Research: Heist
Heist is an experimental project that uses Open Exhibits and GestureWorks software and is powered by Sensus server technology to enable effortless networking. Digital museum objects can be easily shared with visitor’s smart phones or tablets. All this happens without visitors having to download a mobile app.
Heist uses a WiFi captive portal; as museum visitors connect to the network they are pushed an HTML 5 application. They simply add their name, pick a color and their personal avatar appears on the table.
Once connected visitors can drag digital museum objects along with their metadata to their own device. Visitors can explore these objects on their personal devices and save them for view after their visit.
The multitouch table application is modified Collection Viewer was built with Open Exhibits software and the new GestureWorks 3 multitouch framework for Adobe Flash. The table used in the demo is an MT55 Platform multitouch table. The images and metadata are shared through the cloud powered by Sensus server technology.
Update (4/27/12): Heist! is an experimental demo application and while we anticipated being able to release it in a limited capacity, we have decided to postpone this indefinitely. We were concerned about supporting experimental systems in a number of museums. Our thinking is that this would have taken too many resources and interfered with our being able to develop other software components that would better support the community.
Update (5/14/12): Due to recent inquiries of our captive portal implementation, we decided to release our notes on the subject. Since we have moved on to other projects, we can’t offer any other support on this topic other than what is outlined in the PDF.
