December 28, 2007

Technology at the Royal Ontario Museum

Web-cam video of Michael Lee-Chin Crystal construction now on-line

VINCE VERSACE

staff writer

Visitors to the Royal Ontario Museum’s Web site can now see its signature crystal rise from a construction work site into its massive Bloor Street West presence in just five minutes.

“We knew there would be a lot of interest in the construction of the crystal,” says Brian Porter, ROM new media resources director.

“It was great catching the images (via Web cam), starting from the demolition to the crystal taking shape.”

The ROM has pieced together a five-minute time-lapse sequence spanning the entire construction of the 17,000 square metre Michael Lee-Chin Crystal. The sequence begins with the demoliton of the terrace gallery in May 2003 and ends with the crystal’s opening this past November.

The crystal is the centerpiece of the museum’s $250-million Renaissance project, which also included renovation and restoration to existing galleries.

A Web cam was mounted across the street from the work site on the Hyatt hotel. The camera’s feed was routed into the hotel’s internal network and then transferred to a ROM server. The idea to capture the construction via Web cam was spawned by a construction sequence recorded of work on Boston’s Harvard campus.

Smaller sequences were threaded together as milestone construction moments were reached, notes Porter. As the approximately 2,700 tonnes of steel that support the crystal began to take shape, a small sequence was batched together. When the cladding system was attached to the steel, another mini-sequence was threaded together.

The final five-minute sequence consists of a series of still images captured daily at 1 p.m. during construction and at 10-minute intervals throughout the crystal’s opening week.

“Another key reason for the popularity of the time sequence is the Internet capability in the market. There are places like YouTube, which are a common platform for all these types of projects which are different or unique and can be accessed by anyone around the world,” adds Porter.

Recording and observing the progress of construction of the new North Bay Regional Health Centre via a Web cam was also recently unveiled. Six Web cams will capture and produce time-lapsed video streaming of construction at the site. Each camera is part of a self-contained unit which links with the other units on site to provide a self-meshing data network.

“The camera use is a marketing tool which can be used so people can see the progress in real time at the site,” explains George Biggar, president of Eagle Eye Camera, the provider of the cameras and network in North Bay. “We run the digital cameras across the wireless network at the site.”

Biggar says the ability to provide real-time video from a site can help with projects where designers or builders are offsite, unable to attend in person. The benefits of the wireless system on site allows for plans and diagrams to be accessed readily on site via laptop, instead of rolling out a plan across the hood of a truck, notes Biggar.

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