Image: Yellow Staircase, OCADU. UNREAL CLUB (Judith Doyle, Nick Alexander, Lillian Leung), 2020. Screen capture from WebXR.
Research Team:
- Lead Investigator: Judith Doyle, Associate Professor, Integrated Media, Faculty of Art; Chair, First-Year Experience, OCAD University (OCADU)
- Collaborator: Simone Jones, Professor, Integrated Media, Faculty of Art, OCADU
- Collaborator: Dr Haru Ji, Associate Professor, Digital Painting and Expanded Animation (DPXA) and Digital Futures (DF), Faculty of Art, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Science, OCADU
- Collaborator: Dr Graham Wakefield, Associate Professor, Computational Arts, Canada Research Chair, York University
- WebXR Developers: Nick Alexander (MDes, DF, OCADU) and Tyson Moll (MDes, DF, OCADU)
- WebXR Researcher: Nick Fox-Gieg (York U doctoral candidate)
- Sound Designer: Paul Geldart
- Research Project Manager: Elizabeth Lopez (MFA, IAMD, OCADU)
- Research Assistant: Ernesto Ramirez (OCADU student)
WebXR is a group of standards that support immersive and browser-based display of 3D content. Three ‘Open WebXR Studios for Collaboration, Exhibition and Critique’ were developed with the goal of providing students of varying educational backgrounds and skill sets with the necessary tools to quickly produce WebXR environments for artwork and creative media. This became especially pertinent during the abrupt shift to remote and online learning in the COVID19 pandemic.
WebXR supports rendering of 3D scenes to hardware designed for presenting virtual worlds (virtual reality, or VR), for adding graphical imagery to the real world (augmented reality, or AR), and for display in browsers.
The collaborative project team developed three aligned web-based pilots for teaching, creation, critique, and exhibition of art and design projects by students and educators. Outputs include three aligned ‘sister’ GitHubs including toolkits of software, templates, pedagogical support materials and user guides.
Course-based research took place in Fall 2021 courses at OCADU and at York U in three varied classes for undergraduate and graduate students. The assignments included forays into WebXR as follows:
- Form and Time, a required First Year course in Faculty of Art, included an option introducing capture by photogrammetry to create a collaborative network of small immersive galleries in WebXR.
- Digital Atelier, a graduate course in the OCADU Digital Futures program, included a generative art assignment inspired by conceptual art (Sol LeWitt), displayed using P5.js embedded in WebXR.
- York University’s hybrid upper-level undergraduate/graduate seminar Spatial Computing in Responsive Environments iterative assignments included building a multi-user WebXR space using Three.js and Node.js
Form and Time:
The Form and Time WebXR Studio and Critique Space is an open-source A-Frame project template for building galleries in WebXR. Students in the First Year Form and Time course were supported by the WebXR Project Team, creating customized galleries to display photogrammetric captures, videos, and sound in VR spaces accessible with or without VR headsets, and without the need for specialized high performance computer configurations. This culminated in an exhibition installation of video loops and a surround sound installation by Paul Geldart, who performed live at the opening event for the INTERSPACE Exhibition at OCADU Ada Slaight Gallery in March 2021. The exhibition was reprised in the Great Hall in April 2022.
Project Conclusions:
WebXR enables powerful new pedagogical approaches to online, hybrid and blended modes of studio art delivery. These can include generative art, photogrammetric capture, and creative coding, as explored in this project. Cinematic capture within virtual environments, collaborative coding, and exhibitions of computational artistic and design projects benefit from open-source access to WebXR. In addition to remote collaboration and critique, moving back into real-world spaces including galleries and performance events can be powerful generators of community involvement. Our exhibition of video capture from WebXR along with sound and live performance created a powerful context for a culminating live encounter. This event was key to re-entry to the building following COVID in-person restrictions. The relevance is extensible to hybrid, online and blended teaching formats. Exhibitions and events in embodied, local spaces can be included as a deliverable to foster community-based engagement and value.
As a demonstration of application of the Open WebXR template, try exploring the Form and Time Fall 2021 exhibition of student galleries yourself. The online galleries can be navigated using keyboard arrow keys and a mouse.
A quick video tour of the student virtual galleries can be viewed here .
The template for OCADU Open WebXR, with the user’s manual, is open-access, at:WebXR Template for A-Frame
The two sister repositories can be accessed at:
- WebXR Template for P5.js
- WebXR Template for Three.js and Node.js
This project is made possible with funding by the Government of Ontario and through eCampusOntario’s support of the Virtual Learning Strategy. To learn more about the Virtual Learning Strategy visit: https://vls.ecampusontario.ca.