Joe Fafard Panoramic & 3D Exhibition

I am a big fab of Joe Fafard's work and it was a pleasure to direct (technical & design) the Joe Fafard Virtual Exhibit project for the Virtual Museum of Canada. Produced by Toronto-based Synthecsape, this project created a panoramic walkthrough of the Fafard Exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada and permitted 3D examination of the artefacts.

My goal, besides creating a unique project for the Virtual Museum, was to compare and contrast the results of this project with those of the McCord 3D project (a project I was concurrently directing) in order to produce a study for CHIN's Knowledge Exchange on the feasibility of 3D web experiences published through the web's most ubiquitous plug-in at the time: Flash. Besides the panoramic walkthrough, the Fafard project included 360 degree photostitched, and high resolution zooms, user-controled views of the artefacts. While the McCord 3D project actually built the objects in a 3D environment, Fafard produced pseudo 3D at incredible resolution. Both projects were published through Flash interfaces - a novel approach at a time when many 3rd party plug-ins existed for 3D. The conclusion was that the pseudo 3D offered far better results (smaller file sizes, less processing required, far smoother navigation and manipulation of the artefacts, etc.). Synthescape did a great job on production and the project was stunning when presented at the 2009 Canadian Museum Association Conference on a 52" high def screen - the images brilliantly clear.