08.04.09 Project Team Meeting

Notes from last week’s project meeting...

Darren has been working on fine tuning the user account system on Ucampus, allowing users to experiment with building designs in private or in the public domain. One crucial addition is the ability for users to delete their work! Changes to the user interface also make it easier to navigate and are more intuitive when selecting spaces and places around the university campus. The next couple of week’s work will focus on making the base campus map interactive.

Puja has been working on developing the background map to sit behind an SVG layer, adding additional landscaping elements. Within the interactive model, the appearance of the terrain has been altered to make it easier on the eye as well as providing a suitable background to the 3d models. Our aim is to have 83 squares of terrain modelled at the culmination of the project.

Panagiotis has been developing new 3d building models and enhancing the colour schemes for the 3d models to make them more visually accessible. An improved ‘walk’ facility now allows users to navigate around the 3d landscape and into buildings, which begins to highlight the complexity of the models being created. This facility also opens up opportunities for creating animated functions, including virtual tours round buildings and departments.

Howard has been developing detailed proposals for future evaluation workshops, including the activities that users will undertake and ways of publicising the events.

One issue raised in the meeting was the importance of writing/creating a user guide for the Ucampus system. Although there is a help function on the user interface, this only supplies minimal information. As a wider base of users start to interact with the system, such a facility will be crucial to its usability.