of mesh at rollout.

I mention this as I've had problems lately with the series 2 viewers on OpenSim 0.6.9. Avatars fail to rez, some regions fail to load or freeze shortly after entry (sometimes a relog clears this, other times not) and some aspects of the hypergrid are borked, most particularly chatted secondlife:// protocols, a means to execute jumps in the absence of scripted gizmos such as hypergates.

Hopefully some of these issues will be resolved as the version of OpenSim I'm using catches up with the viewers. One shouldn't, however, underestimate the recent rate of churn in viewer development. One feature missing from many of the current viewers is a grid selector that can incorporate OpenSim grids. Indeed, one of the Firestorm viewer team commented on a blog lamenting this absent feature:

We are planning OpenSim compatibility for a future release. For now, we're concentrating on making the best viewer in Second Life. Just getting to where we are now has been a monumental undertaking.

Hitherto, the only viewer with a grid manager and selector that I could find which also support shared media was Dolphin 2. The developer is also committed to incorporating mesh when it stabilizes. I have yet to test it extensively under 0.7.1.1 but will do so early next week.

One unexpected development, however, arrived alongside mesh in SL Viewer 3. Viewer 2 had previously had a grid selector but it basically listed the main (Agni) and beta (Aditi) grids and then a number of (presumably) fictitious ones. As of yesterday, however, the list was mysteriously augmented by New World Grid (thanks @voidpipe on Twitter for the tip who had the same experience with OSGrid). The image above shows the login screen with the part of the Preferences dialog and the grid selector.

Quite how the grid came to be included is obscure to say the least as there is no grid manager that allows grids to be added and configured. The (to me) critical question, however, is whether this (presumably security-inspired) behaviour is replicated on our networks and on home installs. If not, I shall look to Dolphin 2 (and the other viewers if they catch up) or, failing that, the standard kludge of editing shortcut properties to include the command-line loginuri. This is fine for me but less than user-friendly for students wanting to install a client on their home PC.

Obviously the fact that many viewers have had to replicate SL viewer functionality as a first stage of development means that other oddities are likely to occur. Search and profiles, for example, default to SL in SL Viewer 3 on New World Grid which can be doubly confusing if the same avatar name is used on both grids. Telling students that their friends list is OK but the profiles and search are borked adds to cognitive load when Robin Heyden underlines the importance of not overwhelming students during first contact. Of course, these things will resolve given time...

In an ideal world I would probably have been using the Viewer 2 (or 3) version of Imprudence, namely Kokua. With the imminent retirement of lead developer Jacek Antonelli, however, development has necessarily slowed. This highlights two issues: firstly, that it is good to have choice and, secondly, that any choice at all depends on the extraordinary commitment of viewer and server devs, past and present. For that, the rest of us, I am sure, are truly grateful.

Photofly: mesh for photographers?

2011-07-25T11:36:00.008Z

Mesh seems to be emerging slowly onto the SL main grid and I am sure it will not be long in reaching OpenSim either in a more finished form. Doubtless many will be polishing their Blender skills in anticipation or scouring TurboSquid and similar sites for free content. Ever wishing to be different, I am still looking for simple tools that generate useful, albeit amateur, content without months of dedicated training. Such an approach should be accessible to non-specialist students as well.

Molecule meshes, you may recall, can be generated using UCSF Chimera which exports formats compatible with MeshLab (which reads PDB files directly as well). I also looked previously at Sculptris which takes a rather elemental "ball of clay" approach.

The latest tool I am playing with is Autodesk Photofly. In contrast to Sculptris, this works from multiple photographs of the same scene or object so the object must already exist ( have yet to try an inworld scene). You can also generate a movie for upload to YouTube. The door and steps in the picture above are a crude example of what can be done. Image capture was done on my humble laptop so quality is lost there as well.

Significant caveat: Photofly is in beta in Autodesk Labs and presently free to use once you register. That may change; it could become paid-for or disappear entirely.

The process itself is straightforward: take pictures (lots), load the images into Photofly, stitch them (in the cloud), refine the draft mesh that is returned (much tinkering required but omitted here), generate an improved mesh (in the cloud) and then export in .obj format with accompanying UV texture. This can then be processed using MeshLab to COLLADA .dae format for upload to OpenSim or SL.

The steps and doorway shown in the image above are actually the unrefined draft mesh for one of the example image sets as the cloud rendering failed at the recommended quality for some reason.

I had to revert to Kirsten's Viewer 21(7A) in order to import to OpenSim 0.7.1.1 running as sim-on-a-stick. I suspect that most third-party viewers will focus on SL for mesh in the short-term but support will emerge for OpenSim in due course. I also had issues with the mesh physics/bounding box and was unable to make the mesh phantom, the usual fallback position. Again, this will be fixed, I am sure.

As ever, this is not entirely a first. There has been some discussion of Photofly in the SL forums, including mention of alternatives. While still not simple enough for some purposes, PhotoFly and its ilk could lead to a more rapid adoption of mesh than many anticipate, at least for certain uses.

Was this week all about Unity, mobile or what?

2011-07-17T17:15:00.007Z

This week has seen several developments relating to Unity3D although the image above comes from the SL/OpenSim viewer Radegast of which more anon.

Firstly Tipodean announced their OpenSim-to-Unity3D conversion service and provided some nice demos. The benefit is that, depending on the mode, the sim runs either serverless in single-user mode or peer-to-peer in multi-user mode, albeit that some avatar management might be needed (see Unifier later). Moreover, the sim should run on the two major mobile platforms, iOS and Android, as well as the web (with a small install). This answers two important questions: scaling (OpenSim equivalents might be sim-on-a-stick and Intel Distributed Scene Graph) and mobile (no mobile clients with inworld scene graphics as yet).

It's perhaps worth mentioning that Rezzable demonstrated something similar in late 2010 but as yet there is no product or market. Although it only bears a conceptual reference to OpenSim, ReactionGrid have been busy developing their Jibe Unity3D product and features such as mobile, inworld building and hypergrid-style teleporting appear on their roadmap. Just this week Second Places announced their Unifier product for managing multi-avatar Unity3D spaces.

Having been early on the scene, Rezzable have commented at some length on the relative strengths of the OpenSim and Unity3D platforms and the ways in which they might complement one another. Tipodean have made the case for Unity in terms of faster onboarding while Rezzable like the idea of a taster that might eventually lead to download of the full viewer. I think everyone agrees that a simpler first hour experience is desirable as evidenced by the new Basic mode in the SL Viewer 2. Maria Korolov followed this up more recently with a specific comparison of OpenSim and Jibe.

For me (as a non-expert), it seems that OpenSim is preferred if you want low-cost regions in which avatars can rez and interact with content while Unity3D provides a more contained experience with a somewhat smaller install and the ability to deploy on the web as well as mobile platforms. Depending on your application, either might be appropriate and the Tipodean product is useful in so far as it bridges the two platforms. At the moment it doesn't convert LSL scripts to C# nor, I suspect, avatars so there may be additional customisation to be costed post-conversion. Those who have worked to develop their SL/OpenSim skills may also feel a little disenfranchised though their students will know no different in many cases and the early adopters will at least have some experience with the pedagogy.

The spectre at the feast is arguably 3Di who had OpenSim running under Android back in 2010 using Flash conversion but who have now stopped OpenSim development to focus on 2.5D environments.

I also feel a little that way as my new, low-end Android tablet will not run the Unity3D demo games on Android Market so I don't expect to be able to run Unity3D sims except in a browser. That means, alas, that I can't comment on likely usability issues derived from the smaller form factor, for example. I therefore simply observe that there might be other 3D solutions for mobile Android, albeit of lower graphics quality.

Which brings me back to the Radegast viewer widely used on PCs lacking SL-standard graphics cards. Formerly a largely text-based viewer, the development version has now sprouted a 3D option in addition to an object inspector. While not approaching the quality of, say, Imprudence and presently rendering avatars with the default mesh (aka Ruth), the scene can be explored using alt-zoom camera techniques and objects are rezzed in response to touch-activated scripts. It looks like sitting/standing, take/return/delete and rezzing from inventory will all be supported.

Kitely have been promoting Emscripten as a means to convert a standard viewer to JavaScript so that one might have support for HTML 5 and truly plugin-free performance. Radegast would seem to my superficial inspection to be an interesting starting point, albeit that my tablet still could not render the scene as it lacks WebGL support. Woe is me unless Google does some significant magic.

Which brings us to the lowest acceptable level of performance, perhaps, viz something that would take a panoramic series of images, stitch them together, upload the file to a website and then provide a basic viewer that allowed you to spin the image to the desired location, navigate via coordinates/hypergrid addresses and chat. Rinse and repeat at, say, 60 sec intervals. Something like the SL-based Peek360, for example, which runs fine in the default browser on my tablet but is only updated through manual intervention and does not guarantee punctual delivery. Of course, we need something that is not Flash-based (for iOS) and we need additional OSSL support or some kind of libomv-based service as is the case, I suspect, with Peek360. I haven't done an exhaustive search for viewers but this one, for example, scrolls satisfactorily in the default browser. Not futuristic, not elegant and a service that would cost something to run. For some purposes, however, it might suffice "for the rest of us".

Basically, it's all about having options. Options are good.

Tabloid update: Part 1

2011-07-17T16:56:00.000Z

As you may recall, I blogged my purchase and first impressions of the low-cost Tabtech M009s Android 2.2 7" tablet. I am pleased to report that the second tablet is still working and that at the time of writing it is (cue drum roll) the most popular tablet purchase on Amazon UK. This is reflected in an active discussion forum that rectifies some of the deficiencies in the accompanying documentation. At the moment, there appear to be two vendors selling from the same page which is confusing. I got mine from Wendy Lou.

Indeed, it was on the forum that I found the advice to flush the Google Android Market cache in order to see more apps. Having previously been unable to locate Evernote and, from other sites, been told that it was not compatible, I can now report that it does install although it is presently untested. xPressConnect also installs and runs though I still fail to connect to EduRoam.

This is not entirely surprising as many of the Android bells-and-whistles features require hardware and software omitted to keep costs down or inappropriate in a tablet running a phone operating system sans phone. That said, I have found some simple apps that workwell enough.

FeedR, for example, looked to be a nice-enough RSS feed reader with a nice feed discovery search built-in. Sadly the adware version decided to deinstall itself so I'm now looking at Google Reader.

While looking for an Evernote alternative, I happened across AK Notepad. This archives plain text to the freemium Catch.com website. Post-flush I also encountered the more sophisticated Catch Notes app which supports reminders, file attachments, camera snapshots and voice (rather faint on the M009s). It also integrates with the Barcode Scanner app although this failed to run for me so no QR codes as yet. Both AK Notepad and Catch Notes are support the Android Share functionality (sometimes also displayed as Email) so you can very easily send the output from one app (e.g. PubMed Mobile) to AK Notepad and then synch that, perhaps after adding a comment or hashtag, with the Catch website. There is a competing format called SimpleNote that is supported by more apps but most do not use share as far as I can see. It has the advantage, however, of supporting a markup language so text can be formatted after a fashion.

Among more high-profile apps, Dropbox seems to work well enough and I have rediscovered a liking for the Opera web browser.

If you want to move files from a PC to the M009s, it comes with a 30-pin-to-USB connector that seems to work well enough (the phone appears as two new drives on the PC).

I still have not found a means to display the screen but in extremis our lecture theatres are equipped with visualizers.

I guess the question becomes one of "if you have a smartphone, do you need a cut-down tablet?" The surprisingly vibrant sales on Amazon suggest that the answer is "possibly yes". The discussions suggest that the price falls within the realms of a feasible gift and many clearly intend taking the tablet on holiday with them when, presumably, the size, cost and feature set are all considerations. For some the purchase may well be a stepping stone to something more sophisticated or a hedge against the future vagaries of the technology (aka "buy something basic now and see how it goes"). That said, purchasers of the M009s also have to appreciate that they are stuck with the limitations both of the tablet and of the operating system which is unlikely to be significantly upgraded.

There are some interesting data on mobile ownership at the University of Sheffield that show 56% of their students have a smartphone and 25% are thinking of getting one in the coming year. Students often didn't bring laptops to class for reasons of bulk. However, even if they did, many had problems connecting to wireless services and this carried over to smartphone users too. It would seem that my issues with EduRoam are not entirely atypical. Of course, in my case having a 3G dongle obviates the problem somewhat but at significant additional cost.

Given the absence of Flash on iOS, I will most likely focus on web-based development for mobile use with a focus on TiddlyWiki/TiddlySpace rather than app development, though doubtless I will look at that too. In that regard, the M009s is an interesting platform, online or offline.

The Final Frontier

2011-07-07T22:19:00.009Z

This is a new build, one of several intended to mark the New World Grid Open Day in September. It is a long way from finished and what has been done so far has been created ad hoc rather than meticulously planned, i.e. is subject to revision. The general idea, however, is to put a microbiological spin on an old virtual world "chestnut", the space settlement.

There is no shortage of space builds on OpenSim grids or Second Life and mine will doubtless be less polished and less "realistic" than many. NASA has been running a space settlement design contest for schools for some years although not involving virtual worlds. That said, it now has its own Moon World in a closed OpenSim grid.

In SL the Midrivers and SEEDS projects on EDAKent are looking at various facets of living on other planets and have lots of mini-builds highlighting particular ideas and themes. Midrivers also has a presence on jokaydiaGRID (secondlife://66.240.241.41:9004:Midrivers%20Project/).

From Colorado Technical University Cynthia Calongne has played a leading role in development of an award-winning serious game in SL which has the recovery of geothermal energy on Mars as a plot driver. Her presentation notably highlights the pedagogy as well as the structure of the simulation.

There are doubtless many interesting space-themed builds on OpenSim grids, Serenity Island being a particularly nice example by Lawrence Pierce.

Although very much a novice at all this, my focus will be on the role of microbes in sustaining life in a space settlement, including developing and managing an Environmental Control and Life Support System . This potentially cuts across a number of areas, including food, energy and possibly even infection.

For a space settlement focused on mining, for example, microbiologists might be interested in novel approaches to:

biomining
microbiome monitoring and modification for humans, plants and planets (aka terraforming)
synthetic and single-cell foods
waste treatment/recycling
energy capture/generation
production of recyclable biopolymers
biosensors and synthetic biology

There is a long way to go and at the moment there are some (empty) geodesic domes, a slightly whimsical industrial build and not much else. Early days.

