Microsoft Deep Zoom – Hard Rock Café Example

During Martin Bean’s keynote presentation at the NAACE 2009 Strategic Conference one of the new technologies that was demonstrated was Deep Zoom. I’ve mentioned Deep Zoom before in relation to my recent visit to the UK Microsoft Innovative Teachers Forum in Reading.

The Hard Rock Café collection of music memorabilia was used as an example.

Here is a step by step walk through of what happened. There is also a video at the bottom of the post.

1) The demonstration stated zoomed in on Paul McCartney’s signature:

2) Then they zoomed out to reveal that the signature was actually a small piece of detail on the bottom of some Beatles “Bobb’n Head” Dolls (apparently one of the most sought after items of Beatles memorabilia – particularly if Ringo’s drumsticks are in tacked!).

3) Then they zoomed out again to reveal that the dolls were actually a picture in a shop keepers window, where some of the original Beatles outfits were stored.

4) Then they zoomed out again to reveal that  outfits were actually a photograph in a HardRock Café.

5) Then they zoomed out to reveal that the Hard Rock Cafe picture was just one tile of a 4×4 collage.

6) Then they zoomed out to reveal that the 4 x 4 collage was actually a stamp on an envelope to a letter from Sir Paul McCartney to Sgt. Buddy Dresner.

7) Then they zoomed out to reveal that the envelope was part of a larger collection containing the actual letter between McCartney and Dresner.

8) Then they zoomed out to reveal that the letter was only one part of the largest music collection in the world owned by the Hard Rock Café.

I’ve made a quick video of the sequence below (Blip TV Video embedded below).

 

Impressive Stuff that certainly demonstrates the wow factor. James Kent has used Deep Zoom to teach about the 2004 Asian Tsunami – but I wonder if there are any other good examples of it being used in education?

Comments

[Guy Shearer]

I'm impressed with the technology - heeps of wow and a lovely lesson opener (I've used Google Earth for similar things - also canned flythroughs in Google Earth with Panormio letting some images be fixed to placed we visit) - but the example of the Hard Rock cafe surely all it adds over say a sequence made in Photostory is the ooooo factor of the transitions.

The idea that you can move in theory anywhere within this landscape and zoom in forever is really exciting until you think 'yeah but actually why would I want to do that' - that isn't though to take away from a technical tour de force.

Photosynth I think it much much cleverer and more useful because it seems to be setting up the idea of a network of people collaborating to make a virtual space - am dying to try that out and have a project in mind....

[OllieBray]

I quite agree with you here Guy - I still need to get my head around what Deep Zoom really adds. I have an idea to use it with a class to develop digital storytelling but as you say we already do similar things with Google Earth and Photostory.

Photosynth is really exciting - he have started to take pictures of our CDT department and when we have about 100 I'm going to put them into photosynth and see if we can create a virtual department.

[Rich]

You can spot the links to creative story telling here. The frames would help structure the story, and in a way you'd quite like to then operate the sequence in reverse, trying to get into more detail... very interesting, but as mentioned you could do a series of linked photos, but then obviously the order is rigid...

[Terry Freedman]

Thanks, for posting this, Ollie. I was describing it to my wife, so it's nice to be able to actually show it to her too.

I think there is a wider educational usefulness of the deep zoom which has nothing to do with the technology, but which the technology facilitates, and that is an appreciation of context. I'll develop this idea in an article rather than use tons of space here.

[OllieBray]

@rich I agree Rich - still lots of un-tapped potential with this resource through.

@terry Again, I agree. Much of this un-tapped potential will be in the building tool that I haven't really experimented with yet.

[Terry]

Reminds me of childrens books by Istvan Banyai.

http://www.hemmy.net/2008/05/02/zoom-picture-book-by-istvan-banyai/

[Nick]

I can use it for zooming out from a bridge or product to teach 'design in context'.

Geography would be my use for it but I will try to use it for design teaching.

[ugg classic short]

That’s a cool project. You have inspired me to adapt this project for my high school level design class.