By extending the 2D painting into a 3D world in the CAVE, and allowing viewers to freely navigate through the space, Las Meninus let the viewers challenge the notion of the painting -that they will always remain static in our relationship to it, by providing dynamic interaction with the elements, and the perspective that VR can provide. This will help the viewers to solve the enigmas in the painting when exploring the hidden space through virtual reality, and maybe gain more insight into what is implicit beyond what can be seen.
One drawback on the flexibility is the temporal control. ALthough the 'settings' file allows one to change various parameters including how long the piece will run, there is hardly any dynamic control over timing. One must wait till the narration finishes to start navigation, and once started, there's no way to restart from the beginning. During the period when navigation is disabled or limited, there's no way to stop or go back to a certain point. To improve this, we can add more functions to different wand buttons (differenciating click and double-click), such as pause/resume, rewind, fast forward, restart etc.
Graphical Representation
The characters and objects in the space are adequately modeled - the proportion, the spacial relationship, the colors, the lightings, and the tones, all are presented to be as much consistent as possible to the orriginal painting, while at the same time reserving the space for imagination and creation. In the final scene where the video clips about 20th Century fascism are shown, a transparent floor divides the swirling imagery of the "Guernica" hall from a mirror-image reflection of it beneath. In the Cave, you can feel that you are walking on that floor while immersed in colliding images of beauty and apocalyptic horror.
During the naration the subject being talked about is highlighted helping the viewer to identify which character is being talked about.
Different levels of details are appropriately used. The front side of the chacracters, which were clearly focused and depicted in the painting, is shown in much detail; while the back side, which is out of concern, is only shown with simple geometry shapes.
One thing I think could be added to enhance the imaginary space is the missing subject - the king and the queen, who (as we guess) are just entering the room when the painter is painting. By adding these two figure, the reflection in the mirror will be more realistic.
Audio Feedback
The audio undoubtedly enhance the visual effect. The naration at the beginning introducing the background of the painter helps the viewer to understand the painting, and also brings forth the enigmas to the viewer, which he (she) is hoping to find out. The naration also reminds the viewer when to start the navigation.
As the viewer goes into different rooms, music will change according to the historical context of the scene. For example, as we move closer to the windows, the music changes to a light Bach piece contemporary to that time period; as we enter the room with Picasso and Medvedev paintings, the atonal sounds of chamber music by the modern composer, Gyorgy Ligeti, prepare us for the final room - chaotic room of 20th centrury dictatorship and revolution.
Audio for some rooms could be improved by adding some environmental sound. In the final scene, sounds of guns and bombing could be added to the vedio show in the hanging TVs, to give the viewer a stronger sense of war.
Interface (include any special consideration for desktop use)
The navigation through the virtual journey is intuitive and easy to control, and the visual feedback is realistic. If there's a wall in front, one will not be able to approach further, so he will know he should turn back.
However, the viewer doesn't have much chance to manipulate the elements in the scene, such as move the characters and objects in the rooms - probably because they wouldn't be allowed to in a real scene either :-). But one thing may be helpful: the application can provide the viewer some way to compose the picture on the mysterious canvas, such as allowing the viewer to select some objects to place on the canvas, and judge whether that could likely be the subject the painter is really painting.
Back to top of this
page.
Back
to contents of the presentation.
If you have comments or suggestions, email me at yingfeng@cs.indiana.edu