3D - Public Works Group Blog

June 26, 2011July 16, 2011

MOSES – Ramping up Government Use of Virtual Worlds

We've been fortunate to have a group of federal employees from the US who are dedicated and passionate about government use of virtual worlds. The work accomplished by Eric Hackathorn (NOAA), William May and Lovisa Williams (State Dept), Charles White and Jeanne Holm (NASA), Paulette Robinson (NDU), and Douglas Maxwell and Tami Griffith (US Army) has been groundbreaking and inspirational. (And there are many more who I apologize for not listing.) Recently Maxwell launched a new project named MOSES. And based on what I've seen, this project has the potential to not only build upon these past accomplishments but also ramp up government use of virtual worlds and move us in new directions we have yet to discover.

At first, I thought MOSES was going to be a grid set up only for use by the military but with public access. Then last week, a post on the project site led me to believe MOSES was offering space on their grid to outside agencies/companies. The post talked about a map showing other groups establishing builds on the MOSES grid. While looking at the "Join MOSES" link on the project site, I found that yes, indeed, MOSES seemed to be offering space to other groups!

"MOSES is an Open Simulator based project designed for use by the military and our industry/academic collaborators. MOSES is currently an exploratory project designed to test multiple deployment methods of Open Simulator, archival methods for content, and experimental application case studies. Region owners retain full simulator rights, to include terraforming, OAR/IAR upload and download, and region restart access."

To me, this seemed too good to be true! Our MuniGov group had started a grid – GovGrid – in February 2010 to start taking advantage of the benefits of OpenSim and provide space for others in government to explore the technology. But encouraging others to move onto the grid has been a challenge – the technology is still very new to most in government, and unfortunately because we host through a private provider, we have to charge for land. Also, although our group is managed by people working in government, it is not "owned" by a government agency. All of these factors can make it much more difficult to encourage participation by a local government. MOSES addresses most of these issues.

So I took a chance and asked Maxwell if our group could establish a presence on MOSES. He graciously offered a whole sim for MuniGov to set up a local government presence. We are temporarily located on the STTC_7_4 sim of MOSES and will now work on developing the site. MOSES is still considered an experimental effort, but because the grid allows users to back up their work, everything we do can be saved for use on any OpenSim grid. For now, we will retain GovGrid to allow for development of OAR files and other resources that can be shared in the OpenSim community.

It's exciting that Maxwell has allowed our group to be part of this effort. Because of it, local government now has the opportunity to be part of the networking and collaboration provided by the US Army's decision to allow non-military use of the grid. And we have the chance to be part of an incubator-type project destined to advance government use of virtual worlds. I would encourage anyone interested in government use of 3D immersive technology to sign up for an account on the MOSES site and become part of the MOSES experiment!

(You can read about more examples of government use of virtual worlds, including information about MiLands, at our sister site, Grid Works)

December 18, 2007September 6, 2010

What I want for Christmas

What I want for Christmas, at least from Second Life, is a scene exporter. Ok, maybe I won't get this for Christmas, but I would still be happy if I could get it sometime over the next year.

Lately I have been working on a design project in Second Life that got me wondering how I could use the end result in my real life work on a construction site without having to go into Second Life. I kept thinking that if I build a detailed model of something simple like a manhole showing all the pipe connections, it would be helpful to be able to capture that "scene" by establishing a given area around the site. And I mean in a way that is not just a "photo" like I can already do. What I want is the ability to capture it in a way that I can view it on a special "viewer" that allows me to pan, zoom, tilt, the exported 3D scene as if I was in SL. I don't need my avatar there – I just want the ability to view it in the same manner as I would in SL.

I realize that there are many who might suggest that regular CAD products could do this, but first, I think SL is best for building simple, yet dimensionally correct, 3D models in a fast and efficient manner; second, I want to be able to have the model placed in a realistic "scene" which is not easily created in a CAD program; and third, I need a construction worker to access this on the jobsite.

That is why I am convinced that SL is the best medium to create the scene – I just need a type of generic file format that the scene could be exported as and then viewed with a viewing software made just for this purpose. Then I could give the file to the contractor, and he could, at each manhole installation, easily access that file on his phone (which soon will evolve to allow this type of viewing) to verify that the installation is taking place as designed. To do this he would not need to have any knowledge of CAD.

Those of us in civil-related construction know that the plans are rarely consulted on the job. Sometimes the contractor does not even have them handy; yet he always has his cell phone. I want my 3D manhole detail on that phone!

October 19, 2007September 6, 2010

Cyber Trade Shows

Ok, I have finally attended a 3D virtual trade show related to the engineering industry. Unfortunately it was not held in Second Life. One of the attendees at our weekly engineering meeting, Kelvin Glimmer, brought up this Website where he had seen the trade show advertised. Since this is something that I have been waiting to see implemented, I definitely went to the site and signed up for the free registration so that I could attend the show.

This trade show, which covers the coatings industry, is being held from Oct. 15th through the 26th and can be accessed by signing up at: http://www.cybercoatingshow.com/

I attended on the night of the first day (having been outside on construction all day long at work). Attendance required me to download a client software. Upon launching the software, I appeared to enter the 3D virtual world of Active Worlds. However, this software seems to only bring you to the trade show, and it does not appear that I can go off to explore the other areas of Active Worlds.

Even though I still think that a trade show held in Second Life would have been so much more realistic and frankly, just so much more awesome, I have to commend the person who set all this up. There were definitely big name companies and organizations from that industry exhibiting such as George Koch Sons, Dupont, The Society for Protective Coatings, Vulcan, and Sherwin Williams. These companies should also be commended for seeing that this delivery system for trade shows has great potential.

Although there were many differences from Second Life, one aspect that was disturbing to me was that there seemed to be many people there, but most were not real people. After being in SL, you get used to the fact that if you see someone, that person really is someone – not some computer-generated robot. At this show, I only saw about 3 or 4 real people. However, I did attend "after hours." The show coordinator told me he had seen about 70 people show up that day.

So because I am also attending the Illinois Municipal League convention in Chicago this week, theoretically I am in more than one place at the same time. Due to this technology, I can attend the municipal convention in Chicago and the coatings trade show in Active Worlds and still visit with my family at night in Second Life. Now if only these companies start to realize what could be done in Second Life.