Albert Einstein once said, “The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know.”
Ain’t that the truth? Working on Project LARA, one quickly realises the stark truth behind this statement. In order to understand each piece of technology, its capabilities and ability to integrate into a unified system, one often finds themselves tunnelling down rabbit holes of information. Just as you start to grasp an idea or concept, the road will suddenly fork and new technology, ideas and concepts are then unexpectedly layered on top of you. This can quickly lead to overwhelm or even to feeling of treading digital water, desperately trying to stay afloat.
On the flipside, one quickly develops the ability to rapidly appraise huge amounts of information, various products, and their capacity for success or mass adoption. This is a critical skill to have when working on a project that requires one to make early decisions on technology, systems and design for what will be implemented later.
Since our last conversation a lot has happened in and around our department.
In terms of ARE (Alternative Reality Engineering), one of our major milestones that has been hit was the build of our immersive living space. This project brought together a culmination of different skills, technologies and disciplines. Again, this was a prime example of a relatively simple-looking task that transpired to be far more complex, and the project has more stages to deliver yet!
Research and development has also continued into immersive screen technologies, specifically ‘lightfield’ that will allow for realistic, specs-free, 3D multi-dimensional viewing of imagery and video. We’ve been testing a prototype display unit with great success.
Another of our projects has been centred around improving one-to-one video communication. Again, we’ve had some exciting successes with our early prototypes (see image).
Finally, we’re in the final throes of spec-ing out equipment and control systems for some of our immersive rooms. This is a big deal for us and the complexity of getting everything to mesh together as well as deciding preemptively what will affect a future build is both taxing and exciting at the same time.
Project LARA and her sub-projects continue to advance at a rate of knots, with an exciting challenge presenting itself every day. This is an incredible time to be involved in technology and design. The next chapter is sure to be even more mind-boggling than the last.
