ON-A-SLANT VIRTUAL VILLAGE: INTERACTIVE X3D
A SOCIAL SCIENCE EDUCATION PROJECT
NDSU Archaeology Technologies Laboratory
(ATL) is a member of the NDSU Worldwide Web Instructional
Committee (WWWIC)
that investigates innovating ways of teaching science through
the use of role-playing in virtual environments. WWWIC has recently
been awarded a grant by the National Science Foundation's
Instructional Materials Development (IMD) program to develop Instructional
Materials for Teaching Science Through Virtual Environments.
As a participant of the WWWIC IMD project, the ATL has begun development
of a social science based virtual environment for instructing
students on the cultural interactions of Native peoples who lived
in the upper great plains region of the United States just prior
to the arrival of the Lewis and Clark - Corp of Discovery
Expedition. Much of the sedentary village environment is based
upon our previous virtual village work. While not yet fully implemented,
we are making part of the On-A-Slant Interactive X3D environment
available for preview.
Current preview files include:
-
Exterior Village Scene - walk the village and listen to
the last fluent native Mandan speaker tell a story. Enter
one of the smaller lodges by walking in to its entry
way and clicking on the leather door cover.
-
Interior Scene of a Mandan Earth Lodge
- Once you enter the earth lodge, click on the red sphere
in front of the door for an audio description of the lodge.
Switch to "Viewpoint 1" for the audio coordinated
camera animation. To leave the lodge, walk over to the
entry way and click on the leather door covering.
What you will need:
The On-A-Slant Interactive X3D environments are created using
Alias'
Maya Unlimited - animation and visual effects software, and the
RawKee
open-source X3D plug-in for Maya. Maya was provided to the
Archaeology Technologies Laboratory and WWWIC as a generous software
donation from the Alias Research Donation Program. RawKee a product
of an open source project coordinated by the Archaeology Technologies
Laboratory with input from its corporate technology partners.
The X3D Specification is a ISO standard for Web-based 3D communication.
It is developed by the Web3D Consortium.
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