Clear destinations on ScreenPRO II Controller
Posted by Steve Wylie in Live vision systems on January 21st, 2010
A common frustration when programming presets on the ScrenPRO II controller, especially when using Aux destinations such as ImagePRO HD’s or PresentationPRO II’s, is that ‘learning’ a new preset will store actions for all desinations and aux destinations that are currently lit up (selected).
It’s easy to accidentally program ‘aux’ transitions into presets without intending to.
To deselect any currently selected destination or aux destination, just double-puch (or double-press) the corresponding destination button. If you want to ensure that you record no aux transitions in a preset, press the red ‘DEST | AUX’ button, to select ‘AUX’ mode, and then double-tap ‘ALL’ to deselect all (or select all, if no aux destinations were previously selected).
This process is briefly covered in the ScreenPRO II Quick Start Guide from Barco.
ScreenPRO II Quick Start Guide - Destination/Aux Bus
Augmented reality in events
Posted by Steve Wylie in Live vision systems, Online presentations, Presentation IT on July 29th, 2009
There are some great examples of augmented reality concepts out there right now – basically interactions between physical actions (e.g. touch, sight, or sound), and virtual responses – for instance, I could point my iPhone at a building, and using the in-built camera, an application could recognise the building, and draw segments over the top, labelling all of the occupants.
This is the sort of stuff we’ve been seeing in high-tech movie scenes since the late 90’s, but it’s finally becoming realistic at a consumer level thanks to devices such as the iPhone which have built in GPS, camera, accelerometer, and magnetometer (so they know where you are, what you’re looking at, from what direction, etc)…
What this means is that we’re starting to see really functional crossovers between real, physical environments, and virtual ones.
I can’t wait to see this start to emerge in the event space.
This could include things like cameras in a venue that automatically recognise known audience members, and greet them on screen by name, or it could extend to allowing the presenter to show a physical document on screen via a camera, and then ‘touch’ a word in the document to ‘hotlink’ it to a PowerPoint presentation or video.
There are a lot of opportunities to showcase the technologies in events which will ‘wow’ the audiences, but I think we will start to see some real, functional purposes starting to emerge over the next few years.
For now, here are a couple of good examples of what’s possible outside the event world -
petitinvention blog: Future of Internet Search
‘petitinvention‘ discusses a concept towards the ‘future of mobile search’ on their blog – these graphics are great concept renders of what is now possible with a device like the iPhone…
BMW UK – Print out a special square and move it around your desk in front of your web-cam to control a BMW Z4 on your computer screen. GE Money has build something similar, sending the visual ‘key’ to clients by mail as marketing collateral – an interesting way to compel customers to visit their website.
Virtual tours are back
Posted by Steve Wylie in Online presentations, Speaker support content on July 1st, 2009
QuickTime VR was first released in 1994, but until recently, it seems to have been regarded as beyond the ‘DIY’ capabilities of presenters and content producers.
It seems like Google Earth and Maps are playing a huge part in changing this perception. It’s now becoming pretty common for presenters and content producers to incorporate Google Earth ‘fly-throughs’ either as live demos, or as canned screen captures.
I’ve recently come across an Australian company called Pixelcase, which produces similar results using a Flash-based front end, which makes sense for compatibility.
And it turns out that QuickTime VR still exists, and there are a bunch of tools you can use to create VR shots, including software and hardware-based systems.
Pixelcase Photo from AMP Building
Display output bug in Windows 7 RC
Posted by Steve Wylie in Presentation IT on June 5th, 2009
I came across an interesting bug in Windows 7 RC this week, where a laptop running Win7 was being used for a live software demo. The laptop had been connected to a data projector in extended desktop mode, and worked fine. However, the laptop was then disconnected, moved to another location, and connected to a new projector.
At the new location, the vision switcher in line would acknowledge that the source was connected and syncing at the correct resolution, but could only see a black/blank screen. In Windows 7’s display settings dialog box, if you pressed ‘Identify Displays’, the system would show “1″ and “2″ number overlays next to each other on the laptop’s local monitor.
It seemed that Windows 7 had confused itself, and thought that both outputs were in fact showing on the one monitor. Confused? So was I. A restart resolved the issue, and I haven’t had time to try replicating it again. Hopefully these bugs will be ironed out before RTM.
