Explorable Hampshire

Explorable Hampshire is a tool for learning about and visually experiencing the College. It consists of a 3d map based in Google Earth, and a website to display and interact with the map. It was created by Fletcher West for his Division III. You can see a preview and download a beta version of the map here.

History
This project evolved from an effort to create 3d models of all the buildings on campus. See Modelling Hampshire for full background and documentation.

Proposal
How can people experience Hampshire when they aren’t able to come here? The current options for learning about the school in this sense are limited in perspective and dimension. One might look at pictures and read descriptions on the internet or in books. To get more of a spatial impression, one could also look at maps of the area and the campus itself. These sources may reveal bits and pieces of Hampshire, but they don’t really convey the sense of being here. The school’s own answer to this question, a “Virtual Tour” page on their website, also falls short. It is actually an inaccurate and simplistically rendered map of the campus, displayed in flash, that provides limited information and functionality. The interactions allowed by the map are very basic, including turning on or off a few different categories of labels, and highlighting/showing the name of buildings on mouse rollover. Clicking on a building takes the user to a microsite, also flash, with a description of the building and several pictures. The narrow and disconnected views of the campus offered by this application do not effectively simulate a tour, much less make a convincing virtual representation. A version based in Google Earth could not only duplicate the current functions, but greatly improve upon them. This is goal of my Division III. Using Google Earth as a platform, I will create an alternative (perhaps replacement) to the current virtual tour, a representation of Hampshire that is visually realistic, interactive, and rich with information. The user will be able to move through the campus freely and will see information relevant to them. This is partly a continuation of a project I have been working on for several years now, the focus of which was creating 3d models of Hampshire’s buildings for Google Earth. I pursued this project by myself at first and then through two independent studies. I decided to undertake this effort after noticing that UMass and the town of Amherst both had substantial sets of models visible in Google Earth, while Hampshire did not. Modelling our campus struck me as an effective, novel way to document and increase the visibility of the school. Going forward, I am expanding on that concept and moving beyond a single format approach. In addition to 3d models, I will be creating geographic data of several types to comprehensively document the features of Hampshire. These will include labels, html information bubbles, overlay images such as floorplans, and vector paths showing trails that do not appear on official maps. I intend to create a map that is saturated with information, but with that information organized to be as useful as possible. By default, much of this information will not appear unless it is turned on, minimizing the amount of visual clutter and allowing the user to choose which elements they see. In this sense, users will not only be able to explore the visible environment of Hampshire, but also the conceptual environment of documentation describing both physical and non-physical features of the school. During the first semester (Spring 2011) of this project, I will mainly focus on the creation of data. I will try to complete models for all of the primary buildings on campus (meaning the main academic buildings, library, rcc, the mods and dorms) and will work on creating a basic inventory of place labels, paths, and overlays. During this time I also intend to start organizing this information. To begin with, the data will be organized by the features described. This will be the structure used in the file which will serve as the base of a Hampshire-specific layer for Google Earth. The data will also be organized according to relevance to different types of users, allowing the base layer to be tailored to each of them. There are three primary user types which I will be focusing on initially: prospective students, current students, and faculty/staff. I plan to request input from the Hampshire community to better determine what information is relevant to each of these groups. During the following fall semester, I will complete any remaining models and begin exploring methods for displaying and modifying the map data. This will likely require me to find technical assistance and develop some new skills of my own. My first priority will be designing a system to customize which information in the base file is displayed for each of the previously mentioned user types. I will also try to create a system for automatically and/or manually incorporating community sourced location+time specific information such as events. Lastly, if possible, I would like to integrate the map and customization system (or a version of them) into Hampshire’s website through the Google Earth plugin. This last goal may be difficult to achieve because not all of the features in standalone version of the program are available in the plugin. Although these efforts will be focused on Google Earth, it is my hope that this project will have relevance beyond the software with which it was originally created and displayed. While first conceptualizing this project as an independent study in spring of 2009, I looked for open sources alternatives but found that the tools offered by Google were by far the most well developed. However, the information produced in these programs is encoded in KML, an open standard for geographic data. This means that it can potentially be reused with other applications and tailored to suit other purposes. The popularity of this format also makes it more likely that it will be able to translate to some later system that might supersede Google Earth. Ideally, then, the product of this Division III will become a resource for the Hampshire community that remains useful well into the future.

