VR/Desktop game for Architecture technology class

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The DMC has collaborated on a multi-year project staring in Nov. 2020 to assist professor Juan José Castellón in creating a digital means of experimentation for his students. Professor Castellón’s class includes assignments which require students to physically create form finding models from wood, chain, cloth and other material. The DMC has supported the Architecture assignments by allowing students to create digital versions of these models using a videogame created with Unreal Engine. The game was created using the collab viewer template which is actively used in Architecture firms to collaborate and display architecture visualizations. DMC Supervisor Mario Norton added features into the existing template enable users to quickly create relevant models and explore forms that could be created physically. Several hired student researchers from the Architecture department contributed ideas and feedback and development suggestions.

game screenshot

 

The current game allows students to play the game simultaneously in a Desktop and/or VR environment. Added features include the ability to create hanging chains, height map displaced cloth which can be sliced and configured, simulated “cloth” meshes, add common shapes, rigid body simulations with parenting, and import of 3D geometry from Rhino and other packages.

The game was installed in Rice Architecture’s RAVL lab in July, 2021 and updated in Nov, 2021. Professor Castellón’s students were able to experience the game as a practical component of their course. For more details and blueprint code of this project, please visit https://dmcgraphics.blogs.rice.edu/unreal-engine/collab-viewer-additions/

Hanging chain experiment:

Height map “cloth” experiment:

Draw polygon, extrude and slice:

Rice environment, add geometry, rigid body sim, and multiplayer:

3D printed replacement part

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The Physics and Astronomy department was in need of a very small scale for one of their lab telescopes. The professor reached out to the DMC to have the part modeled and 3D printed. 3D printing can be a suitable alternative when a missing or broken part is hard to obtain.

Below is the 3D model created in Blender:

3D model of scale

 

With the help of Moody Center for the Art’s Makerspace, Robert Purvis printed the piece using a resin printer. Below is the finished piece with graphite brushed into the incised markings:

 

 

Photo/Video Studio as a Resource for Department Headshots

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Student being photographed in a lighting studio

Student portrait with a blue background

As of Summer 2022, the DMC’s Photo/Video Studio has undergone a drastic transformation. We have acquired 6 high output LED lights with large soft boxes and white, black, and dark blue seamless paper backdrops which make the studio ideal for professional quality headshots. Using a simple 3 point lighting setup, the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department took headshots for the incoming graduate students for their department website. The studio can be reserved up to one month in advance just as you would a piece of DMC equipment using the self-booking feature in Primo. Photo/Video Studio Reservation Page

If you have any questions about how to use the equipment in the studio, ask DMC staff or refer to our Photo/Video Studio written guides

Cover Art of the October 26, 2021, Volume 54, Issue 20 American Chemical Society publication “Macromolecules”

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The Digital Media Commons provided a rendering which was accepted for the cover art of the October 26, 2021, Volume 54, Issue 20 American Chemical Society publication “Macromolecules”.

Xueyan Feng provided the geometry to Mario Norton who rendered the image using Blender.

https://pubs.acs.org/toc/mamobx/54/20?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=pmd_OdrOnHnAssNcyxo_GVUxKpQZf60P0OQlimvEvEyF8SM-1635256763-0-gqNtZGzNAiWjcnBszQd9

full-size

BIOS 201 Podcasting Project

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In lieu of a traditional final, BIOS 201 students now have the option of recording a podcast as a small group project discussing some recent advance in stem cell, organoid or genome editing research focusing on a few of a curated list of original research papers in the field. As BIOS 201 is a very large class, the equipment demand is sizable. As such, the DMC assisted the class with equipment rentals, providing a list of recommended podcasting equipment and how to set up the different styles of microphones to record. As the DMC has limited copies of audio recorders or specific mics, in all likelihood there will be some variance in which each student group uses to record their podcast. The DMC Audio Studio was also proposed as an option for those interested. As for editing the podcasts, the class was directed to the DMC’s written guides and recorded short courses on Garageband and Audacity.

