January 4, 2003

Does studying history give you a headache? Is it almost impossible for you to ever go scuba diving into the mysterious ocean depths? Do you vainly wish to do wacko graffiti on public walls without being caught? Now say Hasta la Vista to all those primitive fears. Behold, the first Cybernarium is about to be born.

What is the Cybernarium?

It is an edutainment centre for virtual and augmented reality. A German Professor Jose Luis Encarnacao, the initiator of the Cybernarium, has an exceptional vision for this project by creating a unique combination of technology and theme park. His idea has received excellent response so far from public. “Cybernarium Days” project, which was started in the beginning of 2002, is likely to emerge in full glory in 2004 in Dramstadt.

Augmented Reality

Okay, so we have heard alot about Virtual Reality (VR), but then what is “Augmented reality”? It is an extension of the VR technology which involves superimposing virtual information on real worlds. Augmented Reality can bring wonders to our routine live activities. For instance, take hospitals, where surgeons can use augmented reality to assist operations by blending in important information, such as X-ray images. Service instructions can be superimposed in repair work by installation engineers, to carry out any task. To give glimpse of how fascinating this technology can be, visit the “Cybernarium days” and see for yourself.

The catch: larger than life?

The Cybernarium aims to bring current events to life via AR and VR — it could be anything — ranging from earthquakes to train crashes, or biotechnology issues, etc.

What good will this idea be? Cybernarium users will have a major advantage: they will enter a virtual world in which they can play an active role in determining what happens next, by trying out their own experiments with exhibits. This combination of entertainment and learning presents enormous didactic potential: it will turn complex topics into a real and comprehensible experience, in all topics of art, history, research and technology.

This will be experience by people from diversed fields of life. People from professions including business managers, computer geeks, art lovers, history fanatics and sundry others will be able to improve their knowledge, via this combination of perception and entertainment.

The Cybernarium pioneers have a vision to establish new standards in learning. Besides, they unanimously hope to generate a solid impetus for neoteric industrial developments as well.

The plan and the cost .

The Cybernarium planners are estimating an investment cost of 39 million Euros. After it opens, it is expected that this edutainment centre will attract at least 400,000 visitors every year.

A 3D interactive cinema will lie at the core of the park, allowing 150 visitors to interact with sophisticated Virtual Reality shows. Its experience park will present approximately 90 changing high-tech simulations. Besides a museum of the history of 3D computer graphics, the plan includes rooms for meetings, seminars and training, a virtual reality service company, a restaurant and a shop.

The “Cybernarium Days”

This amazing centre promises to provide vistors a voyage of discovery through the “educational room”, “work-place”, “play station” and “cultural world”.

Vistors, on entering, experience a mysterious darkness with artistic murals appearing on a huge screen illuminated by a flashlight. These murals were made by Buddhist monks around 1500 years ago in the Chinese Dunhuang cave temple. The place provides visitors a virtual role of researchers to explore the famous caves. Surrounding ceremonial chimes create a mystical atmosphere while visitors view a 3D Buddha statue.

The scenery provides images of manta rays, sharks and pilot fish swimming around you in a fascinating ocean depths. These scenes keep changing to give a real time experience of boundless extents of the universe as it takes visitors fly past Mars and Venus, circumnavigate Saturn, visit the moons of Jupiter and set out for distant galaxies.

The Augmented Reality experience is also one of its kind. Visitors become graffiti artists. While police sirens wail around them, they calmly pick up the electronic spray can and paint a brick wall in a back alley in the Bronx. The sprayer is real, the wall and the police are not.

The “augmented man” application takes the interplay of realities to extremes. Here, visitors have a rendezvous with themselves in a virtual mirror. Seconds later, two video cameras film the visitors and project them onto a screen. A virtual figure then mingles with the visitors, and seeks to make contact with the real people.

The “Cybernarium Days” allow you to explore, for the first time, new projections of technology, ranging from fascinating geometric worlds (fractal images) to a laser-built half-sphere. These artistically composed colourful images constantly change to give experience out of this world. It also has play and learn areas that let you assume different roles such as surgeon carrying out a complex knee operation, or play tic tac toe against the computer.

The writer is a freelance contributor

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