In which I purchase a cheap tabloid

2011-07-05T13:26:00.022Z

I did it. I took a semi-calculated risk and got a cheap Android tablet (a tabloid?) rather than wait for the high-end kit to fall in price. My purchase, the Eken M009s, is available from a number of vendors but I got mine as the Tabtech M009S from Wendy Lou on Amazon for ~£80. The first tablet delivered failed to take a charge so was returned and rapidly replaced with a second which works and (bonus!) seems to have been updated since the first (e.g. it had a legible, if not entirely intelligible, manual). The machine is rooted and has, I understand, also been customised with a third-party UK-centric version of Android with much useless bloatware pruned. You can get the same or similar machine for less than I paid (even from the same vendor off-Amazon, less again in the US due to the usual $ = £ equivalence) but it was good to have a relatively pain-free start, including access to the UK Android App Market.

Some early thoughts from a totally naive non-iStuff, non-Android user...

Pro

It runs the older phone-oriented Android 2.2 Froyo and has a 7" colour screen which is fine for reading indoors (haven't tried daylight). Build quality is surprisingly good.
Comes with a USB/RJ45 extension widget so I can use a standard PC keyboard and mouse when available. This compensates for a native onscreen keyboard layout that is much too small for my clumsy digits (I also bought a stand/case so I can use the external keyboard with the screen at a sensible angle).
Detects screen tilt and adjusts layout accordingly.
Can connect to the web using wifi at home and via ethernet at work (uses the widget again). Can also use my (ageing) 3G dongle via the widget.
Runs YouTube videos reasonably well, including audio, and iPlayer via the browser.
Connects readily to UK Android App Market and I was able to download the Mobile Grid client without trouble and then connect to New World Grid (text-only apart from the sim map -- I haven't been able to find a grid map though intra-grid teleports using landmarks work; inventory also nicely implemented). You pay for this in SL. Linden Lab is reportedly starting work on SL apps though I would be surprised if they supported OpenSim.
Runs apps such as Wapedia (for Wikipedia) and Kindle (for Amazon books; pre-installed).
Comes with a selection of three web browsers though I've stuck with the default Android one.
I could also use join.me to stream my laptop running Imprudence to the Android tablet, cede partial control to the tablet and (with a little assistance on the laptop) open the build menu and rez a cube (fun though I doubt I'll be using that setup for co-building!).
Ran the Flash-based Xerte learning object demo although it failed to show the faded background on first attempt.
On the third attempt, I was able to login to our local Blackboard install using Blackboard Learn, download a PowerPoint file to a 4 GB microSD card (the device will accommodate up to 16 GB in addition to the 2 GB available by default) and view it using Documents To Go (which also supports editing of text).
Can use Seesmic app to follow Twitter.
Tiddlyspace runs fine though the layout is presently sub-optimal. There is also an app that allows you to work locally with standard TiddlyWiki (AndTidWik).
Seems to run the core aspects of Google Docs OK.
Can download pdf files from PubMed Central (long press on link to bring up submenu with Save option) and read them using either Documents To Go or the Adobe viewer.

Con

It takes a while to get to grips with the intricacies of the system though the product-associated discussion on Amazon is helpful, albeit that it sometimes refers to earlier iterations of the product. Google is also your friend (as ever).
I don't have a benchmark by which to judge speed of operation but I imagine that performance on a high-end processor is significantly faster for most things. That said, I find the tablet quite usable for simple apps though my advanced age doubtless means I am more tolerant than some.
The resistive screen requires a fairly firm touch and hence can be a source of typos; it also lacks any two-finger pinch-to-zoom gesture. Complex web-based Flash apps are hard or impossible to use, e.g. I could browse a lucidchart but authoring one would be very tough.
The camera is distinctly low-end and faces the viewer, apparently being mainly intended for video-conferencing.
While I could access the local open wifi network (sadly due to close shortly), I could neither get onto EduRoam nor install the widget (xpressConnect) intended to facilitate the connection (unsupported on my hardware). That leaves me depending on a rather kludgey looking widget + 3G dongle setup hanging off the tablet though, to be fair, it does give me offsite connectivity too.
I could not get the Evernote app to run (Android App Market warns that Evernote is not compatible with this tablet -- at a pinch I might be able to use the browser-based version). There is a free scrapbook app that saves web pages for future review though this type of functionality is something I might be willing to pay for.
I was able to run Google Maps in the browser, albeit rather slowly, though I could not find any Google Maps app on the Android market (it may be that it is hidden from incompatible hardware, e.g. that lacks pinch-to-zoom capability).
No GPS, no accelerometer.
The 30-pin socket for the USB/RJ45 dongle seems to have a potential wobble issue.
I have had to reset the system ~6 times in the course of a week when it froze, typically when I was demonstrating it to other people (naturally). I'm not sure whether that comes from running too many apps simultaneously or the fact that I don't always (de)mount the microSD card when switching on/off.
I haven't tested the battery life but occasional use would probably see it last through the working day although screen- or wifi-intensive activity would most likely bring it down to 1-2 hours. You can use the unit while recharging.
I'd forgotten about the 3Di Android OpenSim app with inworld graphics but it never got wide distribution as far as I know and the company is pulling out of OpenSim (thought: maybe they could open source the code?). No reason why the Unity3D BuiltBuyMe web-based viewer should run so I haven't tried that though ReactionGrid seem to be basing their mobile strategy on the Unity3D-based Jibe.
I have yet to figure out how to access USB memory sticks via the widget which is not to say that there's a problem with it.

At the moment I am still coming to grips with the Android app ecosystem. While doubtless much smaller (and less "cool") than Apple's, it seems to have most of the important areas covered with a good range of free apps. While cognoscenti reading this will doubtless be shaking their heads, I am thus far relatively pleased with the purchase in terms of bang-per-buck. That said, lack of EduRoam support might pose problems for students and the diversity of Android device types might engender support issues unless the peer group steps up. Added to which, it is all early days.

I will, of course, blog if and when the tablet dies and more to the point why. Most likely I will sit on it. I just hope the consequences are not too painful.

Now you see it, now you don't

2011-06-13T20:27:00.006Z

These are two different views of some mesh structures, one taken with a recent release of Kirsten's viewer that renders mesh, the other with Astra which doesn't. The other possibly interesting aspect is that this is the latest version of simonastick, i.e. OpenSim mesh running off a USB memory stick seems to be feasible. That said, the internal mesh format is likely to change shortly to keep pace with SL so it is perhaps a little premature to make such assertions

Those with sharp eyes will notice that I also deleted a smaller structure which was basically a failed multi-sculpted protein lacking the majority of sculpt maps. I don't know why. Was it a consequence of swapping between the two viewers, an earlier crash or some cache effect, i.e. the sculpt maps were never there? I've seen this type of behaviour previously, viz loss of textures. It's annoying but generally it all ends well with a little perseverance. And no, I haven't checked the backup oar files yet but will do so.

Why am I doing this? Firstly, I want a standalone option for use with students should remote servers cause problems, i.e. an insurance policy. Secondly, I am giving a talk and a poster towards the end of the month and am thinking that a few people might be interested in an oar, however crude and unfinished (there are some LSL bugs too).

The layout shown here is a megaregion, i.e. 2x2 standard SL sims. This is the format I adopted for the server-based OpenSim sessions a few months ago. A day or so ago, Ener Hax queried whether such a "loose" building style where builds are widely separated was inherently boring. You can see my comments on her blog but, in short, the logic in this case is that I can expand the content in each area gradually. At the moment they are called "Context", "Omics", "Molecules" and "Cells".

Scripting makes the world go around

2011-06-09T16:34:00.000Z

One of the things that surprised (and pleased) me this year was the (unprompted) willingness of students to source and implement LSL scripts for their OpenSim builds. It definitely added another dimension to their work. That said, I don't teach a programming course per se so it would be good if students had a simple way to generate script not available "off the shelf".

(Incidentally, as far as shelves go, Fleep Tuque has a library of OpenSim-tested scripts and Ferd Frederix offers a wide-ranging LSL collection though not necessarily OpenSim-ready).

Simple scripts can also be written using the venerable AutoScript and, with a little more effort, Scratch4OpenSim, a version of Scratch4SL modified by Rich White. Somewhere between the two lies Con Wylie's script generator.

Now Rich has built his own Scratch-inspired, through-the-web scripting environment called Scriptastic. If you have used Scratch, you already know how this works. While intended for student use, it is potentially useful for rapid development of simple outline scripts more generally. The output is currently somewhat simpler than Scratch and a lot easier to modify. [Incidentally, there's also a new game creation engine called Stencyl that uses the Scratch-style interface].

Finally, there is another visual development environment called MiceOnABeam (MOAB) that is available as a limited but fully functional version as well as a pro developer edition. This is significantly more sophisticated than anything I've seen previously and appears to be well-documented and supported.

For the most part it is not hard for someone who has done a little scripting to see how MOAB relates to bog-standard LSL. It comes with a limited library of Actions (frequently used routines) that is scheduled to grow and you can add your own as well. I have yet to use MOAB "in anger" so it remains to be seen what the overhead might be in terms of performance (there is a performance analyser in the pro version) and potential for code "lock-in" to the system.

Overall, I suspect the product may have value for folk such as myself who are intermediate-level/occasional scripters with multiple projects active and needing a layer of abstraction to help keep tabs on them. Anyway, I will trial it and report back.

Genome: check

2011-05-30T19:39:00.005Z

I decided I had better add something to the giant cell to represent the genome, even if only on a temporary basis while I delve further into the literature. The blue DNA loops are sculpted prims made in SL with Cord Maker though I suspect I could have done the lot on New World Grid with the Devi sculpted prim gadget.

If you play with the lighting, it starts to look quite steampunk-ish. Of course, what it doesn't show is the intensity of the motion, even in such a crowded space. I have yet to grapple with that.

Once more unto the mesh, dear friends...

2011-05-28T22:35:00.005Z

The New World Grid is now running a small beta grid with the newly released OpenSim 0.7.1. This includes both shared media and the early version of mesh shortly to be updated by Linden Lab. The picture shows a mesh molecule I made previously in SL and behind it a mesh of the building I work in. The latter was downloaded from the Google 3D Warehouse whence I assume it derived from some Google Earth-related building initiative.

I'm using Kirsten's S21(r7) for this and the whole thing's a little hit-and-miss, not least at my end. It will be interesting to see what innovations emerge on the back of this (rather protracted) development.

Adding a few (thousand) proteins to the giant cell

2011-05-22T08:05:00.006Z

This is a minor update to show what 4000-ish average sized proteins (red spheres) look like when added to the slice of the giant TB cell. There should, of course, be some in the area of the nucleoid but I haven't worked out how many, nor what to do with them. That sounds lame but is actually the process I am undertaking, a journey that will take wrong turns at times. The aim overall is to provide a context for asking interesting questions, not least how Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Escherichia coli are likely to differ.

The grey structure in the closeup is the viewing platform. The prims themselves are non-randomly distributed, being linksets of 250 prims shift-copied and rotated/moved slightly in situ. Having them linked should hopefully make them easier to rez on demand. Overall, this is a useful shortcut for what is basically a feasibility study. More anon.

First visit to the giant TB cell

2011-05-21T14:29:00.008Z

There are lots of eukaryotic virtual cells in Second Life (Max Chatnoir has a nice one, formerly on Genome and now on an adjacent sim) and last week I found them on ReactionGrid as well (Anatomy World region). What I'm trying to do here, however, is to give some immersive feel for the actual composition of the cell rather than just do a straightforward show-and-tell (though there is some of that too). This sounds intrinsically more demanding and in some ways it is, especially for bacteria where the small size makes it harder to resolve the detail.

There are, in fact, plenty of relevant numbers available although not that many for Mycobacterium tuberculosis so I will be employing a degree of "poetic" licence. Futhermore, the numbers may vary not only between species but between physiological states as well, not to mention between sources. Two useful websites at least got me starting to think in this context: BioNumbers and CyberCell from which the former draws some of its bacterial data. CyberCell in particular provides a useful compendium of Escherichia coli statistics though it would be nice if they linked directly to the source. Finally, there is a French group constructing a non-immersive model of the same species which can be visualized using a custom viewer called LifeExplorer. They published an interesting paper last year (paywalled, I suspect).

In the first instance I am constructing a 50 nm slice of the rod-shaped cell based in part on a recent transmission electron microscopy paper (paywalled). In the picture above you can see ribosomes (cyan spheres) as well as an average size protein (red sphere) and a much larger proteasome (green cylinder), both randomly positioned. The orange region at the centre is the location of the nucleoid and the long magenta filament is mRNA. The number and location of the ribosomes is roughly consistent with the paper though I suspect there are a few too many.

There is clearly a long way to go and this is just a token start compared, say, to the wonderful work of David Goodsell. That said, the build provides an interesting context in which students visualize key processes at multiple scales and in both static and, ultimately, dynamic modes, as well as learn about microscopy. The advent of mesh should hopefully add further visual interest.

If you build it, will they find it?

2011-05-15T14:16:00.006Z

Firstly, I should point out that I haven't finished building -- I've barely started. That said, the issue of discovery is not insignificant. The Hypergrid is making inter-grid travel somewhat easier and that raises the issue of knowing where to go. The Welcome region on New World Grid showcases some of the best sims, several of which are intended, like mine, for educational use. Likewise I am sure there are regions on jokaydiaGRID and ReactionGrid that are of interest to educators and their students, if only to illustrate the range of pedagogic approaches that are being used. In all likelihood there are many more grids and sims of which I know little or nothing at all (I have not been to the regions owned by the universities and colleges hosted on the New Zealand Virtual World Grid, for example).

Putting together a search engine to help find content was very simple as it used only web sites, not inworld content. By comparison, finding educational grids and regions addressing particular subjects is much harder. Maria Korolov at Hypergrid Business has compiled the invaluable Hyperica directory and there is a list of grids at opensimulator.org as well. The inevitable lack of detail, however, is discouraging and my guess is that both represent a small fraction of educational use of OpenSim. Moreover, as many people build for their own use and interest, there is little incentive to rectify matters.

With a view to kindling a degree of enlightened self-interest, I have put together a region map gadget as shown in the image. If you put landmarks for the featured areas in your region into the map inventory and reset scripts, it will display the region map tile and generate pins with hovertext and sit teleports. If you add brief descriptions, these will be chatted to the user on touch. However, if the owner touches the pin, it also creates a notecard with appropriate wiki-formatted text for TiddlySpace. At the moment there is no connection between the inworld gadget and the web but I expect this to change in the future. Incorporation of http-in functionality going in the other direction is also a possibility.

Will this idea catch on or will we see the incorporation of hooks for more conventional search engines? Are the HyperGate networks and hgurl indicator boards all that are required? For that matter, would TiddlySpace scale? Finally, if our future experiences are to be increasingly based on HTML5, then maybe it will be the associated web-based text that makes sims discoverable. Time will tell.

