VIRTUAL LIBRARY OF BIRMINGHAM US FEDERAL VIRTUAL

The £188.8m Library of Birmingham will be a major new cultural destination, WORLDS CHALLENGE 2011
rewriting the book for 21st century public libraries. It opens in 2013. During
the design stage Birmingham City Council contracted Daden to deliver an Daden Project wins for 2nd Year
interactive virtual model of the new library, primarily to support community
engagement, to inform the internal fit-out and to investigate the potential of One of our projects scooped Second
Prize in the AI Assisted Training
a mixed physical/ virtual library space. Daden used the architect's images,
category of the US Federal Virtual
plans, drawings to build the Virtual Library of Birmingham in Second Life.
Worlds Challenge 2011.

The 2nd place for Hurricane Shelter

Simulation went to Andrew Boyarsky
of City of New York School of
Professional Studies. Daden used
PIVOTE to create the vLearning
exercises (approx. 3-4.5hrs long)
used within the simulation.

Videos:

noaagames.org a video of the project

An Adventure in Emergency
Preparedness Training highlights
why the client chose to create the
exercise in a virtual environment

The Virtual Library of Birmingham is proving to be a valuable tool for library

staff working on the new development and it is anticipated that it will launch
on Second Life in summer 2011, allowing citizens to explore the new library
in the virtual world. THE UNIVERSITY OF
CENTRAL FLORIDA
The Library:
Virtual Training for
• Enables staff and the public to visualise and explore the new library Accountancy Tools
and become familiar with its inside spaces - virtual worlds offer the
chance to explore the social dimension of the space. The University of Central Florida
• Enables library staff to better understand how people might use and (UCF), commissioned Daden Limited
move around the building, and make informed decisions with regards to develop several accountancy
to floor layouts etc. orientation exercises in Second Life
• Allows the public to visit the Library of Birmingham in the virtual world on the university's campus known as
long before the building opens. “ReallyEngagingAccounting”.
• Allows virtual world visitors to explore the new building at their own
Dr Hornik, an early adopter of virtual
pace, in their own way, as they would the real library. worlds for education has been using
• Every movement, action and comment of the user can be tracked and Second Life to assist in the delivery
stored - yielding valuable data for library staff to understand how the of coursework utilising a 3D
space is used. accountancy equation and an
interactive T-account learning tool.
Visitors to the Virtual Library will be able to share their thoughts/comments Students were set exercises in-world
and leave "like this" style post-it notes using Daden's Annotated Spaces. and submitted their homework
through the dropbox system
Development of the Virtual Library of Birmingham is fully funded by the available on the campus.
West Midlands Regional Improvement and Efficiency Programme (RIEP).
To read the whole press release
Read the Library of Birmingham's The Word - chapter 4
BUILDING SOCIAL MODELS VISUAL ANALYTICS
One thing we've found challenging over the last few months is to get people As regular readers will know we've
in the architecture/ building sector to understand how what we do with built always been interested in using virtual
environment visualisations (e.g. with the Library project) is different to what worlds to display and analyse data -
they do. right from the LAX air traffic display we
did back in 2007.
For architects in particular it appears to be all about "look" - the closer a We are finding this area (which
computer visualisation is to perfection (not reality) the better it is - apparently is called visual analytics)
regardless of the usability of the building. proving to be of more and more interest
to those with large data sets to
In our recent white paper we presented the "whole life" model of a building analyse. Currently we are:
that can be supported by virtual worlds - where the "social" dimension of the
build is paramount.  completing a research project for
the MOD on immersive 3D visual
analytics
This has now led us to start think that maybe the right message to get
across is that there are 3 "models" that anyone involved in the built  creating a demonstrator for a
environment should be concerned with: major defence contractor

• the architects visual appearance model – what will it look like  awaiting the results of our bid for
• the engineer/builders structural model – how do we build it an SBRI call sponsored by
• the social model – how do we use it INSTICT – the Home Office
Innovative Science in Technology
in Counter-Terrism programme.
At present there is a lot of debate about Building Information Modelling
(BIM) - the overlap between architects and engineers, but the Building We are doing all of this work in
Social Model (that which virtual worlds are ideally suited for) is getting OpenSim, where we can have entire
overlooked. In the future then (10yrs+?) hopefully one platform will cover all sims just full of data. To support this we
three uses, but at the moment we need to find ways in which projects can have created a generic plotter interface
explore all three dimensions, probably across 2-3 tools, but in the most into OpenSim which loads an Excel
cost-effective manner. spreadsheet (or other data source) and
then plots the data as an immersive
space.

Plot options include "standard" point-

and-line plots (and you won't believe
how hard it was to plot lines in
OpenSim at first!), bar charts and even
social graphs - all in 3D. There are
some images of the work and an
example data set of every star within
20 parsecs on the Sun on our blog
(and remember this OAR file is for
sale!). Once we have the MOD work
out of the way, we'd like to starting
using the tools against DNA
sequencing information and other
commercial data sources.

There are two main reasons why we

think immersive 3D is good for data
visualisation:
First the brain is naturally designed to
analyse and understand 3D scenes -
even when viewed through the PC
screen (an egocentric not allocentric
view apparently), and in the virtual
world your avatar and the surroundings
give you a consistent frame of
reference which is lacking in 3D data-
cube type visualisations.

