Mixed Reality Seesaw: Real People In Amsterdam Museum Go Down, Avatars In Second Life Go Up

Last Saturday I had a chance to jump on a pretty cool mixed reality installation:  Physical Virtuality, a hydraulic-equipped platform connected to Second Life from Museumnacht in Amsterdam, and "extended" as a virtual platform into SL's Popcha island. (Home to the Brooklyn is Watching mixed reality project.) 

So basically, this is a seesaw with one half in the metaverse, the other half in reality.  A scripting system estimates the weight of avatars standing on the SL side (if they existed, that is), and shifts the Museumnacht platform accordingly.  At the same time, people in Amsterdam can move around on the real world side of the platform, which causes a proportionate reaction on the SL side.  A live video link displays the action from Amsterdam into SL, and vice versa.

It's a fun idea, though when I visited, people were far outnumbered by avatars, so there wasn't much interactivity coming from the real world.  (Then again, maybe that's because the SL side was weighed down by a purple-haired babe bench pressing several hundred pounds.) Also, the hydraulic shifting process wasn't moving fast enough to really acheive a fully believable RL-to-SL seesaw action.  Still, I'd love to see more projects like this.  So far, the most impressive one I've seen involved a giant Second Life robot hooked up to an accelerometer control in Japan.

Thanks to Frans Charming for the tip; the longtime Dutch Resident helped control the real life side from Amsterdam.

Comments

[Frans Charming]

Thanks for the write up Hamlet, museum nacht(night) is a yearly event where museums open during the evening and nights in Amsterdam. A lot of the public was still uncomfortable with virtual worlds and where surprised that people from around the globe would login and stand on a virtual see-saw with them. We had a lot if fun explaining, playing with them and in and introducing people to SL in this manner.

We have talked about how things could be improved, I think more modes of interactivity/communication would improve the experience. The 20 second video delay makes it disjointed experience.

[SaveMe Oh]

Hey, the purple haired babe is me, SaveMe Oh. SL artist. And I am now trying to get rid of the muscles again after all the bench pressing.
If you are so impressed, go to read my blog, or see my movies on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/user/SaveMeOh