The ‘Ships, Cable Cars and Tourism’ section of the Swiss Museum of Transport houses a new permanent exhibition called ‘i-factory — understanding informatics’. The basic principles of informatics are communicated visually and playfully over an area of 375 square metres. The building blocks of IT are made transparent and surprising connections are established with everyday IT applications. iart interactive has planned and realised the various media used to communicate information in the exhibition: four multi-user/multi-touch media tables with a tailor-made interface design, a film wall composed of 48 screens, an ‘i-quiz’, a so-called ‘data check’ to evaluate the visit and to compare it with other visitors’ activities and a play figure corresponding to the virtual ‘i-friend’.

Play Figure Becomes ‘i-friend’

Equipped with their personal play figure, visitors obtain access to all the interactive stations in the exhibition and to a virtual ‘i-friend’, who guides them through the exhibition and via the Internet even when they are at home. He explains the rules of the game to them, asks questions and enables contact with other ‘i-friends’. Visitors encounter their own i-friend as soon as they place their play figure on one of the interactive stations. The ‘i-friend’, which is abstractly designed, alters its appearance according to the visitor’s play performance. He carries a virtual bag with him that can be filled with thematic ‘drops’ containing information that can only be opened after the museum visit has ended.

The foot of every play figure is equipped with an individual fiduciary marker, an image that serves to identify the personal play figure and that permits the collection of personalised data: the length of stay, play results and the frequency of clicks are, for example, registered and used to evaluate an anonymous visitor profile.

At the exhibition’s ‘Data Check Station’, visitors can view their personal data and compare them with the anonymous data of other visitors. If visitors store their personal data, they can call them up later on the i-factory Internet portal. At the same station, visitors can have their photograph taken with their ‘i-friend’ and can save the photograph.

70″ Multimedia Tables — the First Multi-User Tables of this Size to Be Equipped With Multi-Touch Functions (Finger Tracking and Fiducial Tracking)

The four theme islands relating to the most important principles of informatics (’sort and search’, ‘plan and control’, ‘programme and code’, ‘try and retry’) contain not only various analogue games but also a 70″ multimedia table each with high definition.

iart interactive already developed a media table for the visitor centre at CERN in Geneva at which several visitors can interact simultaneously. The innovation about the i-factory media table is the combination of functions, which has never previously been found on a media table of this size: not only can several visitors play on it simultaneously (multi-user), but also interaction can be activated all over it by means of both finger and fiducial tracking. This has been made possible by a camera system specially developed by iart interactive. In addition, iart interactive has collaborated with tegoro solutions to develop a framework that permits the presentation of several play-fields next to each other.

When the new media tables were being developed, the technology was optimised. Particular importance was also attached to a user-friendly implementation of the interaction ideas of every individual game in the interaction design, with the result that visitors can interact intuitively, without being irritated by delayed reactions or disturbances.

Another of the new media table’s distinctive features is its tactile surface: the interaction surface is not hard, as it is with most media tables, but is slightly soft, and therefore comfortable to use.

Project description for download

‘i-factory — Understanding Information Technology’ 2010 at the Swiss Museum of Transport
Permanent exhibition, Opening: 18 November 2010

Customer and Client
Swiss Museum of Transport
with the exhibition partners Hasler Stiftung, Panasonic / John Lay Electronics AG,
SchmauderRohr GmbH and Zühlke Engineering AG

Services iart
Planning and realisation of the media installations

Media
Four interactive 70“ multiuser media tables with
finger tracking and fiducial tracking
New framework for administration of visitors‘ data

Project Partners
SchmauderRohr GmbH, Exhibition design and content
tegoro solutions ag, Programming and installation of the media
Dekorationsbau FeliX AG, Installation of the exhibition

Project Duration
1 year

Exhibition Area
375 m2