Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Technology shines and friends gather at MuseumExpo 2018

Professionals from museums across America gathered in Phoenix this week for the American Alliance of Museum’s annual conference and MuseumExpo. InPark attended the event, and distributed copies of its latest issue.

IPM also sponsored the Photo Booth at the TEA Mixer on Sunday evening at Phoenix’s hip warehouse district gem, The Duce. Check out our Facebook page for our gallery of photos from the party. Boomerang GIFs from the photo booth are available here.

On the show floor, the breadth of technology offered by vendors was large, and attendees were intrigued by some of the VR and experience based products on hand.

Alice Space

Noitom (the word “motion” spelled backward) demoed their new Alice Space experience, a 20-minute VR simulation where visitors explore components of a space station, culminating with a walk on the moon. The equipment includes VR goggles and tracking devices for guests’ hands.

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The experience was refreshing for a medium that is prone to focus on shooting and destruction. Mildly educational, content is created with assistance from NASA. Notiom plans on releasing additional space-themed content over the next few years.

Deep Frame

Anyone who has ridden the Haunted Mansion at the Magic Kingdom is familiar with the Pepper’s Ghost effect. A reflection of a lit item in a large piece of glass creates a ghostly transparent image of the item. California-based Mousetrappe is now the US distributor of RealFiction’s Deep Frame product, an improvement on the Pepper’s Ghost trick. With a curved glass and curved screen, the reflected images appear more dimensional and appear to exist further away on the other side of the glass. It’s a trick of the curvatures, explained Mousetrappe’s Daren Ulmer.

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Although the size of the glass is somewhat limited, it could be used for something like a dark ride vehicle through an aquarium – although other applications abound.

D3D
Tom Rooney, D3D

Tom Rooney and Mark Katz showed off their Birdly product, a combination of VR and motion simulation (see our recent story on Birdly). Their research has shown that guests are most interested in dinosaurs, water and wildlife, which has been confirmed by museum professionals visiting their booth.

In response, they are releasing dinosaur themed content this summer and a new marine experience expected in 2019. The new Jurassic flight experience lets guests fly among dinosaurs, through canyons and will feature a new soundscape.

The marine experience will take guests through an ocean reef. The ride system for Birdly will be modified slightly to better simulate the motion of the ocean and the ride’s signature fan will be pulsed throughout the experience. Rooney promises no spray misters.

Our friends

MuseumExpo is also a great space to catch up with friends from the industry. Check out our photos below to see if you recognize some faces. AAM’s annual meeting and MuseumExpo heads to New Orleans, Louisiana May 19-22, 2019.

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Martin Palicki
Martin Palicki
Martin Palicki owns and publishes InPark Magazine. Started in 2004, InPark Magazine provides owners and operators the perspective from "in"side the "park." Martin has also written for publications like Sound & Communications, Lighting & Sound America, Attractions Management and others. Martin has been featured in Time Magazine, CNN.com and Folio. Martin lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

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