(Thanks to Miley for her cam skills in generating the region map which I used in place of the default map tile)

Playing with OpenSim search and trails

2011-05-13T17:30:00.004Z

Firstly the good news. I put together a Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) so people can find free content more easily on five of the web-based stores that have come online recently. Yes, it was very simple to do but that's how it should be.

In the "watch-this-space" department, I have also been playing with the super-amazing TiddlySpace again. The aim originally was to generate search results that another Google CSE could index but that seems to be problematic (and, given the dynamic nature of TiddlySpace and its increasing focus on the social, I'm not surprised). Nevertheless, I've made a start at generating records for OpenSim grids, regions, builds and trails that might be of use to educators. The seriously smart aspect of TiddlySpace is that it lets you "include" spaces (sites comprising multiple knowledge chunks known as tiddlers, if you prefer). Each of the spaces above (grids, et seq) inherits from the preceding one and, more to the point, can be "included" in other people's spaces too. Moreover, when I update mine, their space changes too. Of course, you do have to trust me...

The trails are slightly awkward to code (not to mention that I'm severely out of practice) but basically comprise a series of locations together with "secondlife://" style Hypergrid links. You copy and chat these links in your browser (Imprudence, for example) , then click the link generated in chat history and, whoosh, you are teleported to your destination. There is slightly more to it that that, needless to say, but I am using the "broad brush" here!

The links themselves are picked out from the (included) region record by a process known as tiddler transclusion -- hence the slight awkwardness (you can see the code simply by double-clicking the tiddler). The big benefit over conventional wikis, of course, is that a change in one place is automatically propagated through all the tiddlers. Doubtless a skilled TiddlyPerson could also work out ways to simplify matters further. If you want to edit a tiddler you own, just double-click it, make the changes and then Ctrl-Enter to save. There are icons to help you too but the actual editing involves wiki-style text formatting so it's not necessarily for those who depend entirely on WIMPs.

Of course, it's very early days but I'm fairly encouraged, even in the absence of a CSE. It's great to have a couple of open source projects play nicely together. You can see the OpenSim-trails space here. It's very crude but nevertheless, I think, an intriguing approach.

In which I am unwisely invited to pontificate

2011-05-06T22:24:00.004Z

OpenSim: an Educator's Perspe...

More PowerPoint presentations from Peter Miller

There have been some great OpenSim presentations recently, including a couple from Diva Canto and Fleep Tuque. I gave my first ever RL pitch on the topic today at a JISC West Midlands RSC meeting in Coventry. I don't think I got the tone quite right and, as predicted, I ran short on time (I inserted a simonastick demo at the start which didn't exactly help). Nevertheless, it was great fun for me and many thanks to Jane for the invite and marvellous to see other folks from my SL friends list, including Annabeth (a tough act to follow!), Dave, Mark, Rob and "Tim", inter al. Annabeth also covered Unity3D and, for completeness (!), there was a nice blog on this recently by ArianeB.

Anyone who gets as far as the final slide of my presentation will see my concluding that OpenSim is "just about" ready for the big-time (I will, of course, be using it but I am small-time). I should qualify that by saying that I'm still using 0.6.9 at present for most things (NWG is about to move to 0.7.0.2) and that just this week 0.7.1 emerged (along with a new Diva Distro) so YMMV. That said, I still think that getting the hardware matched to the class size is a critical step. I also want to thank Pathfinder for his many great Hypergrid "finds" via the HGAC.

The slides have got multiple links that are unpacked via multiurl. Just bear in mind that the /l/ is a letter L (for list) and the O, as you might imagine, is the capital letter.

The (Not So) Faraway

2011-05-04T22:08:00.004Z

AM Radio recently announced that his sojourn in Second Life (and virtual worlds in general) is drawing to its natural close. His builds are tremendously atmospheric and I was delighted to discover that OpenSim Creations has a CC licensed version that you can download and install on a USB stick. Much kudos to V at OSC for providing this.

Another landmark of note: OpenSim 0.7.1 was released today. Many thanks to all the hard-working developers for their sustained efforts in bringing this to fruition. Much to admire about this release and an important milestone for educators with shared media on a prim a notable addition.

In praise of OSSL

2011-04-21T11:14:00.010Z

The good news is that the grid I'm on is upgrading its OpenSim version. The not-so-good news is that it still will not have shared media. The latter has been available for some time but is only just making its way into the next stable release as I write and grid managers will doubtless want to see what, if any, issues it raises before implementing.

Of course, we are not without web options anyway. In addition to firing up the internal or external web browser, we still have web pages from parcel media. However, these are largely non-interactive unless you use Imprudence Experimental in which case you are limited to the URL set by the owner (I failed thus far in attempts to change it via scripting).

On the other hand OpenSim does allow you to do two things that SL doesn't (at least not easily): write text on a prim (other than via shared and parcel media) and save text to a notecard. These are managed in OpenSim via OSSL commands, a supplementary set of functions that can be admixed with standard LSL scripts (OSSL stands for Open Sim Scripting Language).

I decided that I should have a Library space on the new sim and returned to an old aspiration, namely to have some kind of inworld PubMed search. The picture shows a simple application that retrieves newly entered PubMed records containing the word "tuberculosis". As a result of the search, the source and title are entered dynamically on the display prims. If you touch the righthand side of the prim, it is highlighted and if you touch the other side the relevant PubMed web page is fired up in the internal browser. Of course, the search could be extended to other topics/strategies though the display is currently limited to 50 references so it isn't going to supplant existing approaches any time soon.

References displayed in the prims can be collated by touching the reporter prim. There is also an option to address only highlighted prims and also to delete those that are not highlighted. The avatar receives a report notecard listing the references (just the pubmed ids at the moment). What remains undone at present is to use the same notecard subsequently to redisplay the references again inworld. The notecard also has a rather unhelpful autogenerated name.

Given the paramount importance of search these days, I'm not sure the application has merit beyond providing students and myself with a way to generate reference prims for use elsewhere on the sim. Yes, there is the shared presence aspect but for a small group something like join.me gives you that just as readily and with less by way of usability issues. Incidentally, join.me also works with OpenSim and SL and is a great way of showing students your edit view and vice versa. Perhaps if the situation was less hierachical, with more going on in parallel, the inworld search might be useful. Anyway, it does nicely illustrate a couple of OSSL functions that go some way to compensating for the current lack of shared media web pages and I anticipate using them a lot in the future.

Interactive web pages in OpenSim

2011-04-08T21:42:00.004Z

The image shows a Flash-based web page as specified via parcel media in OpenSim. The big news is that it interactive: I can select a node in this applet and the associated text appears in a little popup window. You need to be using the latest release of Imprudence Experimental to see this working. The image also shows that there is a shared media-style control panel. To bring this up, select Preferences, Audio & Video and then tick the Media Helper Widget checkbox. You can also restrict URL changing to group members and specify that only whitelisted domains be available.

While I appreciate that shared media on a prim/MOAP will hopefully be with us shortly, this is a very useful interim measure that works fine on OpenSim 0.6.9. The FNV Flash applet shown is also new to me. It's intended for the display of interaction and pathway data, the node and edge display being generated automagically from XML. Annotations can be associated with both elements and there is also a control panel that allows you to zoom and pan the display. The demo page comes with a field containing the XML and you can edit the XML, press Submit and the display updates. The most obvious limitation is that the display will look somewhat different for each user which makes it impossible to use semi-transparent overlays for further annotation, for example. Useful even so but note that it is free for academic use only.

Canvas viewer

2011-03-28T20:02:00.003Z

Neil Canham has a nice review of an earlier version of Tipodean's web browser-based Canvas viewer and a tweet from Neil alerted me to a new upgrade. The browser is based on the Unity3D plugin and would seem to do the same trick as Rezzable's viewer, viz convert scenes on-the-fly to Unity format. After a misstep when I rezzed under the ground at ReactionGrid, I created a log-in hyperlink to one of my sims on New World Grid and came inworld without problems. It took a minute or so before I got control of the avatar and textures continued to rez for a while. While the graphics quality doesn't compare with a conventional third-party viewer (perhaps it's pitched at low-end hardware?) and the flight animation was a little quirky, ease-of-access was exemplary and I would very much like to know maximum useful concurrency and whether the viewer will ultimately work on mobile devices. As you can see, the giant sculpted protein rezzed fine though the surface touch on the giant genome didn't seem to work. As with the Lab's new Basic Mode in the SL Viewer 2, there is no access to inventory.

As with Rezzable's offering, there is a question as to how the browser will be monetized (it has adverts on the launch page at present but that may not suffice) but I think it is looking rather promising.

Lead balloons and other more interesting stuff

2011-03-27T18:40:00.006Z

Well, my VWBPE11 talk went down like the proverbial steampunk lead balloon, not helped much by persistent voice problems and a crash mid-talk. The moderator was very supportive, however, and I had fun, even if the tiny audience (as opposed to audience of tinies) didn't. The content was also probably less-than-engaging for many although giving the talk straightened out a few things for me at least.

A few other developments of note:

Kitely: on-demand, cloud-based OpenSim regions where login is via Facebook and you can upload your OAR and have a sim running for 100 students within minutes and pay per sim and per user (but not download OARs or hypergrid). To me the concept seems a little like Lively, viz a virtual set of (large!) rooms rather than a world or grid as such.
New World Grid is releasing a new version of Studio that basically allows you to create your own OpenSim install very easily. I hope it's for 0.7.1 which is coming closer by the day.
Check out the New World Innovations sim for demos of multi-body gravity simulation and molecule rezzing, both from C# region modules (you can teleport there via the boards in the building on the Welcome sim). Nice work by Olish Newman!
The Hypergrid Adventurer's Club visited the Green and Wild sim on jokaydiaGRID today and it is one of the prettiest examples of landscaping I have yet to see on an OpenSim grid. Well worth a visit if you like a lot of soothing green on your screen.

Networks and particles

2011-03-14T23:15:00.006Z

Given what's going on elsewhere, this all seems a bit trivial. Nonetheless, I managed to get the particle streams working with the Mycobacterium tuberculosis gene regulatory network. Clearly it's not the finished article but I think it might have potential. Incidentally, if watching lots of flickery particles gives you headaches or whatever, you might want to skip the video below. Otherwise, it's just my avatar flying round and watching the nodes (genes) shuttle into position. I thought it was kind of exciting but you probably had to be there.

Windlight settings in both cases are Torley's.

Rezzing networks

2011-03-13T13:42:00.006Z

Not being smart enough to code an algorithm for this layout of Mycobacterium tuberculosis regulatory genes, I cheated. I let VisANT do the layout, swapping between layout modes and zooming in and out to minimise node size/overlap. I then used Sikuli to capture the position of each node by searching for the node and, in particular, the red selection handles that appear when search successfully concludes. With appropriate scaling and offset, these data (on a notecard) were then used by a rezzer to generate the inworld layout. There are redundant overlapping nodes (about 1800 in all) as ultimately I want the option to link them with particle streams and any one prim can only source one particle stream.

The rezzing takes some time but is fun to watch (well, it is the first time). I've no idea how Erich Bremer does his impressive quasi-instantaneous displays in Monolith and latterly Nexus but suspect that there's a lot of cunning prep work going on behind the scenes. However, the subordinate realization that llMoveToTarget can be used incrementally in such situations will hopefully get me round the different ways in which SL and OpenSim handle the 10 m rezzing limit. This impacts the giant genome as I will not have console access on this particular sim so cannot modify the requisite ini file as a way of getting round the limit.

The other discovery of note this week is that the Astra viewer (review) can be used to archive more than is currently possible with Imprudence/Kokua. This may help me to move content between my multiple OpenSim regions as they are not all on the same hypergrid/Opensim version and, as already mentioned, some do not have ready console access. The viewer handles selections that include multiple linksets and also moves object inventory (with the exception of nested objects). Ultimately I can't depend on a viewer-specific format but it does mean that in the short-term I can generate a build and oar archive file on my local system.

It is also worth mentioning a nice review of options for moving content from SL and associated backup strategies (Astra incidentally is not intended for use in SL).

Hat tips to Maria Korolov and Neil Canham for pointers to the two reviews. It just struck me that I forgot to check whether VisANT (or similar) can export node x,y data. Ah well...

First thoughts on OpenSim concurrency

2011-02-17T19:36:00.008Z

At the weekend my home OpenSim grid had its third anniversary. This was celebrated by holding a masked Carnival ball on a wonderful Venetian themed sim complete with freebie costumes (cue picture; yup, that's me in the red playing wallflower). More to the point for an OpenSim newbie, the sim ran pretty well with 26 avatars inworld at one stage. A few dresses were sadly grey in parts due to missing textures but the dancing and music flowed more-or-less flawlessly for the hour or so that I was there. I'm well-aware that shared core sims can falter under relatively low loads so this (presumably) high end solution bode well for my own efforts to come.

Today I took my first tentative steps with a class of 20 students in OpenSim. I am renting a high-end server running bleeding edge 0.7.1 code so we can use shared media (though that will require using SL viewer 2 which I suspect is less stable in OpenSim so we stuck with Imprudence). I was in some trepidation, both because I seemed to be crashing the server on my ownsome for unexplained reasons (maybe the server is happier when used intensively or it just hates me?) and because I hadn't really had time to finish prepping the sim. I gave the students an introductory lecture so they had some idea of what was possible but also cautioned that this hands-on session was mainly just an avatar test-drive. I deliberately split the class in two to keep numbers down (the remainder are scheduled for next week when hopefully the sim will be more as I would wish it). I then split that half into four 5-person teams and allocated them a region per team to mirror the way the megaregion is setup. There's a reasonable amount of lag at sim crossings that can lead to problems if you cross too quickly so I put colour-coded walls between the sims both to facilitate orientation and discourage arbitrary crossings on foot. The students were reasonably restrained in their use of flight though there was, as ever, evident delight on first lift-off.

I preloaded and allocated the avatars (names, passwords and roles though we didn't get that far in this session, with group last names being simple colours to match the sim areas and the first names derived from the role; all very prosaic and non-immersive). Setting up the accounts from the console was pretty quick though clothing the avatars, installing a titler and setting their home took some time. We were very limited in the range of avatars (one male, two female) but the class seemed to take that in their stride and the titler (which showed avatar and student first name) may have helped. This new avatar site will be great when it's fully operational.

As the remote desktop used to monitor the server wasn't available on the university network, I took my laptop and wifi. Although the signal was perilously low in the PC centre we used, it did the job and, of course, the server never faltered during the 90 minute class. Better safe than sorry and maybe it's just my avatar it has issues with.

The major bugbear, in fact, was getting students onto the sim in the first place as the Imprudence viewer is not officially supported. My attempt to paste the path into the Run box failed for some reason on Windows 7 although it had been fine on XP. The backup was simply for each student to add the sim via the grid manager. I assume there's a way to do that "centrally" but at least the students came in OK after a slightly frustrating, not to mention fraught, start.

