Inspiration

Innovating a new way to attract the public to learn about the town hall in an interactive and immersive way.

What it does

Tells captivating stories about the townhall using a 3D grid display.

How we built it

We wrote a program that converts any 3D object into a 2D array of height values by raytracing the path from the platform to the 3D shape. The program then utilizes Blender's Python API to simulate the transformation on the grid.

Challenges we ran into

We initially tried building our own 3D rendering interface using OpenGL but we ran into a multitude of problems with our code so we decided to use Blender. We also had a lot of rendering issues due to the low processing power of our PCs and our very limited time.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Built a successful 3D simulation of the machine on Blender with working code that does the job.

What we learned

We significantly improved our time-management skills. We learned the importance of dividing equally and smartly between teammates. We learned many technical skills specifically with popular Python APIs such as bpy in Blender, OpenGL, and numpy.

What's next for the Dynamic Shape Display System

Implementing a high-quality automated sound system along with a projector screen that gives life to the machine. Creating a mobile app through which users can choose from a different variety of artifacts/stories which the machine can then start telling an immersive story about.

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