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What is FAST?
Flexible, Accessible Strategies for Timely Digital Exhibit Design
Museums play a critical role in engaging their communities around urgent issues that emerge in the public sphere. However, typical exhibit development timelines can stretch for years, and "what's new" can change swiftly before an exhibition is even launched. What if museums could stay agile and dynamic, changing out content as community needs shift, science progresses, and the world changes? What if timely exhibit offerings could be not just efficiently produced, but accessible and welcoming to all visitors? This vision of efficiency and accessibility is at the center of FAST.
For more information about FAST, please see:
FAST Booklet, an introduction and explanation of the FAST project
FAST Software, a set of repositories on GitHub with all the FAST software
This work was supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under Award #MG-249646-OMS-21.
Unity Package
Created using Unity and Visual Studio with C#
On GitHub: FAST SDK Unity Package
Documentation: Developer Guide
A library of common software components for creating FAST digital exhibit experiences in Unity. I lead the development of this software by collaborating with two other developers to define features and code review the implementation. I implemented about 90% of the code and wrote all the documentation.
As a shorthand, we simply call this package the FAST SDK, but really the full SDK is this Unity package, a computer vision app, and template exhibit experiences.
Computer Vision Application
Created using Qt and OpenCV with C++ and Spinnaker SDK
On GitHub: FAST Computer Vision
Documentation: User Manual
A computer vision application to track ArUco markers and provide user interface tools for FAST digital exhibit table experiences. The app can be used to:
Detect and track ArUco markers for input to another application
Generate images of ArUco markers for printing
Calibrate a camera to remove lens distortion
The user interface tools provides a way for visitors to interact with the table. They function using fiducial markers detected by the computer vision application. The markers encode a unique integer identifier and can be detected when in view of a camera. Here are some tool options we explored:
Dice
Can be placed on the table in a specific orientation to activate a unique response
Magic Window
Allow users to “reveal” different states based on their position on the table
Tangible Objects
Can be placed on the table and uniquely identified
Toggle Switches
Allow for toggling between two choices
Sliders
Allow for exploring multiple discrete or continuous values
Buttons
Allow for a single selection or activation
Dials
Allow for toggling between continuous values (or discrete values, if detents are used)
Exhibit Templates
Created 1 of 3 templates using Unity and Visual Studio with C#
Object Investigation
A FAST digital exhibit experience that allows for exploration of real objects or physical models, identification or classification, and learning about a variety of items.
I developed the software for this template.
On GitHub: FAST Exhibit Templates
Three exhibit experience templates that allow museum professionals to create their own FAST tables without having to start from the beginning.
I developed the software for 1 of 3 templates, but I prepared all the templates for publication and documented them.
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