Performance on individual (low-end) machines was surprisingly variable. A small number of avatars remained as gas clouds and one student had trouble rezzing terrain textures though that was fixed by teleporting to an adjacent team's sim. I don't know whether the order in which people logged in made a difference but it's possible. The overwhelming majority of avatars performed adequately even if there was a some lag at times. The sim is pretty texture- and script-intensive so that wasn't entirely a surprise; I blame my predeliction for rezzers (cue second picture at bottom of page). Although I didn't get the opportunity to check on multiple machines, particles seemed to be a particular problem on mine. The occasional student machine had a client crash as well but that didn't seem to bother the students overly.

At the end (good timing!) all the viewers crashed simultaneously which I ascribed to a network or drive problem (which I hoped we weren't the cause of) as the server showed no signs of distress. Students were intrigued to hear that the software could all be run from a USB memory stick and that some elements of teamwork could in principle be sustained by merging individual contributions periodically.

Although this workshop was a self-selected option, it was great to see several of the students actively thinking how they could use this tech creatively and I greatly enjoyed the ensuing discussions.

My initial thoughts therefore were that addressing lag via high-end hardware had worked reasonably well. A class size of twenty equates pretty well with my previous use of SL. Next week hopefully more of the sim will function as it should and we can go beyond basic "mechanics" with the next group. And yes, I do intend using both viewers in one class so we can try shared media!

Non-musical chairs

2011-02-07T18:20:00.003Z

I came across some camera control code and modified it so that it was triggered by having the avatar sit. To reduce lag in this shared core opensim region I've made the two multi-sculpted proteins temprez from the same script. The seat also IMs text from a notecard as it moves the avatar camera through positions likewise stored on the notecard. At the moment the cameras are simple prims that chat their position when prompted so the text can be copy/pasted to the notecard and then edited.

I don't have much time for developing/blogging at the moment so the demo is a little underwhelming with ad hoc camera positioning and no music -- but hopefully you get the idea. As ever, this is something students could do to annotate a build.

Slowly does it

2011-01-31T22:05:00.007Z

Busy in RL, moving content onto the sim on New World Grid is a slow business. I liked the terraforming so much I decided to put my stuff on an esplanade for the moment. No particular order, no rationale, no signage.

Wondering what comes next. Calm before the storm, I suspect.

Click through for the big picture (Windlight setting: Fine Day).

A new day, a new world, a new protein

2011-01-22T12:16:00.004Z

While I haven't done the full-on SL photographic "thing" on this one apart from tweaking Windlight settings ("Coastal afternoon" seemed appropriate), it's probably worth clicking through to play "spot the avatar". The protein is Lysin B from the mycobacteriophage D29 concocted from a combo of a rather labour-intensive multi-sculpted protein and one of Hiro Sheridan's space-fill sculpties: 75 prims total. It will be interesting to see what the mesh version looks like though I'm in no hurry until mesh reaches OpenSim.

Speaking of which, this is our new sim on the New World Grid. Thanks for having us, folks. Hello, Metaverse...

Wiki3D_Builder

2011-01-21T22:30:00.003Z

I've made some very minor modifications to Salahzar Stenvaag's Wiki3D_Builder, mainly tinkering with menus. Based on earlier work by JonnyBee Cioc and Vision Raymaker, this also makes a nice mind-mapping tool though I actually want to use it as a planner. You can also, of course, use it to build silly random shapes like the one shown.

The version I used was actually the earlier particle-based one. The instructions for making the tool are on Sal's wiki page but basically you create a prim, name it nodo and add the short script from the wiki. You then place the nodo prim inside another prim, name this one Wiki3D_Builder and then add the modified script. If necessary reset the scripts and just touch the prim for a menu.

It should run in OpenSim as well as SL. There is an option to use llTextBox which in my experience requires SL Viewer 2 or similar and is only supported on more recent versions of OpenSim (set USETEXTBOX to 1 instead of 0). Otherwise you chat changes to the names displayed as hovertext.

Please bear in mind that it has not been tested in multi-avatar use.

Grid and build rezzers

2011-01-08T09:21:00.004Z

I like offloading routine work onto rezzers. With the room rezzing/linking application I'm developing, the primary aim is to help novices generate structures rapidly but I don't rule out using it myself so anything that saves time and effort is welcome.

Although the students will be presented with a pre-made grid so they just have to rez and link the rooms with paths, I decided it would be useful for me to have a rezzer. In the video it generates a grid based on text in the Description field, e.g. 3x3 for a 3 by 3 grid.

This got me thinking that it would also be handy if a rezzer could subsequently record the position and rotations of the build prims so that they could be "rerezzed" from a notecard. That is what is shown in the remainder of the video.

There is a shouted command that generates the location/rotation data and this is then copy/pasted into a notecard in the red build rezzer. Touching this regenerates the build. Bear in mind when it stutters that this sim is running from a USB memory stick! Not perfect but for a student much less fiddly than using a packaging tool. Moreover, you have at least a partial archive in the event that other backups are not practicable.

In other news, I've also been trying to use the os commands to generate images dynamically and also to load images from the web. While this works fine on a hosted region, it seems not to work reliably on sim-on-a-stick. The images either fail to rez or generate an error dialog or, worst case, crash the console window.

Adding screens to rooms

2011-01-06T13:46:00.008Z

I'm continuing to add features to the room rezzer and to modify a few other aspects. The overall goal is to give students a tool that they can use to construct pathways through collaborative builds with a minimum of SL skills.

Firstly I've decided I'd like more inworld menus (as opposed to dialog menus or HUDs). At the moment that's really only a demo of rezzing rooms from a prim and a panel of buttons on the screens, both shown on the video. It does make sense to me, however, to take more of the controls inworld, especially where there's a strong visual aspect as with room layout.

Secondly, I wanted to be able to add aligned screens quickly without recourse to inventory while giving students some flexibility (having screens builtin that you can hide/delete is another option). At the moment it's only a simple textured screen that can also display parcel media. However, eventually it would be good to have other display types, e.g. a whiteboard and, in due course, prim media.

At present the screens are rezzed by touching the floor of the room where you want them to go. The idea originally was to link them to the room so that they could all be rotated synchronously if you wanted to reorient the room. It turns out that this is also an easy way to rez the screens without having to rotate them, viz rez screen, link it to room, rotate room, rez screen on next wall, and so on (it's clearer in the video and might be easier for n00bs than having to rotate the screens).

The only problem has been that the ability to link seems to disappear about 7 m from the room centre. Accordingly, you can only usefully rez screens a metre or so off the wall (the rooms are 8x8 m) and then adjust the positioning later (there's a manual option for that). Occasionally that takes the screen outside the room so you can vary the room size a little too. If you want to take it to extremes, you can flatten the room as shown in the video although, of course, you lose some of the context. Nevertheless for someone with little experience of SL, it may make movement simpler (the walls are actually phantom anyway but they can still obstruct the view).

For me 8x8 m is about the smallest room in which you can see stuff without major avatar camera problems and the flattened version addresses that during the first stage of screen rezzing. Even so, I want to provide camera chairs where you can sit and flip between the screens and maybe chat with others too. But that's for another day.

All-in-all, there's still some way to go and not overly much time.

In other news, I noticed via Twitter that, in addition to OpenSim-on-a-stick, we also have OpenSim-in-a-Box, based on the Amazon EC2 service.

Physics can be fun!

2011-01-03T12:38:00.005Z

On Sunday I visited the sim called Physics on the New World Grid. The creator, Aime Socrates, has some great educational builds elsewhere but this one is primarily for fun, the challenge being to find and navigate the numerous ramps leading to the top of the building. Like the Rezzable Greenies SL sim of yore (and, for that matter "The Borrowers"), the sim (a lab) is built on an epic scale such that your avatar is dwarfed by the science equipment on the bench.

Needless to say, I didn't get all the way to the top but that was somewhat beside the point. It did strike me that a simplified build of this type would make a great induction and even allow you to explore some of the modes of avatar communication and collaboration in virtual worlds.

Thanks as always to Path for organising the visit.

So that was 2010

2010-12-30T23:39:00.005Z

What happened: Viewer 2, prim media, mesh and web viewer in beta, VWBPE10, LL partial melt-down, educator price-hike/lock-in.

Sadly no longer with us: CDC, ACS, International Schools 2, Livingintheuniverse, my SL sim :p, a few highlight categories from last year.

Enough already: anti-LL snark just for the sake of it -- let's move on, pls.

Drumroll...

Highlighted best support for newbie avatars: John "Pathfinder" Lester in promoting the HyperGrid through the HG Adventurers Club.
Highlighted best educational tool developer: Crista Lopes for the HyperGrid
Highlighted best educational sim: Aaron Duffy's Fernseed on ScienceSim.
Highlighted best developer educational build: Virtual Mine (Sand Castle Studios)
Highlighted best RL talk on VW: Clark Aldrich at FCVW Conference
Highlighted best blog/Twitter: Tateru Nino, Maria Korolov (general), Ener Hax (education), Opensource Obscure (Twitter, FriendFeed)
Highlighted best conference: IndieMetaverse 2010 ; MetaMeets2010
Grids to watch in 2010: Any grid that is HyperGrid-enabled

(Edited to fix obligatory mis-directed links; added a couple of things too)

Predictions for 2011

2010-12-28T17:06:00.005Z

Firstly, I wonder whether a die has been cast for SL following appointment of a gamer as CEO and the opening of SL to 16+ teens. Is this year about entertainment, about social? Phillip promised "fast, easy, fun" and, while progress has been made, I guess it's the new CEO Rod Humble who will hopefully deliver (good to see him on Twitter already). Delivery will mean more residents, more participatory events (including perhaps a pay-for web option), further evolution of breedable animals and games like Tiny Empires and Combat Cards. Some have speculated that gambling may reappear.

None of this precludes educational use of SL but it does make it more tangential and SL in particular a harder sell. That said, LL hasn't completely ditched edu as it continues to sponsor VWBPE, the SLED list and the edu wiki. At the same time, however, there will be increasing pressure on educators to bring virtual world activities into the mainstream and, in times of budget cutbacks in the UK, to demonstrate cost-effectiveness, including revenue generation. OpenSim will look increasingly attractive when the next version with web-on-a-prim and mesh support appears though stability and availability of content may still be a challenge at times.

In that light I offer the following very tentative predictions:

1. Region concurrency will increase to 150 in SL and Intel will further develop their tech that allows 500-1000 avatars on an OpenSim megaregion. Global SL concurrency will start to trend upwards again but stay short of 100,000 (it's about 65-70K at the moment according to Tateru Nino).

2. More inworld advertising and advertising-supported web viewer options (already more prominent in inworld search). More revenue generating activity on edu sims that pay full tier.

3. Increased gamification in SL and better support for mobile use on iPad and Android, including low-fi graphics. Functional Kinect interfaces will appear but have only niche edu applications at first.

4. Resumption of interest in use of SL and OpenSim for edu marketing purposes, student recruitment, schools liaison, etc.

5. Mesh will arrive in SL in February and OpenSim 2-3 months later (as far as the Diva Distro is concerned) but have limited impact initially except in niche areas where mesh content is readily sourced.

6. Educators using OpenSim will become major users of the HyperGrid. The corollary is that they will favour hosting solutions that are HG-enabled and that better HG directories will appear.

7. There will be increased use of OER repositories for dissemination of virtual world content created outside SL.

8. Most VW edu users will continue to explore a multi-location strategy, using hosts best suited to particular purposes, e.g. high concurrency vs low-cost student building.

9. Sim-on-a-stick will find new uses, e.g. for pre-event orientation, textbook supplements.

10. Educators will be involved in maintaining the SL edu wiki.

OpenSim port of room-rezzing app

2010-12-26T14:48:00.002Z

This shows an early draft of the OpenSim version of Roomiotix running from a USB memory stick. The only significant change was the move to a 15 m grid prim as the megaprim fell foul of the 10 m limit on the ability of llRezObject to generate remote objects. On that basis the rooms also have to act as rezzers for upper storeys. I'm not sure how that is going to affect lag.

I guess the surprise with the benefit of hindsight is that the megaprim grid in SL didn't respect the 10 m limit...

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T13:52:00.005Z

A desert island, a decorated fir, a suspiciously winsome avatar, a snowman with slow-to-rez sculpties and annoying particle effects... it can only mean one thing so have a good one everyone!

And the hot news is that there is a Santa -- he just brought Linden Lab a new CEO.

Roomiotix

2010-12-22T16:38:00.009Z

The video shows yet another attempt to generate a tool that students can use to create builds without having to master the full SL interface. Of course, this entails a lot of simplification and the underlying premiss, that it is good to engage students in higher level skills such as design, is untested. The builds are fairly crude but, as the video shows, you can generate and link single rooms fairly quickly and, more to the point, without camming or, in this simple example, flying.

The megaprim grid serves as a rezzer for multiple room types. Touch it and you get a menu that allows you to choose which room style to rez. At the moment the rooms simply have doors in different positions (numbered according to the clockface, e.g. "02050811" has four doorways at 2, 5, 8 and 11 o'clock). You can change the room colour and transparency, rotate it and "hot swap" another into the same position. The rooms replicate some of the functionality of the grid in so far as you can rez further rooms above them on a pedestal. You can also rez similar pedestal rooms (pRooms in the menu) directly onto the grid.

The story-telling aspect comes from being able to link and decorate the rooms in various ways. Firstly, you can touch-rez prims that act as the start and end of ramps and walkways and the ramp prim is rezzed and stretched automagically, albeit to a maximum of 10 m (this is code "borrowed" from Hiro Sheridan's molecule rezzer!). The start and end prims will try to auto-align along the most probable primary axis. You can also get the rooms to report their name and location (as a slurl) in chat so that you can go direct to any particular one, albeit via the Viewer 2 sidebar. Ultimately, it would be useful to use such data to reconstitute builds from a notecard.

The implementation is not without issues. You need space for the megaprim although it works pretty well as a sky platform. As prim efficiency is at a premium for me, the rooms themselves are single sculpted prims generated using Prim Oven. I've found it necessary to make the prims phantom in order to allow unfettered avatar access and hence there is a need for the pedestal to support avatars in raised rooms. The use of sculpties also makes useful texturing fiendishly hard. Finally, a degree of prim positioning is still required to get doors and ramps to align and vertical navigation within a stack of rooms is not supported directly (a ladder maybe?). The present set of rooms were generated ad hoc with no conscious attempt made to align doors.

