A lot of action!

This has been a terrific last week on our project. We are pretty happy about the progress at least in so far as the creation and deployment of worlds is concerned. We have now successfully created and deployed 6 "worlds". We are getting better and better at this and plan to expand our work a bit. Some of this is listed below.

Harding High Virtual Tutoring Center

WoW! what a busy summer.

Virtual Northstar Progress

Our Hardware and Software Stack

We get a lot of questions about the hardware and software used in our hosting.

We have put up a number of virtual worlds this summer. Basically we are using our old Sun servers and have used a one-world per server deployment strategy.

This has worked so far but the older servers are sluggish and we have some problems with voicebridge on them.

Our flagship world, MnSCU Island runs on a Sun 4100. This machine seems to be ideal for hosting a Wonderland world.

University of Oregon and Saint Paul College Work

This project has been great for both teams. The project wiki has been a good tool and the contributors through the artwork stage have really been doing a great job.

All artwork is done through the Wonderland Format

We are now working on deployment. Art tool path complete, (with some pains)but it is complete.

Deployment is vexing and I am sure glad I know a bit about XML and Ant. Will need now to focus on the Java code. We probably need a programming student on this full-time as my schedule remains full.

University of Oregon and Saint Paul College Team to Deploy in Wonderland

What a nice experience working with Jonathon Richter and his team at CATE at the University of Oregon.

We started this project 6 days ago and have really accelerated our experience with the Wonderland platform.

We have both completed the artwork and model construction part of the process. Now the models are in Wonderland format and ready to be deployed on our respective servers.

The area of virtual worlds has sparked a great deal of interest in a variety of areas across the state of Minnesota. We have been invited to give a number of talks about the technology during the month of May.

Thought I would post them for your information.

May 8th - Virtual Worlds and the Sun COE

In cooperation with John Drozik I will be presenting at Ruttgers Lodge to the MnCCECT Conference. This is the customized training organization for MnSCU Institutions.

May 21st - eLearning Summit - Normandale Community College

What, Why, How, and Results

What?

We are partnering with the University of Oregon, Center for Advanced Technology in Education in joint effort to go through the entire deployment cycle for a 3D Immersive Environment based on the Sun Wonderland Platform.

This effort envisions both teams utilizing Second Life assets as prototypes and tracks the conversion of the assets through deployment on the Sun Wonderland platform.

Primary responsibilities are shared, the work relationship is informal and each partner is expected to contribute to the learning process.

Perkins Grant

Congratulations to the team for the work which has lead to a Perkins grant. We have found recently that we were awarded funding under the Perkins program through MnSCU. This is great news and an affirmation of our work.

We will now have some funding for materials, student aid and equipment to increase our work on Metaverse topics.

We hope to develop curriculum and skill sets which will allow our students to work professionally in the new 3D economy.

Web 3d, Its more than a Game

Wow can you believe this weather? Our big stag ride is coming up this weekend and it looks like I am going to get pretty wet. Better bring along an extra slicker and some beverages to chase away the cold.

Presentations and Projects Update

We had a great presentation at the Minnesota High Technology Association annual meeting. They had great crowd this year, about 800 registrants so we still have plenty of interest in advanced technologies here in Minnesota.

Minnesota High Technology Association Annual Conference

Lots to Discuss

Where to begin here? I have been away for a while working on project things and on my sabbatical plan.

Presentation to Saint Paul College Faculty : Friday, April 11, 2008

On Friday, April 11 I was privileged to address the faculty on what we are doing in Virtual Worlds. It was a lot of fun since I can remember sitting in that small room 30 years before taking my professional engineering exam. WOW time went by quickly!

Well the documentation effort is well underway and Gretchen Semler on our team is doing an excellent job of it. I can even follow along.

I am very pleased with Evan's artwork on our Maya version of our presence in 2nd Life.

Tony is doing an outstanding job as usual and will have an email server up soon.

The Mirtle Project in England seems to be going well but I still haven't got the java web start to work but that will take a bit of time as it is available.