Interactive Dinosaurs
Multi touch scanner application for the Long Night of Museums 2017 at the Berlin Museum of Natural History
Visitors to Berlin’s Museum of Natural History were able to design their own dinosaurs with paper and pencil and then breathe digital life into them during the 20th Long Night of Museums.
Multi-touch table brings children’s drawings to life
As one of the museum’s cooperation partners Garamantis made their multi‑touch scanner table available to kids and grown‑ups in the form of a “research table”. Digital applications about dinosaurs and insects were part of this concept of playful information transfer: visitors could move around and change the size of digital versions of exotic beetles and butterflies on the surface of the table, the aim being to get as close as possible to the actual life size of the insects, and in the process learn more about these (sometimes gigantic) creepy-crawlies.
But the real highlight was the interactive Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaurs, animated by the visitors themselves. Visitors of all ages were invited to colour in the silhouette of the world-famous predator on a postcard and then present it to the multi-touch scanner table – with exciting results: the enthusiastic museum visitor could watch a high-resolution 3D model of his or her freshly coloured T-Rex run across the table – past other dinosaurs and various insects.
Self-painted dinosaurs run across the interactive table as 3D objects
Visitors could admire their colourful dinosaurs from all sides, watch their movements and even record it all with a virtual camera. In addition, each 3D dinosaur was ‘immortalised’ using a photo printer, so visitors could take the print and their postcard home as a souvenir of the experience.
The interactive dinosaurs were so popular that the table was constantly surrounded by visitors throughout the night, and its surface was practically crawling with dinosaurs – over 700 digital T-Rexes were painted, captured and printed in just a few hours. The interactive multi-touch application designed by Garamantis is an excellent example of how museums can make their exhibits and content digitally perceptible and more approachable to a wide audience.
Berlin Museum of Natural History
Project facts
- Co-operation partner: Berlin Museum of Natural History
- Context: Long Night of Museums 2017
- Implementation time: 4 weeks
- Finishing date: August 2017
- optical recognition of the dino texture
- 3d model on multi touch screen
- connected photo printer
- Unity 3D development
For the Long Night of Museums 2017 Garamantis designed an interactive application that thrilled both the museum’s visitors and it’s staff. Despite the very short lead time this project was a complete success from start to finish – technologically, design‑wise and organizationally speaking. The collaboration was totally uncomplicated and I am looking forward to further projects with Garamantis in the future.
With this application, Garamantis was able to show what possibilities its product offers for innovative knowledge transfer and how digital copies of real objects out of the collection of the museum can be used at a high and sustainable standard.
Der interaktive Forschungstisch von Garamantis erweckt Dinosaurier zum Leben
Products applied
Multi-Touch Table
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