The room contents, of course, are a potential problem given that they are not intrinsically associated with the room and will not, for example, rotate with it. Some need for pre-planning, methinks. Using Builders Buddy to "capture" the relative positions of objects is a possibility though it might be simpler for some applications to simply limit the scope of rooms to basic media (textures, audio, etc) and supply the necessary display gadgets built-in.

Of course, none of this is new and arguably the inspiration is the Memory Palace /Method of loci concept of antiquity. There are already many excellent linear builds in SL (the Living in the Universe timeline springs to mind, along with Cancerland which, sadly, is no longer inworld) and I have played with mazes previously which are similarly modular. If one is thinking of 3D wikis, then the Wikitecture tree is a fascinating and far more sophisticated implementation.

And yes, the name is awful but got attached to the video before I could think of something better. Hopefully there will be a version for OpenSim before the New Year (though I'm not, of course, specifying which New Year).

Predictions 2010: how did I do?

2010-12-21T10:58:00.004Z

First things first. Notable events I didn't predict:

The melt-down in June and change in focus at LL that saw Phillip Linden return temporarily as CEO and, more significantly, the end of discounts on new edu accounts (announced in October). Subsequently the education link disappeared from the home page and the edu-specific microsite migrated to the wiki.
Closure of the Teen Grid, although that was a 2009 prediction.
The web streaming trial based on Gaikai.

I did in passing predict Viewer 2 (or at least a Flash-enabled viewer) though that was almost a given by the time it arrived in February (and met fierce resistance). In terms of the predictions I did make :

1. Hardware on campus will become more of an issue as universities try to economise by keeping hardware going for longer...
Hard to quantify but this affected me personally on legacy hardware, not so much as a consequence of the Viewer 2 upgrade as the institutional move to Windows 7 (now a supported OS though it wasn't in September), so I am giving myself a generous 2 (out of 3).

2. The number of education and non-profit sims in SL will decline slightly as institutions assess their needs more stringently. There will be continued departures for other grids balanced to some extent by new arrivals coming in for very specific reasons.
No evidence for this yet on a major scale but, apart from closure of my sim, I'm pretty sure Edinburgh has reduced its estate (9 sims, down from 12?) and Leeds Met is considering its position. The consequences for edu of improvements in OpenSim allied to the price hike/lock-in in SL may be delayed in taking effect and most SL educators seem to be adopting a policy of watchful waiting or, like me, dual location. In adjacent spaces, the CDC has gone and the American Chemical Society is scheduled to go. I believe ScienceCircle is considering the OpenSim-based ScienceSim as an option. Others have fully or partially relocated to Jokaydia and Reaction Grids with VWER playing an active role as sponsor (all 40 of their parcels have now been assigned). A more parsimonious 1.5.

3. Development of a more edu-friendly search facility will be initiated and some third-party developers will allow you to swap this into their client in place of the LL default. The backend database will also act as a repository for cost-free distribution of content deemed of educational value, to include individual items, builds and sims. The database will not be limited to SL and will interoperate with other initiatives such as CLIVE/Merlot and JorumOpen.
Sadly, not yet. A disappointing 0.

4. There will be increasing exploration and use of tools that facilitate development of educational sims, both at the level of the institutional VLE (e.g. SLOODLE) and the inworld class (e.g. Pathways).
Pathways appears to have evolved a community and I may well use my room rezzing gadget for development along these lines. As well as the established Pivote, we now also have a newcomer in Vushi. I have no measures of adoption but there is some exploration by the likes of the Tools.Jam folks. A slightly circumspect 2.

5. Web-based lesson design tools will extend support to SL and OpenSim.
Not that I'm aware of. I was thinking of an extension to LAMS or similar. Big fat 0.

6. As part of an overall consolidation and recognition of (the need for) exemplars, there will be a trend towards subject-specific rather than institution-specific sims on the basis that this is presently a pre-competitive phase and that development and operational costs may usefully be shared.
The classic examples are Pharmatopia and Theatron but I'm not aware of (m)any others as yet. A slightly ambitious 0.5.

7. There will be a trend for institutions, and more particularly departments, to share sims or rent them for the duration of specific classes rather than year-round. Sharing might be on a time zone basis and/or include collaboration with non-profits.
A few offers on SLED but nothing largescale or coordinated. Of course, in some ways this is nothing new and generic edu islands seem to be doing OK (EduNation has new owners) so I'll give myself 1.

8. Takeup by education (as opposed to business) of the Second Life Enterprise "behind the firewall" product will be limited unless the pricing for the sector is highly competitive. The same is likely to be true for the Immersive Workspaces product.
SLE is now discontinued as far as new users are concerned and Immersive Workspaces doesn't seem to be making much visible headway. An unfortunate (for others) 3.

9. Sims will increasingly borrow concepts from the games domain, serious or otherwise. The dominant mode of interaction will still be via mouse and keyboard though the arrival of MS Natal will catalyse some community hacks.
Natal became Kinect and, indeed, there are some hacks and, of course, some history with SL. Gaming influences are evident in the Virtual Mine sim. With the advent of a new LL CEO with a gaming background, there has already been mention of gamification on the SLED list. A slightly grasping 2.

10. There will be increased use of SL by small groups in shared physical spaces, e.g. in libraries, using either projection or large LCD screens.
Not known but for inspiration see this for the use of 3D in classrooms, this as an example of use of multi-touch displays, this for the use of interactive whiteboards with virtual worlds, and this for use of a 3D CAVE with Google Earth. A rather unhappy 0.

Employing suitably festive grading criteria, I score 12/30 = 40%, similar to last year.

The giant genome in OpenSim (well, almost)

2010-12-11T23:00:00.009Z

I haven't blogged for a while so thought I would just mention that I have most of the functionality of the walkround TB genome running on the USB memory stick version of OpenSim. I've had a few problems, e.g. I seemed to lose a few of the Molecule Park textures post-importing, and I initially had difficulties getting the gene marker to rez on parts of the genome. As ever, click on the image for a larget version.

It transpired that the latter was due (as far as I can tell) to OpenSim measuring distances a little differently to SL when it comes to the 10 m limit on scripted rezzing of objects. OpenSim appears to measure from the centre of the object while SL measures from the object's edges. However, you can adjust the distance in OpenSim by editing the .ini file so all is well, at least for the moment.

Currently the markers on the TB genome access web servers, both my own and third-party ones. It does strike me that there would be benefits in having at least some of the data served from the USB stick too so that the sim can run without web access. Having some automated means of booting the servers would become even more of a priority though.

I have also been playing with Terragen Classic and Bailiwick for the purposes of generating terrain files. Others have recounted the general approach which seems to work OK. I found that you also need to specify the maximum and minimum heights in Terragen. The terrain RAW file is loaded from the OpenSim command line, e.g. "terrain load hilly.raw" (where hilly.raw is the terrain file placed in the OpenSim bin folder) and you can fiddle with the elevation too, e.g. "terrain elevate 1.2". In my hands the terrain got copied by default to all four sims. The USB stick certainly gives students free rein to experiment with terrains on a scale that would be hard to support in SL.

So a few glitches but generally headed in the right direction, I hope.

[updated to amend command syntax errors]

Moving on

2010-11-28T22:53:00.004Z

On Monday I gave a tour of the sim to avatars from the annual JISC Online Learning Conference. After some 30 months, it was the last event on the island and I'm glad to say it went OK -- even SL voice for the most part behaved itself. The picture shows my avatar in Molecule Park extolling the virtues of SL mesh.

Anyway, I've since cleared the sim and I'll submit a Region Cancellation Request tomorrow. Nothing profound to say. Still renting a small parcel in SL but mostly looking to OpenSim now.

Fiddling...

2010-11-27T22:57:00.004Z

The urgent need to generate some sculpted prims has finally driven me to invest in a high-end inworld editor, namely Sculpt Studio (I bought it inworld on the Tech Expo sim). This, together with Sculptris for mesh, is putting off the evil day when I have to learn a "grown-up" 3D modelling package. I shall resist the temptation to ask for guesses as to what I'm attempting to model. Suffice it to say that, yes, I could have done this with SculptyPaint but I do think that having an inworld interface provides an opportunity to augment the interface with, for example, 2D images of the intended product.

As you will probably have gathered, Sculpt Studio works in terms of slices. Ordinarily you edit the shapes represented by the slices using point prims connected by particles. However, in this case it sufficed to simply move a few prims around to compress one end and elongate the other. After a little smoothing, I sent the data to a website offworld that generated the sculpt texture for uploading. It also provided a .obj file for UV texturing and text so I could regenerate the sculptie from a notecard.

Having applied the sculpt texture (to the dark prim above the slices), I had to stretch the sculpty a little and still it's not perfect. However, it's close to being adequate which is more than I've typically managed previously. Furthermore, I think I could explain to a student what I've done so, expense apart, it's not necessarily a technical deadend. Moreover, the experience was sufficiently painless that I can imagine using the tool regularly. We shall see.

It's desperately trivial and, of course, I should be clearing the sim...

Using Sculptris for SL mesh

2010-11-13T23:41:00.004Z

The gaming news this week has been all about the Kinect (formerly Natal) controller for the Xbox 360. While some early development work was done for SL, it isn't clear that a reimplementation will be facile, nor that it would be generally useful to educators outside of an individual use, small group or front-of-class setting (... OK, that's not bad).

Meanwhile Jon Himoff of Rezzable has been comparing OpenSim (+ Imprudence -- or Kokua as it is now called) with Unity3D. Having championed the former, he now seems to be shifting towards the latter, most notably due to ease of implementation via the web and on mobile devices. The downside for me is the loss of simple prim-based building, not just for me but for my students. I can, however, appreciate that from a commercial perspective Unity has a lot going for it. Moreover, it may be that a simpler platform with pre-packaged solutions will appeal to the average teacher, as opposed to the technology maven, in a way that SL for various reasons hasn't.

However, the notion that my students will build in Blender for Unity3D (or SL for that matter) seems untenable. On the other hand, digital sculpting software such as Sculptris (presently an alpha version free download but Windows-only) appear to be a much better match for generating "organic"-type SL meshes. The user is presented with either a flat or spherical surface and generates the shape by grabbing, inflating, flattening and smoothing it -- imagine students being able to use something like this inworld via a haptic interface!

The image above shows an SL mesh for a large protein whose overall structure has only been determined at low resolution using electron microscopy. It's only a rough first attempt on my part, generated in Sculptris and ported into SL via MeshLab (Sculptris exports in .obj format) but the use of the intuitive "digital clay" environment was both engaging and informative. True, I could have used real clay but I suspect it's simpler and cleaner to keep such creations on a computer!

Best of both worlds?

2010-11-05T08:40:00.007Z

The renewal on our island falls due at the end of November and, as blogged previously, I am not pursuing the lock-in option. The Lab's CEO makes it clear in a recent open letter that he sees educators as "important" but basically on a par with any other SL community (apart from the lock-in, presumably) and somewhat less important discount-wise than the land barons. There is some hard-nosed commercial logic in there, albeit tinged with a fairly callous implementation.

While the future points to OpenSim, I'm keeping a base in SL by renting a small parcel on an education sim. The accompanying picture shows a villa temporarily rezzed on the new parcel. I had notions at one time of using it as a multi-purpose centre for the old sim but in the new context it has a ludicrous prim count as well as looking out of place. Nevertheless, it underlines one of the benefits of SL, namely the ready availability of content.

Moreover, if something doesn't exist, there are often handy tools for its construction. The good news, however, is that there are strategies that mean you can derive many of the benefits in OpenSim without breaking the SL Terms of Service, e.g.:

If you use Puppeteer to animate prims (instead of simpler portable open source animation scripts), you can shoot machinima in SL and use that.
The particle organ is another tool I am reluctant to abandon. I can't transfer its prim-based output directly but I can use it to generate scripts that should port.
I use PipeMaker for making, um, pipes. I can do that in SL and port the product to other grids. That said, PipeMaker is a freebie and its licence means the script could be ported to OpenSim.
I can still use tools like ShapeGen, Lathe and Polygon Maker to generate symmetrical shapes in SL and port the products, having swapped my own base prim for the one provided so I am named as creator.
Likewise, I can use Prim Oven and Cord Maker to make sculpted prims I can port to OpenSim. These are used inworld but the trend may be towards standalone applications so that content can be ported to any grid. This is already possible with tools such as SculptyPaint but will presumably become the norm for meshes.

Yes, I could use all these in a sandbox but the intention is to have a base for small groups of students, both as a backup to OpenSim and as an orientation centre when visiting edu projects in SL. While some significant science-related sims are closing (e.g. CDC, ACS), there are still interesting places to visit. Hopefully in due course Troy McLuhan's list will be augmented by a complementary one drawn from non-SL grids. While it may not be possible to move seamlessly between SL and OpenSim grids, the HyperGrid affords that opportunity already for OpenSim users (where enabled).

Yeast chromosomes in SL

2010-11-02T10:19:00.014Z

A blog by Lars Juhl Jensen drew my attention to the haploid yeast genome structure recently published in Nature. The pdb file loads perfectly into UCSF Chimera but in my hands only displays in atom mode (as wire, for example). While this can be saved in x3d and pdb format, neither seems to load in any useful way into MeshLab, the source of the COLLADA dae file needed by SL mesh (caveat: I haven't tried Pymol, Blender or, for that matter, BioBlender). Accordingly, I loaded the pdb file into MeshLab directly and, as you might imagine, it is seriously big and the chromosomes are not colour-coded. For the moment I have had to resort to deleting large chunks in MeshLab as best I can, the idea being to reconstitute the genome subsequently. Anyway, the structure on the right represents the protruding part of chromosome XII (as ever, click through for a larger image). The structure on the left is a smaller chromosome (not to scale, in other words) saved from Chimera in .x3d format, uploaded into Vivaty Studio (the company recently acquired by Microsoft) and saved from there in .obj format for final processing in MeshLab prior to uploading to SL. The extra random messing about generated a marginally better result but, as things stand, neither product is especially pretty nor useful. Just intriguing.

[In case you wondered why the sim is so quiet, it's set to 5 min auto-return and is thus not very attractive to serious mesh developers]

Tranquil evening in the mesh sandbox

2010-10-29T22:16:00.006Z

One of the other tools I've begun to appreciate more is Screenr. This short clip shows the structure of a pair of Escherichia coli ribosomes in one of their two native arrangements in polysomes (top-to-top in this case). It starts with the view in UCSF Chimera, then MeshLab and finally in SL. I am plainly not much good at machinima but that's not the point. It was easy and fun to make and stimulated me to investigate something I didn't know.

Things that go bump in the night

2010-10-26T21:31:00.002Z

I just wanted to mark a few departures:

Bloglines RSS reader: imminent closure, overtaken by the real-time web apparently
The American Chemical Society and Centers for Disease Control, both leaving SL
dabbleDb: on notice (and striking a happier note, the devs having been acquired by Twitter)

A lot of change in the system just now, one way or another.

