PING PROJECT

Antya Umstaetter Media Designer ART+COM e.V., Budapesterstr.44, 10787 Berlin, Germany phone:+49 30 254173 fax:+49 30 25417555

antya@artcom.de http://www.artcom.de/~antya/

Steffen Meschkat ART+COM e.V., Budapesterstr.44, 10787 Berlin, Germany phone:+49 30 254173 fax:+49 30 25417555

mesch@artcom.de http://www.artcom.de/~mesch/
Keywords:
INTERACTIVE NETWORK TELEVISION, VIRTUAL LANDSCAPE, EYE AGENT

IMAGES




INTRODUCTION

Ping a visual datascape in Internet Ping accessible via the interactive map in the World Wide Web Ping a self-generating movie broadcasted via various TV-stations

ABSTRACT

Ping is a virtual landscape created interactively by the Users of the Internet. A virtual camera device called eye agent automatically renders a flight through that landscape, which is broadcasted on TV. The potential feedback loop of the TV-watching Internet User creates notable dynamics and dramaturgy of this self generating movie.

INTENTION

The main idea of the Ping-Project is the visualization of the Internet and the generation of a real time movie created on a world wide basis by Internet Users. Originally Ping was intended as a visual ride through the Internet in the program free time of various TV stations. Internet as a world wide medium created an interdisciplinary structure by merging science, entertainment, arts, politics and other disciplines. The goal of Ping is to make this structure visible and to create a crossculture-communication basis. Ping uses the TV as a visual output, its capacity of carrying visual information being high, while its flexibility of being interactive is low due to broadcast character. As for the Internet it is almost the opposite case: You navigate actively through the information structure, but lack of bandwidth makes it hard to communicate in a visual way. In combining the fast, visual broadcast ability of the TV and the interactive on-line presence of the global networks, a datascape is created, that you can actively influence via the network and view via the television. In an on-line, live setting, the two media grow together to become an interactive realtime medium. (The development of the movie in 1895 can be compared to the development of linking virtual spaces in the network today. Every datascape or virtual model of a space can potentially be part of the net, which raises the question of the representation of actors and their interaction in these environments. The user representation in datascapes can be seen as live camera inputs incorporated to the network, showing a framed part of the reality merging with the virtual ones. Instead of looking out of a window, they are looking out of the eye of a camera controlled by a local user. Film was esperanto for the world. Network-esperanto may be a datascapes.)

STRUCTURE

The three main components of Ping 1. The interactive map sited in the WWW 2. The eye-agent (virtual camera) 3. The datascape

the interactive map

Users can see and change the interactive Ping-map in the WWW in real time by choosing a spot on the map where they want their objects to be placed. Images, movies, sounds, geometric models and live-sources (e.g. live camera-views e.g.live images of Users in presentation environments ) flow from any part of the networld via the map into the thereby generated datascape. The map interface provides the object representation of various types, the picture spot and the contributors page.

the virtual camera (eye-agent)

The eye-agent acts like an editor or journalist, who is currently attracted by new images or movies on the datascape, broadcasting these viewed images directly. The choice of images can be made according to personal interests: the characteristic of the eye-agent (e.g. speed and viewing parameters) can be tuned individually for the TV stations or programs (e.g. movements for a techno-video like appearance may be tuned differently as for a scientific research program). By moving around on the datascape, the eye agent is the controlling instance for what is being broadcasted on TV.

the datascape

The visual datascape is composed from all Ping-map elements. The 2D objects arriving on the map in the WWW are translated into 3D objects and are then integrated in the datascape. 3D object logos on a level below the datascape are used as an orientation for the user to recognize the structure of the space. The TV viewer can interact visually with the space via the network, and can be present in the net space via a live camera. Ping is developing to structure an open system architecture and to navigate through the visual datascape by using a network wide distributed program.

INFRASTRUCTURE

The Ping mapper runs as an active document under the ART+COM http server, which is accessible from the Internet through a 64kBits-1 link. In order to render the eye agents view into the datascape in real time and broadcast quality, we use a 4 processor SGI Onyx with Reality Engine 2 graphics hardware located at the ART+COM site. We implemented the eye agent based on the SGI Performer programming library. For demonstration purposes, the eye agents datascape renderer may run on any SGI IRIS workstation at respectively lower frame rate and resolution than required for TV broadcast.

REFERENCES

Presentations

WWW Conference in Geneva, Mai 1994
Presentation, European Media Art Festival, Sept.94
ZDF-TV, Aspekte, July 1994
Graphicon Conference Nizhni Novgorod, Russia, Oct.94
Presentation at School for Media Arts, Cologne, Oct.94
Presentation at MLM, Munich, Oct. 94
Window in the net event at ART+COM, Berlin, Nov.94
Videofest, Berlin, Jan.95

References in the WWW

NCSA: http://union.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HyperNews/get/www/collab/creation.html
OTIS: http://sunsite.unc.edu/otis/art-links.html ,