Intel and The Smithsonian partner up with Sansar to bring everyone the ephemeral art of Burning Man.

Linden Lab’s Sansar just announced a partnership with Intel and the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) to provide virtual access to the museum’s Renwick Gallery collections as well as its research, and education resources

“With Sansar, we hope not only to make the museum experience more accessible, but to also let people curate their own experiences and share their unique perspectives with the world,” says Jason Gholston, Head of Sansar Studios, which last year launched similar initiatives such as the Art of Star Wars exhibit to help expand the reach of unique and exclusive art collections.

The Smithsonian’s goal in doing this is to expand the reach of the Institution’s collections to a billion people, in five years’ time. This means making its museums’ objects available to the public across a wider range of mediums including immersive domains.

“Technology has the potential to achieve new goals and ambitions for museums and galleries. Immersive technologies, like virtual reality, unlock new and exciting ways to experience art and exhibitions. Fans can now check out the No Spectators collection from their own home,” says Raj Puran, director of immersive technology business development at Intel.

Anyone, anywhere in the world, either on a desktop computer or via Sansar, can now experience these artworks
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With Intel’s advanced data-processing on the Sansar Social VR platform, the Smithsonian has been able to accelerate the digital 3D capture, preservation, and distribution of artefacts in its collections, so that students, educators, and the broader public can virtually access and engage with the museum’s collections from anywhere in the world. It hopes to provide a new kind of viewing experience and transform the museum business, from the creation to the consumption of educational content.

“I don’t fear technology usurping the importance of art and museums,” says Stephanie Stebich, The Margaret and Terry Stent Director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. “I think technology can make museums and their collections even more inclusive, approachable, and dynamic,” she adds.

The first phase of the partnership will focus on the “No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man” exhibit, which features large-scale works of art from the event on view for a limited time at SAAM’s Renwick Gallery. No Spectators captures the spirit of creativity and community, and has been digitized through hours of careful laser scanning and photogrammetry.

Spectators captures the spirit of creativity and community, and has been digitized through hours of careful laser scanning and photogrammetry
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Technology has the potential to achieve new goals and ambitions for museums and galleries
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Anyone, anywhere in the world, either on a desktop computer or via Sansar, can now experience these artworks. So far, 17 pieces of art were digitized for this experience (first phase is the first floor of the Renwick Gallery, in Washington, D.C.). 12,490 photos were used to generate the 3D models of these pieces. This took the team a total of 1,050 labor hours to complete VR ready models of the artworks

“This is an innovative new way to access educational content from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and to preserve art for future generations,” concludes Gholston. “We’re democratizing the museum experience one exhibition at a time.”

This is a really interesting use of immersive technology, since the artistic installations at Burning Man are ephemeral (the event’s “leave no trace” policy sees amazing artworks ritualistically burned to the ground each year) yet here we have a medium which would allow them to become accessible as VR experiences, giving those expressions of creativity a new and permanent home in the virtual world.

VR could actually give a sense of permanence to the essentially ephemeral art of Burning Man
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This article was originally published on VRScout

Experience The Art Of Burning Man In VR via @alicebonasio https://t.co/zQ7Rpr7sMF pic.twitter.com/hepaeefk9T

— VRScout (@VRScout) July 30, 2018

For companies looking to leverage Immersive technologies such as VR/AR/MR/XR Tech Trends offers a comprehensive range of Virtual Reality Consultancy Services.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Creating Virtual Museum Experiences appeared first on Tech Trends.

SpaceVR will use Virtual Space Tourism to connect us to our planet and to each other, expanding the limits of human consciousness.

“Let’s launch cool s**t into space!”

As far as elevator pitches go, that’s not a bad start, but as I talked to Ryan Holmes about plans for his company’s upcoming launch later this year, things got even curiouser.

From out there on the Moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.' - Edgar Mitchel
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Located in the heart of San Francisco’s emerging nano-satellite industry, SpaceVR developed the world’s first virtual reality camera satellite, betting on creating a market for cinematic, live, virtual space tourism. When I met him at the Pioneers tech conference in Vienna, Austria, in May, Holmes was rocking the quasi-guru look – dressed in loose-fitting robes adorned with large fresh red roses – and he talked passionately about using virtual reality to expand people’s consciousness.

“SpaceVR aims to give everyone the opportunity to experience the truly infinite, boundless Universe through virtual reality,” he explained in quietly earnest tones, which were somewhat disconcerting to a cynical old tech journalist.

His inspiration, he told me, was a well-documented phenomenon called the Overview Effect, which is that first moment an astronaut realizes their place in an infinite universe, something they only achieve through direct observation. This in turn leads to reprioritization of protecting the earth and working together on a global scale.