Space, the final frontier...

2010-10-23T19:54:00.005Z

... is a really terrible title for a blog post that features a single picture, albeit of three generations of SL mesh-type protein structure. Third in line on the left is Hiro Sheridan's sculpty version of human lysozyme, then the multi-sculpted version and, nearest to the camera, a "proper" space-filled mesh. Not perfect but it does at least give some feel for the kind of resolution that can be achieved.

My avatar is making the point that the PDB is not the only source of structures. He stands on EMDB Entry EMD-1644, the Borrelia flagellar motor (which does look a little like a spacecraft, no?)

All done with UCSF Chimera and MeshLab, the final frontier for me at the moment. The good news is that OpenSim does mesh too. Have mesh, will travel.

Fast, Easy, Fun (two out of three will do)

2010-10-22T11:03:00.009Z

Well, my first semester SL sessions are already drawing to a close. They haven't exactly gone to plan and some of that was down to unexpected infrastructure issues when we moved to Windows 7. As you may have noticed, I also had to spend time devising mitigation strategies when Linden Lab decided on the price-hike/lockin for educators. As it happens, the students affected seem happy with the USB OpenSim solution, as am I, at least as an interim measure.

Looking on the brighter side, what has worked in the SL class (subtext: stuff I'd use again):

TiddlySpace: we only scratched the surface but it was Fast and Easy.
Pixlr.com: the best image editing/resizing site I've seen. Fast and Easy.
Student base areas with scripted alignment prims so students can rez display boards that automatically position themselves over the pre-set marker prims. Fast, Easy and Fun.

OK, I'm biased but seeing prims self-locate (as per the video) made me smile. The students doubtless thought that this was just the norm and paid it scant attention. However trivial, Fast and Easy for them is still Fun for me.

[... and thanks to the Stilts Bitches at Burn2 for the excellent avatar freebies]

Putting my OAR in (well, almost)

2010-10-20T15:16:00.006Z

It's Open Access Week. Last year Daniel Livingstone did a nice presentation on some of the OA issues for virtual worlds and mentioned the possible significance of OAR files. Pathfinder alluded to them in his blog on USB on OpenSim and they surfaced again at last week's VWER meeting (the transcript includes links to OAR repositories). Ener Hax among others has commented on both the importance and the sheer convenience of being able to archive a sim, a role that the OAR seems to serve well. However, their originator, Justin Clark-Casey, points out that the OAR format is potentially subject to change though he is personally committed to maintaining backwards compatibility (OAR-related posts on Justin's blog). The format also presently fails to preserve creator attribution.

I'd hoped to have an OAR to deposit in JorumOpen this week but have just been too busy. As the instructions below describe, however, it's possible to load and merge OAR files from the web and JorumOpen might be a useful repository for this though perhaps it's not best-suited to serving large OARs directly in this manner.

My contribution to OAW then are the brief instructions to getting started with OARs and USBs that follow hereunder. Please bear in mind that I am a complete beginner and am fully aware that some people have been using them for more than a year. You have been warned!

The instructions were tested on Windows XP and I've sadly yet to see anything analogous working on a Mac. Before we get started, I should also mention that the OpenSim wiki has the definitive guide to using OARs.

Getting started (if OpenSim not already installed)
1. Get a USB with 1-2 GB free space.
2. Download the zip file from http://dwellonit.taterunino.net/sim-on-a-stick/ and extract to the USB.
3. Download and install the Imprudence viewer from http://imprudenceviewer.org/wiki/Downloads
4. Copy the Imprudence folder over to the USB stick top level.
THANKS TO TATERU FOR HER PACKAGING OF THE USB OPENSIM

Starting and closing the sim
1. Swap to USB drive
2. Double-click usb-opensim folder
3. Double-click MOWSE icon and wait for application window to show Apache and MySQL are running.
4. Double-click Opensim.bat and press a key when prompted. Wait for the application to load (text stops scrolling for >20 seconds). Be patient!
5. Go to the Imprudence folder and double-click the Imprudence icon.
6. Login as Test User, password usbsim. The grid should be set to localhost in the dropdown. Ignore the error referring to Home as you login.
7. Note that you can set the daylight conditions via the World, Environment Settings menu. You can change the avatar appearance using the contents of the clothing folders in the OpenSim Library in the Inventory (button at bottom right). Just drag one of the folders in the Diva freebies, e.g. Ken or Paula, onto the avatar.

Getting a molecule
1. Go to http://jorum.ac.uk/ and search on "OpenSim". Only one record exists at present.
2. Download the XML file for the caffeine molecule and copy it to the top level of the USB.
3. With OpenSim running, swap to Imprudence, select File, Import + Upload and choose the XML file. A ball-and-stick caffeine structure should appear.

Saving an OAR file
I SUGGEST DOING THIS ONLY WITH A SIM THAT IS EMPTY APART FROM THE CAFFEINE MOLECULE
1. Go to the OpenSim console window and type "save oar e:\caffeine.oar" (assumes your usb is drive E:). This saves everything in the sim (in this case the four regions comprising the Portable1 sim, i.e. all you can see). Delete the caffeine molecule (rightclick the object, More, Delete).
YOU CAN USE THIS PROCEDURE TO CREATE BACKUP FILES FOR SECURE STORAGE, I.E. *NOT* ON THE USB DRIVE
NOTE THAT REGION-LEVEL ACTIONS BY DEFAULT APPLY TO THE REGION CALLED PORTABLE1 WHICH IS 4x THE SIZE OF A SL SIM. YOU CAN USE THE OAR FILE CREATED HERE TO RESTORE THE STARTING CONDITION OF THE SIM.

Loading a local OAR file
I SUGGEST DOING THIS ONLY WITH A SIM THAT IS OTHERWISE EMPTY
1. Go to the OpenSim console and type either "load oar e:\caffeine.oar" or "load oar --merge e:\caffeine.oar" (the latter should in principle load the molecule and NOT replace/delete whatever is already there, unlike the first variant).
2. Delete the caffeine molecule.

Loading a remote OAR file
I SUGGEST DOING THIS ONLY WITH A SIM THAT IS OTHERWISE EMPTY
1. Go to the OpenSim console and type "load oar http://pcwww.liv.ac.uk/~pmiller/oars/caffeinex4.oar". This should load four caffeine molecules from file at the URL indicated. The merge option also works with remote OARs.

There are additional OAR files here:
http://www.opensimworlds.com/index.php?part=worlds

I haven't tested them all but the CSI one didn't work for me. In some cases it may be better to logout while the OAR loads. Note that the console window does accept pasted text, e.g. for URLs. Just rightclick and Paste.

Closing the sim
WAIT FOR EACH OF THESE STEPS TO COMPLETE
1. Close Imprudence.
2. Swap to the console and type "q", press Enter and wait for the prompt, then press a key.
3. Swap to the MOWES window, click "Stop server" and, when the servers show as stopped, click "End".

[edited to fix the link to dwellonit]

Meshes arrive

2010-10-13T19:55:00.004Z

I eventually figured out that you had to go to a specific mesh sandbox on the Beta grid. Once there the rest was simple. I rezzed a couple of meshes I'd made earlier, neither at what you would call high resolution. Still the process was straightforward enough: load Model into inventory, press the Generate LOD button in the Model dialog and then Upload. The meshes seemed to rez at an enormous size and one was two big to do much with except delete. The mesh above is a resized version of my old friend 1rex, human lysozyme. The UV map needs some thought but generally, as I said previously, "well within the compass of students". The duck, by the way, was a test mesh provided by the Lindens.

The edu-revolution will not be streamed (well, not mine)

2010-10-09T18:52:00.006Z

Dusan Writer would like to see the Lab stream Second Life. Doubtless many who base their online experience around the tablet form-factor are wishing for much the same. The desire to monetize that experience and the willingness to pay for apps seem natural bed-fellows. However, a harsh wind of economic reality is about to strike higher education in the UK and I only see streaming working if it reduces the cost to play and I don't see that happening.

Indeed, the Lab's continuing coercive behaviour towards educators and non-profits (as lock-ins must be viewed) increasingly leads me to seek a future primarily outside SL, not least as my renewal date hoves into view and my funding evaporates. That said, I acknowledge that for better resourced projects, SL remains the premier game in town. For the moment it is in most people's interest that SL flourish and that largesse in terms of viewer development continues to trickle down to third-party viewers.

What happens next, however, represents a fork in the road again, much like the one that led me to SL in the first place.

There are choices, most starkly in whether to join a public grid or not. In practice I do most of my own development and don't use other sims except as source of inspiration (one good reason to stay in SL in some reduced fashion). The SLED list saw evidence of coercive behaviour from an alternative edu-grid over the Summer and, suffice it to say, I won't be going there. Likewise, I'm not interested in manning any anti-Linden barricades. At best this is a distraction for me, at worst a catalyst for counter-productive grid wars.

My funding and infrastructure mean that I can only afford to join a commercial grid for part of the year; I prefer the idea of a high concurrency service when required rather than an affordable, low concurrency one simply for the purpose of maintaining a presence. The notion of being able to swap between the two is very attractive, however, and something that a few grids such as SpotOn3D are beginning to offer.

That said, the future for me (and I am likely atypical) lies primarily in OpenSim-on-a-stick -- and yes, I need a better name for it.

Put quite simply, it scales. It allows me to develop scenarios for different classes without buying/hiring extra islands. Assuming that students can download and run them satisfactorily, it means that I am not limited to small classes (and/or complex scheduling) and students cannot get lost on the way to or from class. Students can build or modify scenarios without interfering with one another and archiving for external examiner perusal is straightforward. As my classes are primarily face-to-face, collaboration could come at that level rather than inworld. That said, it is apparently possible to hypergrid-enable such sims. Outreach to schools and places with low internet connectivity can be achieved by physical exchange of USB sticks or, where practicable, downloads.

If there is one thing missing at present, it is the web but that is imminent and, of course, conditional on an internet connection. What would be ideal would be to be able to use TiddlyWiki while offline and TiddlySpace while online.

While some may see this approach as a marginal activity in the development of virtual worlds, I believe it could be important in taking such environments to a wider audience. There is plenty of scope for collaboration and sharing, carrying on the the ethos that attracted educators to SL in the first place. Ultimately it also gives students the keys to the walled garden and in due course develop a transcendant personal learning environment from which to explore the metaverse.

Check back later; this one may take a while

2010-10-07T20:00:00.005Z

I'm slowly moving the giant TB genome onto the USB key OpenSim. The original was built using Cadroe Murphy's ShapeGen and I didn't change the rezzed prim so it bears his name as creator. Accordingly, I'm having to rebuild it. I do miss some of the neat tools in SL, most notably Puppeteer (which has a new edition out) and, indeed, this is one of the reasons for keeping a toe dipped in SL. And then there's the community, of course.

Pathfinder has a great blog on Roger Stack's USB-based OpenSim implementation -- his reaction pretty much mirrored my own first impressions. I'm really glad to see that he's as enthused as I am -- I think it has great potential and not just as a halfway house.

Look for me on a USB stick next year

2010-10-06T21:45:00.006Z

The Rockcliffe meeting to discuss the ending of the SL edu discount was interesting but suffered from the same concern that I voiced in my previous blog, namely that we cannot assess the import of the Lab's actions without knowing their intent. Tateru Nino seems convinced that an attempted sell-off is imminent and debates the possible outcomes. Presumably if she were right, the Lab would be keeping it pretty quiet-- as it is. Equally, others see the discount announcement as a negotiating position.

Meanwhile I've ported StoryMachine across to OpenSim-on-a-stick. The nodes clearly haven't recoloured properly but the general effect is not dissimilar to SL and the interactive mode works as well. If only the code wasn't so utterly rubbish, it would still make a nice signature piece.

I also ported across the protein rezzer. This was fairly straightforward except that llLookAt isn't implemented in OpenSim. A quick Google showed a workround and that someone else had been porting Troy's scripts into OpenSim. Hiro Sheridan tells me that he is staying in SL for the moment but is happy for his molecule rezzers to go into OpenSim, as, indeed, they already have elsewhere.

I should emphasise that I'm not leaving SL entirely even though it seems 90% certain that the sim will disappear in November or shortly thereafter. I still think the outreach potential of SL is significant and I may even go back to Daxos as originally planned. That said, life on a USB is currently looking remarkably stress-free by comparison with SL.

Plan B?

2010-10-05T21:46:00.005Z

I have neither the time nor the inclination for this really but I find myself driven into a corner by Linden Lab's decision to remove the discount for educational sims. It isn't so much the cost (though I could only afford a further six months) as the uncertainty implicit in this apparently arbitrary move. Is Linden Lab sending negative messages to its largest corporate sector, is it in desperate need of the money or is it trying to encourage educators to coalesce? Either way I find myself forced to act defensively and am actively investigating OpenSim alternatives.

Spurred on by Ener Hax's blog, I installed OpenSim and Imprudence on a USB stick and ported some objects over from the small Molecule Park display on our island in SL. As previously on ScienceSim, the ball-and-stick molecule generated by Hiro Sheridan's rezzer came across without problems. The multi-sculpted protein predictably came across without its sculpt maps so these had to be reapplied. The SlideBoard texture displayer required the script to be ported separately and the prim media commands to be removed but otherwise seemed to work fine.

I can't claim that the experience was entirely glitch-free. In particular, when attempting to export or save snapshots, the avatar was logged out though the save operation seemed to succeed. Also, while I am quite happy to have a ruthed avatar, not everyone will be. Nevertheless, I think this has significant potential for training purposes where I can give the student a USB stick and have them operational within seconds on a stock laptop. Prim limits are barely an issue on the four region island and the speed and zero cost of texture uploads is also a bonus.

Of course, OpenSim has limitations but it is looking very promising. The question of hosting can wait for another day.

When the going gets tough, the tough go... shopping?

2010-08-24T18:19:00.007Z

I've written previously about the A2Z camera HUD and I also occasionally use CamSync, both gadgets for taking control of the avatar camera, the former for remote location monitoring, the latter for sharing the teacher's view with students.

The gadget I am using here is the Shopping Camera Server system by Bitman Voom. This is a versatile system that lies somewhere between the other two. Its primary role is not educational but commerce-oriented, helping shoppers to scan products in a store without entering it (useful in case of lag). Basically they sit in a chair and the camera moves between the locations instead of the avatar. While it is possible to script this kind of camera effect, this gadget makes the process much easier and more scalable. Although in some ways akin to the the A2Z HUD, the end-result is available to students, not just the teacher.