Windows 7 Identify Displays Bug
Microsoft Project Natal: Must have consequences for Presentations
Posted by Steve Wylie in Live vision systems on June 5th, 2009
Microsoft has released information about it’s new XBox games platform, dubbed Project Natal. The system uses a 3D camera to allow participants to interact with games without requiring a controller – it detects the people in the room and translates their real movements to commands in a game.
We’ve already seen the guys at pptPlex working on using much the same 3D camera technology to control PowerPoint – and I’m sure that it’s just a matter of time before great things happen in this space – I could imagine some really neat interaction with a system like Dataton Watchout. We’ll see…
More information about the Project Natal platform on the XBox website.
Virtual Events Platforms
Posted by Steve Wylie in Online presentations on June 5th, 2009
I’ve noticed both Jack Morton and GPJ talking about virtual events more and more lately.
Jack Morton released their new Virtual Events platform recently, which seems to loosely resemble Second Life, but built as a virtual ‘convention centre’ of sorts. This is an interesting idea – we’ve already seen companies taking advantage of Second Life itself to differentiate their online ‘events’ from the now-traditional webcast/webinar platform, so it makes some sense that a large player like Jack’s have come up with their own solution in-a-box.
GPJ’s Diretor of Digital Experience in the UK, Kevin Aires has been talking a lot about virtual events lately. I think it’s clear that the big players have all seen both the threat that virtual/online poses to live events (to a limited extent) but also the opportunities attached. Interesting times.
Jack Morton Virtual Experience Platform
Presentation timer for Mac OS X
Posted by Steve Wylie in Live vision systems, Speaker support content on May 30th, 2009
Apimac Timer Interface
Apimac makes a great presentation timer for Mac. It’s freeware, and supports displaying the current time, count-down, or a stop-watch. The timer has a great, simple full-screen mode which looks excellent for presenter fold-back or confidence monitors. Tip: press the space bar in full-screen mode to start or pause the timer.
Use Twitter in PowerPoint
Posted by Steve Wylie in Live vision systems, Speaker support content on May 30th, 2009
A new service called Poll Everywhere allows you to set up interaction with your audience via Twitter. Your audience can participate in surveys or ask questions via Twitter, and results can be included in real-time in your PowerPoint presentation. Poll Everywhere is free for up to 15 participants, then has a subscription model depending on the number of audience members you require.
Another interesting presentation service that uses Twitter to interact with your audience is Visible Tweets, which is a free web-based service that displays tweets from a specific user, or with a specific tag using stylish Flash transitions… would look very neat on LCD displays around a conference venue.
Visible Tweets using 'Rotation' effect
Haptic control of PowerPoint (Wii remote, 3D cameras, touch gestures)
Posted by Steve Wylie in Live vision systems, Speaker support content on May 25th, 2009
I think the PowerPoint 2007 add-on, pptPlex really resembles one of the future shapes that live presentation content will take. It’s even more interesting to look at some of the R&D the development team have been doing with interactivity.
The pptPlex team has posted about experiments interacting with pptPlex using a 3D camera and a Wii controller – this really ‘haptic’ approach to presentations is so natural and surely represents the goal for a progression from the standard remote slide advance button and laser pointer.
They’ve most recently been testing pptPlex in combination with the touch-screen capabilities of Windows 7. If used in combination with a multitouch display or touch-sensitive projection screen sensors, this will be really exciting stuff for live presentations.
Touch screen demo (via pptPlex Website)
‘Zoom’ into content areas in presentations
Posted by Steve Wylie in Speaker support content on May 10th, 2009
A new trend seems to be forming with the increase in typical computing power and the demand for ‘something different’ compared with static slides.
The idea of taking one ‘slide’ (or canvas), and inserting a whole load of content in different areas, linked together with visual elements, and then ‘zooming in’ to the content you’re talking about is a really cool way to give some visual meaning to your presentation.
pptPlex Demo Zoomed out
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pptPlex zoomed into details
There are a few ways of achieving the effect – online presentation software ‘Prezi’ offers both free and paid services, which allow you to build presentations incorporating all the usual elements – text, graphics, and video.
There’s also a PowerPoint 2007 add-in called pptPlex which was originally designed with multitouch interfaces in mind – this idea is going to be big in a few years when multitouch becomes accessible for projection screens.
And finally, if you’re savvy with Flash or Director, or even something like Silverlight, you should easily be able to create a similar effect without the need for third-party software.
Links:
pptPlex Add-on for PowerPoint 2007