It’s what prompted Neil Armstrong to say space travel made him feel “very, very small,” and is best summed up by a colorful quote from Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchel, who in a 1984 interview for People Magazine said: “From out there on the Moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’”

SpaceVR initially launched as a Kickstarter in 2015 with a plan to send a 12-camera rig to the ISS that would be capable of shooting 3D, 360-degree footage. It felt well short of its ambitious $500,000 goal, although a subsequent scaled-back campaign managed to raise $100,000. It was a $1.25 million investment from China’s Shanda Group, however, that turned the project from a pipe dream to what now looks more of a viable proposition.

Located in the heart of San Francisco’s emerging nano-satellite industry, SpaceVR developed the world’s first virtual reality camera satellite
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Although Holmes wistfully admits that some of it was spent on what he describes as “his stupid mistakes,” there was enough left of their seed round investment to develop onboard software for the satellite, begin development of its content delivery and distribution channels, and invest in a worldwide satellite dish ground station communication network.

SpaceVR promises not only a whole different take on stargazing, but a truly transformative, almost spiritual experience
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This all promises not only a whole different take on stargazing, but a truly transformative, almost spiritual experience, and this most Silicon Valley of startups is now gearing up to its first pilot at –where else? – Burning Man.

The experience will last 11 minutes and 11 seconds, and will be housed on the 11^th floor of the Tree of Life art installation, currently being crowdfunded on Indiegogo.

The idea, as far as I could tell, involves people experiencing the VR footage from space while literally being immersed in flotation tanks to simulate the zero gravity feeling of actually being in orbit. They even refer to these units as “Galactic Spaceships” to be housed within Galactic Temples which Holmes plans to eventually place in all 197 countries of the world.

“People will enter the Galactic Spaceship and lay on a specially designed sound bed (8 speakers) where sound will play through their body as they experience a transcendent CGI based VR Overview Effect experience. The Tree and Galactic Spaceship are both built to house ambisonic sound experiences where one is completely surrounded by 3D audio,” explains Holmes.

It’s the sort of plot that would not be out of place in HBO’s Silicon Valley spoof, and it’s precisely the reason why so many of my colleagues in the tech industry can’t bear to watch the show. It’s just too close to home.

It's the sort of plot that would fit right into @SiliconHBO
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But while doubters may roll their eyes and dismiss the idea, there is compelling evidence and research suggesting that VR experiences can be extremely effective in engendering greater empathy towards our fellow humans and the environment. Jeremy Bailenson, a professor at Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab has run many experiences which demonstrate that even short experiences in relatively low resolution headsets can produce a change in behavior and predisposition in people who take part, so it is not that much of a stretch to say that people might get hooked onto these meditative experiences and end up caring a lot more about the planet in the process. Neither would be a bad thing, so could warrant a pass on the new-age stuff.

In 2016 SpaceVR partnered with NanoRacks LLC – a company that runs the commercial laboratory aboard the international space station and has experience launching hundreds of payloads into space, counting the European, German and US space agencies – to overcome the remaining logistical hurdles and deploy the satellite.

Users will get a taste of the SpaceVR experience @burningman this year
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The company will take the footage from the cameras and stitch it all into a 360-degree sphere — with live-streaming being the ultimate goal
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The satellite – aptly called the Overview — was due to launch inside one of SpaceX’s Dragon cargo capsule, but was postponed due to some parts not being delivered to spec. SpaceVR is now working with their partners to rectify this and are a planning the launch for November 2018. Yet although the delay of the satellite launch means that the live SpaceVR images won’t be available to the Burning Man crowd, Holmes assures me the experience will be very similar.

When it does go into orbit, the Overview satellite will use 4K sensors to capture high resolution 360-degree video of earth from space and the content will be viewable on any virtual reality device, ranging from smartphones to Oculus Rift to extreme resolution devices such as the StarVR.

The video below demonstrates the quality at which the satellite will be able to eventually record the images from space:

The company will take the footage from the cameras and stitch it all into a 360-degree sphere — with live-streaming being the ultimate goal. The idea is to sell subscriptions to that footage, which will “immerse someone in space as if they were floating outside,” according to Holmes.

This article was originally published on Forbes

The Startup That Wants to Use Virtual Reality To Make The World A Better Place (From Space)https://t.co/hV4Bnt7zdj

— Forbes Tech News (@ForbesTech) June 6, 2018

For companies looking to get into Immersive technologies such as VR/AR/MR/XR our Virtual Reality Consultancy services offer guidance and support on how best to incorporate these into your brand strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Making the World a Better Place with Virtual Reality appeared first on Tech Trends.