Setting-up is straightforward. Camera positions are stored in a server prim that needs to be rezzed first. You can then rez multiple cameras pointing at features of interest, assigning each a unique channel number, and they will then connect automatically with the server. Avatars then sit in the special chairs (or poseballs if you want to make your own) and, if necessary after pressing Esc, they are shown the preset camera views with a pseudo-HUD inside the camera allowing them to move to and from through the views, teleport to the current view or unlock the camera, i.e. restore it to the default, over-the-shoulder view.

This worked pretty well, albeit occasionally navigation prims failed to rez quickly enough in the new camera location. It's also a pity that the pseudo-HUD can't be minimized or made semi-transparent as it obscures part of the view. By default cameras are black but I suspect they could be retextured.

The system is constrained to about 100 m around the server although that did not cause problems (there is a sim-wide extension pack but it does not bypass intrinsic limits due to draw distances). Three camera sizes are provided to ensure that more distant cameras are not left unrezzed due to their size. Likewise it's possible to change the sit script in the chairs so that it shows a less shopping-inspired hovertext.

Two alternatives to the standard chair are provided. Firstly, there is a touring chair that allows authors to guide avatar cameras through a predetermined sequence, complete with timings and explanation. Secondly, there is a HUD that allows the owner to dial up a particular view and move the camera a little and save the position to the server. The ability to add camera positions is defined by a notecard in the server. Unlike the pseudo-HUD, this proper HUD can be minimised and has a range of other functionality. Sadly, as far as I could tell, its use is limited to the owner unless you purchase the Builders version. This comes with a HUD that allows you to capture camera positions without the prim camera as well as a distributable HUD (you will have to modify the permissions to make it no-trans). There's yet another version for conference settings.

Overall, this is a nice tool at a nice price (L$299). If you want to take students through an light-touch induction without the risk of their getting lost, this is one possibility. Likewise, it may be of use if your objective is to reduce lag or to facilitate groupwork. At a pinch students could also create tours.

As some of my classes are group-based, I've placed the chairs at a central location (also the location of the camera server) specific to each group. Depending on the class, the six surrounding 'pods' might variously be problem-specific, stages on a pathway or student-specific. The demo video shows the shopping cam version in action and the way it can handily be used with shared media prims viewed from above.

Embedit.in

2010-08-23T20:34:00.005Z

I'm looking at various ways of getting PowerPoint files onto prims. Shared media has the attraction that there is no resizing of individual images and no upload fee. There's no shortage of tools for the job, but embedit.in seems to work well if you are happy with asynchronous display and want an alternative to Slideshare. Moreover, it has some automation facilities (haven't looked at those yet).

I had to fiddle a bit with the texture repeats and positioning but otherwise the end-result isn't bad. No fast-forward or auto-play though. Files can be private or open/downloadable.

Possible tip: the conversion was both much faster and more accurate if I saved the PowerPoint as a pdf and uploaded and converted that rather than the .pptx file.

Time capsule

2010-08-23T18:40:00.004Z

Having generated some evolutionary pathways, I thought I'd better have a time capsule to travel along them. Based on a script I got from the old ICT Library, this tourbot will ultimately allow students to script the commentary that goes with each stage of the journey. As with most tourbots, the path is marked out first and the waypoints captured on a notecard.

If it has a fault, it is that it is more quaint than white-knuckle: the Model T of time travel. I'm not entirely sure that's a bad thing.

Molecule Park

2010-08-22T20:03:00.003Z

Mea culpa, I haven't been blogging much. A visit by an ISTE tour group spurred me into some modestly dynamic action, turning the variegated display of molecules at one end of the island into something marginally more coherent. It still doesn't attempt to teach chemistry or structural biology, nor even how to create molecules inworld. However, it does provide a single focus for molecule rendering with a wide range of structures displayed and links to places where further info is available. Hope it's useful.

Evolutionary pathways

2010-07-31T12:16:00.006Z

A bit of grass applied to a megaprim, some commercial pathway textures, a few labels and "Hey Presto!": the evolution of mycobacteria based on the presence or absence of so-called regions of difference. Less is more.

Protein meshes in five easy pieces

2010-07-12T16:40:00.012Z

Caveat: I know nothing about meshes except, (big) perhaps, how to make them for molecules...

We all have to start somewhere and in my case the first faltering steps were at least straightforward:

Install the molecule viewer UCSF Chimera. File|Fetch by ID a structure, e.g. 1rex, from the PDB.
Change the Presets to ribbons and File|Export Scene in .x3d format (.wrl works too).
Install meshlab (pictured above), File|Open the .x3d file and, if required, colour and simplify it (there's a lot to play with on the Filters menu that will only make sense after more detailed investigation; for example, Clustering decimation under Remeshing has a fairly radical effect in terms of reducing vertex count/file size while maintaining overall shape).
Save in .dae format (aka COLLADA)
Import into Second Life and rez or, in my case, wait patiently for full SL implementation.

Not being in the beta programme, I know nothing about SL (or any other kind of) meshes apart from what was pre-released during the temporary lifting of the NDA so the above may or may not be of any use at all. In particular, I don't know how the final file plays with the multiple levels of detail supported by SL and, of course, the prim-equivalent limitation likely to be imposed. Creating appropriate UV map textures is also going to be a headache for anything complex unless it can be automated, as per Hiro Sheridan's sculpted protein service. I'm also clueless as to whether Viewer 1.23 support is being retrofitted. Making the meshes interactive or animated is also going to be interesting, as per the multi-sculpted proteins.

Only time (or someone on the beta programme) will tell if the above is feasible. Quality-wise, there is doubtless much to assimilate. However, if the method does work, it is well within the compass of students.

SL Shared media presentation

2010-07-06T12:13:00.003Z

Bit of a tired ramble -- I'd anticipated originally that I would do a more engaging version live in Second Life but it would have overrun even more than it does now. No script so there are bound to be some errors and omissions, not to mention errs and umms (or are they the same things?). I'll do some screencasts in due course to show how the apps work (or would work if they were finished!). This is also my first use of authorStream for this kind of thing.

There are acknowledgements for the media on the last slide. Open Access is wonderful.

Automagic rezzing with Sikuli, Part the Second

2010-06-28T05:42:00.008Z

I had a comment from Eloise Pasteur on my last blog asking whether running Sikuli out of debug mode speeded things up. I said "a lot" but on reflection that may have been an overestimate. Anyway, the video above illustrates the use of Sikuli to rez in standard mode but this time I've included a couple of extra features.

Firstly, as prims rez, they chat and that chat is registered by a chart prim which updates a shared media chart texture based on the Google Visualization API. For the moment the chart is as basic as it could be but is intended as a reminder that we no longer have to reinvent 2D graphs inworld. In a more general way, it also illustrates the use of shared media as a complement to prims. There is doubtless plenty of further scope for this type of integration. Dusan Writer laments the lack of obvious shared media developments beyond the most basic (he sees this as a consequence of the poor uptake of Viewer 2.0). It would be nice to move this area on a little.

Secondly, after rezzing has finished, I used the Sikuli findAll command to locate the spheres and then count them, displaying the score in a popup. As the capacity of the sensor facility in SL is limited to 16 objects, this might be an interesting alternative to use of sensor arrays, albeit that it requires that objects be within the field of view, static and non-overlapping. Coping with rotation is also an issue with more complex objects.

One could go a lot further with Sikuli by introducing visual conventions for other parameters such as elevation and rotation. Prims might themselves have additional codes on them so a second level of prims could be added. "Intelligent" prims might act to close gaps by rezzing further prims.

As Sikuli is based on Jython, the Java implementation of Python, it has access to a wide range of code libraries and, more importantly, can read and write to local files as well as the web. For very simple, single-level builds therefore, it might facilitate documentation and re-rezzing. Of course, there are easier ways to do this already available but bear in mind that Sikuli could take objects exported in XML format (with appropriate permissions) and rez them inworld, maybe taking additional data on size, elevation, scaling, etc from a separate scene file. These refinements could be implemented via Sukuli's control of the Build menu of a suitable third party viewer. (In all this, I assume, of course, that you have created all components of the object; export under these circumstances is compatible with the SL ToS. Scripts are not presently archived so some additional work would be required).

More interestingly (and bearing in mind my 2010 predictions #4 and #5), Sikuli could be used to monitor changes in the scene (registered visually, via the web or communicated to a HUD prim watched by Sikuli) and make corresponding alterations to it. For example, if one scene is successfully completed, a flag is displayed and the next scene is rezzed. This begins to sound a little like learning design. The idea of using a vertical view of a scene in SL to design and implement a learning experience that responds to student activity is quite attractive.

A list of requirements for a simplified learning design implementation has been compiled by Scott Wilson, though it does assume the availability of a SCORM implementation. I doubt that I'll pursue the learning design aspect, not least because options such as PIVOTE and, at a lower level, LibOpenMetaverse already exist. Moreover, the requirement to have Sikuli running in the foreground on a PC somewhere is onerous, not least when you attempt to scale to multiple scenes being used simultaneously by different groups. It might be done in conjunction with a facility for camera repositioning but it would not be pretty.

That said, the introduction of a 4th dimension, viz time, into SL builds is pertinent to other smallscale projects I have in mind and Sikuli is definitely an option to consider there.

Automagic rezzing with Sikuli

2010-06-24T21:01:00.006Z

I already raved a little about Sikuli, the pattern recognition scripting language. I'm compiling a talk on innovative uses of shared media in SL and thought it would be fun to show Sikuli being used as a rezzing tool with a shared media prim as the template. The demo shows that objects can be automagically dragged from inventory and dropped onto multiple copies of the character S (for sphere) and B (for box) that were generated previously using the text tool in Board800. The script terminates when no further characters are recognised.

Bear in mind that the demo is deliberately played at debug speed so that the actions are visible. The process can also be speeded up by restricting the screen region that needs to be searched. You may find that you need to tune the recognition a little (there's a dialog accessed via the image button in the script). Also, I have the avatar camera canted slightly and the perspective can cause recognition problems; it is better to have the camera directly above.

As Board800 is multi-user and updates synchronously, this approach might be used for a 2-stage collaborative design process that starts with shared media in or outside SL and ends with objects being rezzed onto the whiteboard image.

I'm not sure that I have a particular use case in mind but clearly it could suit noob avatars with negligible prim-handling skills, albeit that actual rezzing would most likely be conducted by a more experienced user. Setting up student avatars would be another application.

Look for me in Second Life next year

2010-06-13T16:09:00.004Z

Not a good week for Linden Lab (LL), the company that operates Second Life (SL). It underwent a dramatic restructuring, letting go roughly a third of its staff and closing its off-shore operations. Staff lost included the two remaining edu Lindens. It must be doubly difficult to give up a job with such a strong visionary component. One can only wish them well.

The cause of this upheaval is largely unknown though blogger Tateru Nino believes it to be due in part to a cessation in growth of the internal money supply (Linden Lab sells internal L$ for real money but leaves it to residents to convert it back). Some of the comments to her article suggest that this may have coincided with the switch to the new search engine which has had teething problems. The true economic state of SL is not easy to determine but some people renting out land and running shops report that they are doing surprisingly well given the state of the external economy. From an education perspective, a tweet from the recent NMC conference indicated that there are now more than 800 universities with a presence inworld, albeit that the size and role of the presence may vary widely. The campuses comprising the University of Texas System are mostly keeping 1-2 of the initial three sims allocated to each during the recent one year pilot, a very positive sign. Likewise, universities in the UK that have adopted virtual worlds centrally report steady growth in demand from faculty as they see from their peers what is possible.

Some educators have, however, been nonplussed by the change in focus towards consumers brought about by the LL restructuring, not least because they believe education is a significant source of free (and positive) advertising for SL in the media. They are also concerned that content developed inworld using full-perms but third-party content may not be legally exported from SL for use in other virtual worlds, most notably those based on OpenSim (you can export content created exclusively by yourself, albeit that you may need to do some manual configuration subsequently). This has consequences both for backup (as required by many grants) and for possible porting to OpenSim in the future. One compromise at present may be to develop on standalone OpenSim and import into SL. On the other hand it remains to be seen to what extent the OpenSim code diverges from SL compatibility and, indeed, ultimately varies between OpenSim grids. The popular new Inworldz grid, for example, makes some play on the fact that it is aiming to be a half-way house between SL and OpenSim.

On the other hand there is also concern that OpenSim grids themselves are not yet ready for intensive class use when compared to SL. This is reinforced by the fact that companies such as Reaction Grid and Rezzable are developing web-based virtual world viewers using the install-free Unity3D plugin (I believe it still needs to be downloaded but the installation is transparent).

Japanese company 3Di possibly had the first implementation of a web-based OpenSim viewer. This may be the same Rei viewer described in a recent paper on the use of ScienceSim for modelling protein folding (among other things). The authors report problems with dynamic updating of structures comprising more than 1000 prims and the new viewer has thus been introduced as it supports non-prim bonds. In the paper 3Di also espouse an interest in supporting multiple simultaneous views onto a virtual world. This is something that is likely to be of interest to the reconfigured LL with its change to a (much simpler) web-based viewer as an option for SL.

In a recent WSJ interview following the layoffs, the LL CEO “Kingdon says the company will soon release an app for Second Life on iPhones and iPads”. It is not clear whether that will deliver functionality as good as or better than, say, the text-based Radegast or any of the existing phone apps. It seems likely that the focus at that level will continue to be on simplifying the experience for new users. Viewer 2, the open source Snowglobe and its variants will evolve to support more specialist options such as building. It is interesting to see the focus on the iPad given the investment made by Blackboard on the same platform and mobile devices in general. However, one can only assume that other operating systems will be supported in due course.

While some educators are concerned at a possible shift in focus from business and education, others see it as an opportunity (as do some but not other commentators more generally). The nature of the change remains to be seen but I can’t help thinking that the model is directed towards shops and venues, with a little simulation game- or role-play thrown in. Perhaps it will be fronted by an xstreet (or curated app store) for experiences, sort of a multi-channel interactive TV with avatars, basically repackaging what already exists and creating a market for game designers, shopkeepers, creatives and venue hosts. This presupposes the dynamic multiple simultaneous views mentioned by the Rei developers and also by Grace McDunnough (she calls them "sneak peeks") and, in similar vein, by Eightball Magic.

Some educators have recognised that the "cheese" has moved and are determined to chase it. Others are sceptical that it will generate significant revenue although the LL intent towards social media suggests that advertising may also feature. Presumably this might also involve deploying virtual worlds into platforms such as Blackboard and Facebook (where Metaplace has been notably successful lately) which may have some value.

The broader issues facing educators in SL remain to be fully worked out but senior management from the Lab have belatedly left statements on the SLED list this week undertaking to update educators as developments and detail emerge over the next few weeks.