SOCI 389: Race, Gender, and Class on Film

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SOCI 389 seeks to investigate the representation of race, gender, and class in film, how it may change over time, and what the cultural and sociological implications of that representation are. The class focuses on critical analysis of representation in cinematic media and the interplay of it with prevailing public perception of specific groups. The culmination of this course is a group project consisting of a roughly 12 minute short video focused on analysis of representation of a particular group in film. In support of this final project, the DMC provided an in-class session on editing video in Adobe Premiere Pro.

Visualizing Data with Tableau Public

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Dr. Paul Treacy teaches Social Policy Analysis course (SOPA 400). He wants to have training for his students on visualizing data using Tableau. His students don’t have a lot of experience in data visualization. Using National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth Data (NSLY) data in Fall 2019 and Medical Expenditure Panel Study (MEPS) data in Fall 2020, Jane covered the basic workflow of using Tableau Public. Jane used hands-on activities to show students how to connect to data sources, how to create a line chart, a bar chart, a text table, and a map, how to create a dashboard, how to create a story, and how to save and share the created work. 

Viz of National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth Data (NSLY) data

Viz of Medical Expenditure Panel Study(MEPS) data

Using Zotero to Manage Your Citations

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Zotero is a free open-source citation management tool that helps collect, organize, cite and share research data. DMC has been supporting Zotero by offering workshops and consultations since 2006. In Spring 2020, Fondren Library has strengthened its support for Zotero by subscripting to Zotero storage as an institution. That means when you use Zotero and choose to synchronize your notes, attached files, and bibliographic records across devices, you don’t have to worry about running out of the limited free Zotero file syncing storage, or buying your own Zotero file syncing storage, or figuring out third party options. All Rice Zotero users now have unlimited file syncing storage. 

The Zotero workshop covers the basic workflow of using Zotero. It begins with installation of Zotero to ensure each student can use the application on his/her own computer. It then uses hands-on activities to show how to get book items and journal items into Zotero, how to organize stuff within Zotero, and how to cite with the help of Zotero. At the end, it briefly talks about Zotero’s sync and group features. The workshop can be customized to suit a class’s specific needs. In general, it takes about 45 minutes to 75 minutes. 

Upon faculty’s request, the Zotero workshop has been offered for many different courses over semesters. In a feedback email, a faculty wrote “My students turned in their bibliographies, and all of them used Zotero!” Another faculty commented “My graduate students love it. They wish they had known it earlier.”

Below are some of the courses that have had Zotero workshops. 

  • BIOC 112 Dr. Beth Beason-Abmayr
  • BIOC 587 Dr. Mary Purugganan
  • FWIS 147 Dr. Julie Fette
  • FWIS 152 Dr. Mary Purugganan
  • HIST 308 Dr. Michael Maas
  • HIST 575 Dr. Alida Metcalf
  • KINE 120 Dr. Amanda Perkins-Ball
  • LASR 251 Dr. Alida Metcalf
  • LING 499 Dr. Michel Achard
  • UNIV 600 Dr. Jennifer Wilson

MUSI 762: Artist Diploma Seminar

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MUSI 762 is a class aimed at introducing a wide range of practical techniques and knowledge for the working musician in the modern age. As part of this, the DMC offered a two part crash course in various essential aspects of digital media literacy for the practicing musician. The students learned how to create a WordPress website, create a basic promotional flyer in Powerpoint, basic video and audio editing techniques with Adobe Premiere, and the basics of portrait photography. DMC staff demonstrated these various techniques primarily via in-class sessions (in this case, via Zoom), with an optional out of class in-person (socially distanced) session for demonstrating portrait photography, in which DMC staff took headshots for those who participated. Additionally, students checked out video cameras and audio recorders from the DMC to self-record their performances.

HIST 238: The Body in Global Histories of Medicine

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HIST 238 introduces how people in different parts of the world have understood why we get sick and how we get better. As part of students’ exploration of different frameworks for dealing with disease and the body, they are asked to conduct original research and produce a podcast to effectively communicate their findings in an engaging way. To that end, the class made use of our in-class workshops to learn audio editing techniques with Audacity and Garageband, which they were then able to employ in our audio studio to record their final projects. Additionally, they made use of our digital lab’s scanning resources to scan tracings they made of various medical images from cultures around the world, which they then were able to print at large scale using the DMC’s high resolution inkjet plotter.

The class website with the completed projects can be viewed here.