Interactive examples

Roanoke.com launches a virtual museum for the opening of the Taubman Museum of Art

Roanoke.com’s latest project features a virtual, interactive museum in time for the opening of Roanoke’s new art museum, the Taubman Museum of Art. With ten features spread throughout three rooms, including a theater, this interactive allows users to be both informed and entertained as they explore around this virtual building. Users can explore through the museum on their own, or jump to the specific sections, listed below:

1) “Tour the exterior from above” allows the user to “fly” around a 3D model of the museum and learn about the exterior of the building. The 3D model was done by Alec Rooney, a copy editor that has a passion for the 3D modeling program, Blender.

2) “A look inside the museum interior” offers information about the building and lets you “enter” the museum graphic to see the interior and view the floorplans.

3) “A brief history: Timeline of events” offers background information on how the new museum came about and links to archival stories on the museum.

4) “A guide to the Taubman Museum of Art” takes the user to a separate site, full of archival stories, facts and information on the museum. It also educates users about the Roanoke area and provides information for potential visitors.

5) “From the ground up: Construction timelapse” contains hundreds of still images over three years during the construction process.

6) “From the collection: A selection of artists’ work” is a database of more than 30 images that will be featured in the new museum.

7) “Meet the visionaries: Dreamers and Doers” contains image diptychs and background information on the major people involved with the museum.

8 ) “Art and Form: Through the lens” is a slide show gallery of images that photographer Kyle Green took depicting the museum as a form of art.

9) “360 panoramas: Virtual Tour” will feature a panorama tour of the building once it opens Nov. 8th. Due to policy agreements, this section cannot go live until the building is completed.

10) The theater showcases the growing archive of videos on the museum.

Fun easter eggs to watch out for:

*When you go into the theater and press play to watch a video, the lights turn off. (This is done via SWF intercommunication, which I wrote about in a past post.)

*When you go to the “Look inside the museum interior,” the doors on the museum graphic open which also allows the user to enter the building.

This project is a great example of the advantages to deep linking in Flash, which I wrote a tutorial on in a previous post. We had a lot of fun making this project and I hope you enjoy it. Let me know what you think!

Other posts that might interest you:

• Providing HTML and Flash versions of same site … worthwhile or waste of time?
• “CNN Challenge” tests users’ knowledge in immersive environment
• Six must-see interactive movie Web sites

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