Personally, my premium account and region tier (met for the coming year from my personal academic account) are both due and I will renew. It’s not so much the content I’ve developed, collected and purchased but rather, for all its vagaries, the fact that SL is still the most stable and best-featured virtual world at the present time with the largest edu community. While those with alternative agenda may be looking elsewhere (and encouraging others in the same direction), I have to start planning for next year now, albeit with an eye to the medium-term future as well. Second Life is where I plan to be for now.

Uncle D: a gallant loser

2010-06-02T19:56:00.006Z

With the benefit of hindsight, we know now that the Tech Virtual won this year's Linden Prize and is a very worthy victor. That said, I spent a little time at the weekend visiting one of the unsuccessful finalists, Karuna and StoryQuest. In fact, I spent most time not on Karuna but on the two Story sims. I found these highly engaging and became quite absorbed investigating the various builds, constructing a mental image of their subject, the late Uncle D.

The range of interactivity and general resourcefulness reminded me a little of some of the Literature Alive! builds of yore. I was, however, saddened to see that some of the adjunct sites, a sky platform and a couple of New York City builds, appeared to have gone. I can understand this; it's been a while since the Uncle D StoryQuest was performed and tier needs to be paid (though the teleport locations are still empty and presumably generate traffic for the sim owner).

Still, I was intrigued to find a determinedly hyper-real anti-retroviral display (creator: Hiro Sheridan) amid the low-key travelogue, education and poetry builds. I have it in mind to add some cultural references to the Cityscape level of the TB build though could not begin to match the sophistication shown by the StoryQuesters. It's marvellous that teachers can find inspiration like this so readily. Credit to the Lindens too for instigating the Prize last year.

Pumpkins? Whatever next?

2010-05-23T14:57:00.005Z

Following my call for people interested in sharing the sim, I'm delighted to say that it will be funded for at least another year. I eventually raked together just enough internal funding to cover tier but I also have one person wanting to rent a third of the sim and another making a significant input based on a collaborative project. On top of that I had offers to go and share another sim and to have content hosted elsewhere. Marvellous stuff, especially the opportunity to work with new teachers and have their students use the island too. As I'm staying put, I've closed the Daxos shop and I'll ultimately put the freebies from there in the resource centre on the island (at the moment most are rezzed on display).

Despite appearances, the picture above is not a Halloween leftover but represents the genome of a mycobacterial phage (virus that infects bacteria related to the TB bacterium) called, yes, Pumpkin (or the somewhat less memorable Cjw1). There isn't much to show at the moment apart from the blue open reading frames (the useful bits that encode genes) offset according to which of the two DNA strands they are on (there's quite a disparity). You can run the mouse over the ORFs to see their index number and pop the chosen one up by touching it. The relevant page from the database is automagically displayed on one side of the prim and you can zoom in using the + button on the toolbar shown). Rightclick and touch the ORF prim to return it to its original position. Well, that's the theory -- there are still a few "issues" as I write and some way to go before it is useful in class.

As there are less than 150 ORFs, I've decided for the moment to explore this prim-intensive approach rather than use textures and touchpos scripts as on the giant genome.

Alice in WonderSLand

2010-05-10T05:37:00.004Z

The Avatar Repertory Company staged their version of the Lewis Carroll classic last night. As my first taste of a fullscale theatrical production in SL, I was mightily impressed, both with the performances and with the staging. The story lends itself brilliantly to SL with the consistently excellent Alice changing in size as required in a way that would be hard to imagine in RL. The absence of facial expression beyond lip movement did not affect my enjoyment at all. The voices were well able to convey the emotional dimension and a real-life production would probably have resorted to a degree of deadpan anyway.

The staging was highly imaginative and made use of the potential of both the environment and the story to deliver a full sense of wonderment. There may have been more standing on tables than would have been the case in RL but this is the stuff of an avatar's existence and taken therefore as read and barely noticed. You can occasionally see how things are done but I think only in a way that makes one complicit with the cast (who chatted amiably with the audience at the end and admitted to a degree of improv on one or two occasions). Given that they are drawn from multiple continents, the ensemble playing was wonderful.

I don't know whether it puts an unbearable load on the sim but being able to alt-zoom the avatar camera gives the audience the ability to stage one's own play-within-a-play and steal some keepsake photos in a way that would not be possible in RL. With 55 in the sim, SL did a splendid job of sustaining what was at times a very kinetic performance and deserves a full measure of credit as well. Tickets (L$500 well spent in my opinion) can be obtained from xstreetsl: just search for Alice in WonderSLand. The very able front-of-house staff also contributed to the experience but do make sure to turn up early to follow the guidance on setting viewers (instructions cover Emerald and Viewer 2.0) and allow SL to cache textures.

Interested in a sim share in Second Life?

2010-05-03T09:47:00.003Z

I've posted this in various places so I may as well share here on the off-chance that anyone still reads blogs:

I'm looking for 2-3 educators (or departmental-level small groups thereof) to share sim costs with me from June 2010 onwards (though a later joining date might be considered). I'm a microbiology lecturer at the University of Liverpool in the UK, former director of a national subject-specific support centre for e-learning, and a small-scale developer of educational tools and content free for use in SL. All subject areas welcome.

If interested, please leave a comment on this blog

I was planning to give up the sim and rent parcels only during teaching. Unfortunately, the intervention of the anonymous organisation means that I require the option at least of using the RegAPI to confine student avatars to the island should senior management so decide. I don't have the luxury of time to debate the true meaning of FUD on SLED as the sim closes at the end of this month and projects for next year are due by the end of this week. Wonderful timing (not).

I suppose running the island in lockdown mode might encourage a few more staff to dip their toes into SL but I have no idea how I would explain it to the students. Going to an educational OpenSim grid after this seems an improbable option unless anyone knows one that has disavowed the call. As there's now no point in paying tier on the new Centre at Daxos, that will close before it actually opened. Not a first for SL, I suspect, and one of its strengths, namely that you can try things and fail at only moderate cost.

For anyone who has read this far, educators get a discount so a third of an island (5000 prims) would therefore be $50 + VAT at 17.5% per month, six months in advance. I'm anticipating a fairly drastic reorganisation but obviously won't do that until people sign up. I'll also have to rebadge the island .

On the upside, I have written the script for a Downfall parody based on this episode but I'm not brave enough to publish it here. It's probably unintelligible to most people anyway but, well, it made me chortle.

Who broke the metaverse?

2010-05-01T17:19:00.003Z

Today (yes, it is Saturday, everywhere) I showed up on Genome for a meeting with a new group of avatars interested in biology assessment in SL. I contributed nothing but interruptions but Max did a great job despite the usual problems with voice and also thanked me for the new multi-sculpted lysozyme model which replaces the old one at the top of the Tower. As a consequence, she now has 700 more prims available to use elsewhere. This small "win" came following my visit to a Japanese sim to buy (with my own L$) a new tool developed for a totally different reason. I love what Max does and giving her those 700 prims back was a small token. All this was trivial stuff really but the grist of much that happens in a social virtual world.

Or it was until yesterday when an avowedly open but pretty much anonymous organisation (actually a model of opacity to non-members) decided to issue a recommendation that educational use of SL should stop until such time as they received a (free, heh) legal opinion on the situation regarding IP in SL, which some of their members (unnamed) were concerned about. And while they were about it, why not throw the adult content thing in for good measure. Two for the price of none. These guys run a hybrid grid that doesn't support SL (to add insult to injury, the site includes an antediluvian SL machinima) and, judging by the SLED list, some of their members were concerned that they couldn't legally export stuff they'd bought in SL so they could use it on these other grids.

Well, tough. Much as we might wish otherwise (especially for backup), that's the way SL works and, to the best of my knowledge, nothing much has really changed. The confusion maybe comes from the open source third-party viewers: you can use these to export basic objects: that's perfectly legal according to the new Terms of Service provided you made all of it. Maybe it was an oversight, maybe it was deliberate, but SL does not presently support cross-grid licensing of third-party content, even full-perms. One thing it does have, however, is litigious content creators so LL are caught between a rock and a hard place. The ultimate answer, of course, may be to develop content externally and import it into multiple grids, as I do in part with the sculpty generator.

Conflating this with the adult content aspect (which in practice is not really a problem and in things like search has improved a lot lately) seems gratuitous to me. If it does worry you, the answer is to tie students to your sim by registering them using the RegAPI. You then close the island to external visitors. I personally haven't the time to see how this legal thing pans out, what with the sim otherwise closing, so I can see my having to act defensively, try to keep the sim and then have the option of doing the RegAPI at extra cost, resulting in an inferior learning experience (no visits to the African township, for example) and no outreach opportunities. I just hope I never have to switch it on, effectively an electric fence round the island. How will I fund the island? Well, the current thinking is to look for 2-3 individuals or small groups to share.

Others are concerned that their faculty can't get grants for projects in SL because funding bodies demand backups. Well, tough again, and that's no excuse in my book for trying to pull the metaphorical walls down. I have had nothing but trivial seedcorn funding, some gifted educator/developers to learn from, a galaxy of tools to facilitate development, and a modicum of committment. Nothing I do is anywhere close to perfect (it would be much better if I had an accomplice) but some of it is improving and, I think, showing promise. Max runs Genome from a departmental budget. That's the future, infrastructure, not grants. Get over it.

But why not just go and develop on these new, carefully sanitised education grids, I hear you say? Well, firstly nothing I have seen suggests that the overall feature set, performance, tools and content, is yet comparable to SL (that will change). Indeed, if it was, why is the export of content from SL even an issue? Make or source your own. I personally have to resort to hosted solutions and the price differential between them and SL is also not yet sufficient to compensate for the loss of quality. In my opinion, for my purposes. In some cases the showcase video for these platforms looks lovely and (unsurprisingly) highlights the functionality that is superior to SL's while, of course, artfully hiding the fact that only three avatars can move at one time (unless you have gigabucks of RAM) or the maximum concurrency is in the 20's. But you can have limitless prims and multiple sims. No thanks.

Of course, all is not well in SL either if the more vociferous residents and bloggerati are to be believed. There were prophecies that this would be a year of pain and so it has proven, despite the fact that the service is (mostly) stable, still runs on our fairly basic hardware and offers additional features, most notably shared media. But one interest group after another prefers to complain until you wonder how they find time to use the service at all. And some quit, making sure that everyone knows in excruciting detail how much greener the grass textures are at their intended destination.

But it wasn't the residents that broke the metaverse. People come and go but SL's still running. It wasn't even this anonymous organisation and its supporters on SLED; Max will ignore their recommendations (if she's even heard of them) and, arguably, so should I. It certainly wasn't the Lindens that wrecked it -- they just run one small part of the metaverse now, albeit a commercial one with high walls and unconvivial pricing.

But ultimately it was me, I broke it. I got cross at an avatar I associated with this anonymous organisation and refused to help her induct a newb. That was mean-spirited and Max wouldn't have done it. OK, the apology is in the email.

Anonymous organisation: you may have all the grants, you may have the future even, but you are not the metaverse and don't forget it. The metaverse is about people, it's about connections, shared histories. Shame on you.

metaAfrica Township

2010-04-30T06:02:00.008Z

Sunset on metaAfrica Township. For financial reasons Uthango are closing the homestead regions I previously rented on and instead have opened up a township as a residential area on one of the two remaining full regions. Of course, this is sadly the kind of environment in which TB thrives and I tried creating my own build on the Cityscape platform using so-called grunge materials.

I do have some moral qualms about pretending to dwell, however virtually, under conditions so far removed from my own real-life. There are so many beautiful sims in SL and this one is no less marvellously rendered. However, there is still a palpable shock for a coddled Westerner on rezzing in the township. I can only justify my virtual presence on the basis that Uthango supports projects in such places and I am hopefully supporting them. And yes, Africa should have a voice in the metaverse.

Moreover, I do want the microbiology students to experience other regions of SL related to their studies and to be aware of the presence inworld of non-profits as well as educational institutions. Last year they went to Karuna (HIV information sim funded by the US National Library of Medicine) but that project has sadly ended. This township in Virtual Africa is a worthy successor and there are many other things to see and do on the sims beyond the township itself. The covenant also talks about turning residents into micropreneurs. An interesting thought.

slurl

1rez multi-sculpted protein

2010-04-24T15:28:00.005Z

I added the Cord Maker script to the atoms in the Protein Rezzing Toolkit (PRT) and then rezzed the protein (1rez, lysozyme), generated the sculpty textures, applied them to prims inworld and assembled them with the prim-intensive version as a template. Indeed, assembly was somewhat slow and tedious but the result is a worthwhile reduction from 779 prims to 38. If I replace the alpha and beta structure (red and blue here) with the single pipes and planks prim I made previously, that number reduces further to 23.

This represents a useful halfway house between Hiro Sheridan's single-prim sculpted proteins and the multi-prim versions generated by the PRT and Monolith. Asorel Todriya did something similar with conventional prims but inevitably the end-result looked less, well, organic. The challenge now is to add detail back in a way that is prim-efficient but allows students to explore and annotate the molecule in meaningful ways. While this general approach has a number of limitations, it has one supervening benefit, namely that each student or group can be given their own semi-detailed molecule to work with.

Shared media resource bookmarks

2010-04-21T17:24:00.003Z

An ultra-rapid blog just to highlight an attempt to use delicious to compile a list of resources for those wanting to use and implement solutions based on shared media. When thinking of Web 2.0 applications on a prim like EtherPad, I've started by focussing on the subset that are free, synchronous and zero-registration (like EtherPad, in fact). I obviously don't have time to test every feature of every application and I will also be pointing at other resource sites as well.

Dashboard 0.41

2010-04-19T21:10:00.005Z

To reprise, this is a seven-screen shared media viewer. I've actually cut out some of features of the previous version. It no longer packs/unpacks, follows the avatar or distributes landmarks. On the other hand, I added the ability to load websites onto individual screens from a notecard called keySites. Just rightclick|Touch and select KeySites from the menu.

I'm distributing it via the Subscribe-O-Matic group -- you can join at the Simply Beta Learning Technology Centre on Daxos (slurl). The group also has an RSS feed. Eventually, I'll setup a vendor there (the object is set to buy for L$0 but I don't recommend you leave it around just in case anyone manages to reset the URLs, though that shouldn't be possible if you're not the owner). Also, note that audio for Flash and QuickTime video is sim-wide.

The dashboard is still a little buggy; you may need to touch the screen or controller twice on occasion. The menu (and help) is available by touching the non-screen prim that acts as controller.

Experience suggests that you may sometimes have problems getting all 7 screens to work although in theory the shared media supports the 8 nearest to the avatar camera.

Shared media overview

2010-04-18T10:31:00.001Z

I'm going to be contributing occasional blogs to the Elucian Islands group on Nature Networks. The first (rather long) blog is on shared media.