Second because the virtual world is

also a collaboration space you can
have meetings about the data in the
data, this not only helps the
communication process but also aids
Vote for Daden's MD David Burden for the Virtual Excellence memory - since you remember that
AWARDS 2011 at person X was stood by point Y whilst
they were making important point Z -
http://awards.associationofvirtualworlds.com/david-burden/ rather than just pointing to yet another
Powerpoint.
OPENSIM
SOCIAL MEDIA
In the last few months we've found
Follow us on Twitter
ourselves using OpenSim (the open
Follow our updates on
source version of Second Life) more
Twitter @DadenLimited
and more, both for internal and client
projects. The big advantages are that
we are in complete control, we can run
it behind firewalls, we can build over
Find us on Facebook
multiple sims without crippling costs,
Share your views on our
and we can save and load complete
facebook page
builds as single files - great for content
distribution and updating. And since it
will run standalone on a PC you can
even work on sim's whilst on the train!
Join LinkedIn
The latest version (0.7.1) even
Take part in the discussion
includes shared media and mesh
on our LinkedIn group
support. There is though still the odd
bug or missing feature in comparison
to Second Life.
Read our Blog
At Daden we now have our own
Subscribe to
internal "Daden World", a grid
Daden Blog's feed
supporting dozen or so sims. In the
next couple of months we'll provide
access to some of those to the public -
either through a HyperGrid like OSGrid
or a cloud-hosting service such as
Kitely. We are also seriously looking at DADEN WHITE PAPERS
whether there is a commercial/
educational market now for complete Daden has released a new white
sim builds. If we made something like paper on the virtual worlds and the
our Apollo 11 simulation or stellar built environment and is now
visualisation, or maybe a specific available to download on our
vocational or key stage training unit website along with four others:
available as an OAR file for a
reasonable price would you be Virtual Worlds and the Built
interested - let us know (and let us Environment.
know what you think a reasonable
price might be!)

VIRTUAL REFUGEE CAMP

DADEN NEWS
To read the following in our
archives, please click on the links:

Daden's News

Press Releases

In preparation for a UK Trade Mission to the United Nations in March 2011

in Geneva we created a virtual refugee camp in OpenSim. The aim of the
build was just to help the UN staff we were talking to (e.g. from UNHCR) to DADEN COVERAGE
"place" our work within the context of their own operations. We based the
camp model on photographs of various UNHCR camps, and Guy, our Lead To read the following in our
Builder, spent some time building nice sculptie copies of the sort of tents the archives, please click on the links:
UN uses, from ex-Army "12 x 12s" to white and blue UN tents. Within the
build we then embedded an example of a typical training exercise, using a Online Media Coverage
chatbot to answer basic questions about the camp, and question-mark task
icons to indicate PIVOTE driven quests/tasks that the learner can complete.
The model was well received (both in Geneva and by interested parties in
the UK), and when combined with a video of the NYC emergency INVITATION
management simulation gave people a good idea of what an immersive
training environment can provide. Daden Summer Party
If you are interested in using virtual worlds for disaster or emergency It's been a year since we moved
management training then please get in touch. into offices at Birmingham Science
Park Aston.
To see more images please visit our blog.

WORLD FINDER APP

A simple “virtual world finder” tool has been created by virtual world
specialist's Daden Limited to help businesses and organisations choose
between competing platforms for their virtual world projects.

World Finder is based around 12 key virtual world features which have been To celebrate the milestone and the
chosen as they highlight the biggest differences between available virtual beginning of Summer, we would
world platforms. The rating of each world against these features are based like to invite you to a drinks and
on Daden's extensive experience of nearly a hundred virtual world projects canapés reception at our office.
over the past 5 years.

David Burden, Daden's MD said, “Although we've seen some platforms fall Date: 25th May 2011
by the wayside those that remain are getting steadily more powerful, so it's Time: 4:30pm – 7:30pm
actually harder to make the right choice. World Finder was designed to Location: Faraday Wharf,
capture our feelings as to the relative strengths of each platform and to Birmingham
make it easier to show clients the pros and cons of each in any given Science Park
situation. Having created the tool as an app it seemed sensible to share it Aston, Holt Street,
with the wider community.” Birmingham, B7
4BB
The 12 features assessed by the tool are: Telephone: 0121 250 5678

RSVP: On EventBrite
• Whether users can build and customise in-world
• Quality of graphics Please click here to view directions
• Size of area modelled on how to find us and for a MAP.
• Ability to customise the client We hope the party will give you an
• Whether the user is represented by an avatar opportunity to catch up with the
• Whether its for solo or group use Daden Team and everything we've
• Whether it runs in a browser, mobile or just as a PC application been up to.
• Whether it can be deployed on servers behind a firewall
• The robustness and security of the code If you have any questions,
• Whether you can import existing 3D model regarding the event or how Daden
• Whether the vendor is stable, and the user community well could help you and your business,
developed please do not hesitate to contact us
• and of course cost! on 0121 250 5678 or email
lucy.smallwood-rose@daden.co.uk.
David continues “We were keen to make sure the criteria were an even
balance of user, technical and commercial features. All too often the debate
about virtual worlds is solely about technical issues like visual quality and
bandwidth”. COMMENTS
The initial version of World Finder focusses on the 4 platforms supported by If you have any comments and
Daden in its work with clients: Second Life, OpenSim, Vastpark and Unity. questions or if there is a particular
Later versions of World Finder may be extended to include other virtual project that you are working on, or
worlds and game engines. thinking off, where virtual worlds or
virtual characters could help,
please contact us.
Click here to try out World Finder

© Daden Limited 2011

Faraday Wharf, Birmingham Science Park Aston, Holt Street, Birmingham, B7 4BB
www.daden.co.uk - 0121 250 5678 – info@daden.co.uk
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