Friday 31 July 2009

uCampus is Now World Wide


Following a successful security audit carried out by the CiCS team at the University of Sheffield, the uCampus Platform (Release 0.45) has been made accessible to the World Wide Web since 4:00pm 30 July 2009.

With this world-wide accessbility in place, the weCAMP project team are now able to undertake the next stage of user engagement and evaluation activities. We have several external user groups in mind including the professional architectural practices employed by the University of Sheffield to design and deliver new builds and refurbishments, the Sheffield City Council, potential collaborators on JISC Benefits Realisation projects, researchers/educators abroad who have shown interests in uCampus.

I have written a web page regarding how to Download, Install and Launch uCampus. There is aslo a uCampus User Guide available that gives an overview of how uCampus may be used. I hope to start receiving questions, comments and suggestions on the uCampus Platform and the weCAMP project in the days months to come.

Sunday 26 July 2009

uCampus Release 0.45


uCampus verson 0.45 was released on Friday 24 July 2009. There are several new developments in this intermediary release (the next release is scheduled as Release 0.5):

(1) uCampus is now running on a new Virtual Server provisioned by CiCS - the UCAMPUS_SHEF server is shut down to save electricity and awaits relocation to a more suitable server room;

(2) A new batch of 13 grid sqaures are being deployed;

(3) The first version of uCampus User Guide is now made available under Help together with a link to the weCAMP Blog Site; and

(4) A new command Select All is added to allow users to retrieve all uCampus X3D models in one click, which could potentially make us lazy.

Tuesday 21 July 2009

The Arts Tower is deployed on uCampus


The entire Arts Tower has been modelled and deployed onto uCampus today. It contains a total of 23 interior floor models each of which can be selected and displayed individually.

This marks an important project development as the Arts Tower was modelled by a post graduate student at the School of Architecture, Binh Nguyen.

The result demonstrates that the modelling methodology and the data standards as established and specified by Panagiotis Patlakas are working well. This initial test bed case essentially opens the door for other 3D modellers to participate in the continuous expansion of the uCampus X3D model bank. Any student at the University with 3D digital architectural modelling skills can produce X3D models conforming to the uCampus modelling specification.

There are another three PG students currently undertaking 3D modelling of St George Church, Jessop Victoria Wing, and the Bioincubator. We are eagerly waiting for the further results to confirm the methodology and specification.

Friday 17 July 2009

uCAMPUS Launched across the UoS

uCAMPUS has now been added to the the software available on all computer desktops that are managed by the computer services department at the Unviersity of Sheffield. This is a big step towards insitutional innovation and change for the weCAMP research project. Staff and students can now access the uCAMPUS 0.04a and upload designs if they wish. We are now working towards putting the platform outside the firewall so that it can be utilised by external consultants and accessible to JISC partners.

Online JISC Programme Conference

Last week we took part in the online conference [using eluminate] with the other JISC research projects. Despite some technical issues, the day was a success in providing feedback about how our assembly with the I-borrow team from Canterbury went. In addition, we managed to communicate with the Erewhon team about linking up later on in the summer to discuss future collaborations. Applying for further benefits realisation funding to develop new project directions was also discussed, enabling us to work towards applications.