Precedents
During spring of 2011 worked on this project through the Division III seminar Advanced Design and Media Lab: Art, Architecture and Environment. For this course, I was tasked with finding a number precedents for my project. While none of the examples I found are exactly like what I plan to do, each of them includes ideas that I would like to incorporate into my project. A series of posters I made to present these precents is available [[Media:ExplorableHampPrecedents.pdf|here]]. A kmz file that shows the precedents (including posters) in Google Earth is also available here. Here are a few of the most notable precedents:


 * Umass and the Town of Amherst
 * 3d Buildings
 * Bowdoin College
 * 3d Buildings (old style)
 * Extensive placemarks, richly formatted information bubbles, and media
 * Weslyan University
 * A Comprehensive List of placemarks
 * Overlays showing floorplans of buildings
 * VR Planet
 * A custom interface for interacting with Google Earth Plugin
 * Showcases 3d spherical panoramas
 * Northeastern University (not included in original list)
 * Best example of what I want to accomplish, in terms of interface and user experience

Modeling
Models completed during this semester include:


 * Library Center
 * RCC
 * FPH
 * Merrill
 * Dining Commons
 * Dakin
 * Dakin 'and 'Merrill Student Life Centers
 * ASH
 * The Yurt

(models in bold have been accepted and are currently visible in the 3d buildings layer of Google Earth)

Many others have been started and are in various states of completion. For a more detailed record of the progress look at the model checklist.

Fall 2011
During this semester, I focused mainly on completing models for the remaining buildings and building a web interface to view the map file.

Modeling
Towards the end of the semester, my focus shifted to implementing key features in the web interface. For this reason, I did not complete several of the lower priority buildings. These include the Community Health/Feminisms Center in Enfield, The Writing Center, the Prescott tavern, and the Lebron-Wiggins-Pran Cultural Center. I have reference photographs for all of these buildings, which I can share with anyone who would like to model them. I also was not able to start models of any of the buildings along West Street, the Yiddish Book Center, or the Eric Carle Museum.

Website
The website I made for this project can be seen here. Seeing the 3d buildings and interactive elements require the Google Earth plugin. The site is optimized for Chrome, but most features (except for the expand button) should also work in Firefox.

Features

 * Loads and displays the structure of an external map file
 * Can show street/ground view
 * integrated with Google maps
 * Built-in layers and features can be toggled
 * Links to specific features can be created
 * Map is searchable

Download
A beta version of the map file is now available to download for anyone who is interested. If you have the Google Earth plugin installed, you can see a preview of this file here. Any [mailto:wfw07@hampshire.edu feedback] would be appreciated, but I would especially like to know if anything isn't working right. One issue that I'm already aware of is that some of the unfinished models are showing up as gray rather than white (this shouldn't be happening for any of the ones in the finished folder). Another thing to note is that 3d trees have been removed from this version.

Structure
The map data is structured as follows:

Hampshire College


 * Guide
 * Welcome (intro message)
 * Tours (none yet)
 * Buildings
 * Academic
 * Arts Village
 * Residential
 * Dorms
 * Mods
 * Other
 * Places
 * Centers and Programs
 * Programs
 * Recreation
 * Housing
 * Section/Mod labels, Housing offices, Laundry, etc.
 * Food
 * Parking
 * Misc.
 * Smoking Areas
 * Media
 * Student Profiles (empty, so far)
 * Pictures
 * Videos
 * Overlays
 * Original Campus Plan
 * Floorplans (so far, only Prescott 1)

Content is primarily organized by type rather than by subject. I have tried to simplfy the structure at the highest level as much as possible, to avoid having an overwhelming number of options. I had intended to use html to link together thematically similar elements to create different kinds of tours(i.e. a guide to Hampshire's history with historic overlays and pictures), but this may not be something I am able to accomplish given the amount of time I have left.