A system that presents very large images, which visitors can explore by walking around in a room.
Macrographia can present large scale images of artifacts, with which one or more visitors can concurrently interact by walking around. The system is installed in a room in which a computer vision subsystem, consisted of 3 depth sensors, tracks the position of visitors. On one wall a dual-projector back-projection screen is installed. Behind the screen lies a control room that contains two short-throw projectors, stereo speakers and a workstation. Visitors enter the room from an entrance opposite to the display. The vision system assigns a unique id number to each person entering the room. When at least one person is in the room, a piece of music starts to play. The room is conceptually split in 5 zones of interest, delimited by different themes presented on the wall painting. These zones cut the room in 5 vertical slices. The room is also split in 4 horizontal zones that run parallel to the wall painting, which are delimited by their distance from it. When a visitor is located in front of the projection, the respective wall painting part changes and, depending on his/her distance from the wall, visitors can see a sketch, a restored version or a detail of the wall part, accompanied by related information.
Since users are associated with a unique id, the system keeps track of the information they have accessed, as well as of the time they have spent on each slot. Apart from location-sensing, Macrographia also supports two more types of interaction: (a) a kiosk and (b) mobile phones. The kiosk offers an overview of the wall painting, an introductory text and two buttons for changing the user’s language. All information is automatically presented in the visitor’s preferred language while the selected part of the image is highlighted. Mobile phones are used as multimedia guides, automatically presenting images and text (that can also be read aloud) related to the visitor’s current position.