[COM] Rundle Lantern

[ghs]

I went to the seminar today.... it was pretty interesting. Apparently fusion are developing an online lantern simulator so that people can create there own animations and then run them on the simulator to get an idea of how there animations would actually look on the lantern.

They are also thinking about setting up some permanent speakers there so that the lantern will run with background music (as occurred on the launch night)There's also the possibility that the panels could be extended further on the pulteney street side. Apparently it's not possible to do this on the rundle street side because of the ventilation constraints.

thanks for attending and sharing ghs, much appreciated...

No worries mate. Just one more comment I'd like to make I was pretty impressed with the guys from fusion.
Obiously they're very good at there work and they are also very friendly and down to earth. They're not cocky and arrogant like a lot of business people.

[Norman]

Good to hear about the speakers, should make this even better.

[Shuz]

I'd surely hope in the future that a similar project will arise somewhere else around town.

[ghs]

Good to hear about the speakers, should make this even better.

Make what even better ?

[Norman]

The whole project, I feared this could get stale quickly without accompanying music, but it's good to see music being added.

[darksidelemm]

Yeah, I went too - I was up the back, with 3 other Computer Science / Engineering Students, who were asking a lot of questions

Was funny to note that Councillor Yarwood buggered off just after he got thanked

[sam]

I was there too!
(I was the one that asked the question about addresses, DMX and Universes!)

I saw you up the back darksidelemm with a few mates, but I went up and spoke to one of the Fusion guys at the end and I didn't see where abouts you got too...

I think it was funny just how many people were asking about interactivity, live content etc.

To fill everyone else in, whilst it would be a technical possibility, the system is not setup to do any sort of live feed or interactive applications presently. Just pre-programmed light shows.

I was disappointed the Deputy Mayor bailed early - I was hoping to say Hi

[ghs]

It will be interesting to see how that simulator turns out. There would be a fair bit of work involved
in developing that I would imagine.

I was thinking about asking the presenters if there are any plans for other lanterns in Adelaide or interstate but decided not too as there were plenty of others asking questions.

[sam]

It will be interesting to see how that simulator turns out. There would be a fair bit of work involved
in developing that I would imagine.

Yeah! I was thinking that too.

At least if I try to make something I can see myself it's not very good before everyone else finds out

[darksidelemm]

Heh, a few of the Computer Science students had the idea of developing our own Rundle Lantern simulator, and releasing it before Fusion release theirs

[ghs]

You won't be able to develop a decent simulator since you don't have the knowledge of how the lantern works.
See if you can come up with a better smart arse idea.

[darksidelemm]

By simulator, I mean making a 3D model of the lantern, or at least a representation of it - and writing code to read in image data (be it frames of a pre-generated movie, or dynamically generated content), and display an approximation of how the input would look on the lantern. The aim is to make a fully cross-platform simulator that isn't browser based (Flash on Linux is crap), can take multiple types of input, and is fully open-source.

Sure, we don't know every facet of how the Rundle Lantern works, but we're not idiots. We (myself and a few other University students) had already figured out most of what we were told at the seminar. Hell, we had already started a design of how we thought the lantern was controlled, it was why we were surprised that the Hippo software was used in favor of in-house software.

We are very eager to create content and would like to get started immediately - a Rundle Lantern simulator that is available *before* the end of the year would help immensely, and if there isn't something official available, we'll make our own.

Overall, I still thought the presentation was very good, and my only worry was the licensing for user-created lantern content.
If the council wants takes full ownership of all content displayed on the lantern, I think the amount of content submitted will be very low. Something like the Creative Commons license would be much better, and would allow for users to modify and build upon other users submissions.

[ghs]

I am sure you guys have good technical skills, but those guys at fusion are more artistic rather than technical I
think. The guys giving the seminar from fusion weren't technical people. I remember when that guy asked that
question about DMX they had to handball the question to someone else.

[Shuz]

I really wanna see Winvaders or Tetris on the Lantern. I'm sure someone will make something of it.

[sam]

I remember when that guy asked that
question about DMX they had to handball the question to someone else.

that guy = me!

I really wanna see Winvaders or Tetris on the Lantern. I'm sure someone will make something of it.

I think one of the guys (Oli?) said they did a Tetris test already!