Digital Birmingham is a Birmingham City Council initiative and part of a city wide strategic partnership of more than 30 public, private and voluntary organisations
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How can I find b-scape?
B-scape is fully accessible by members of the public and can be visited by following this Second Life link
Digital Birmingham has developed b-scape to highlight the vast possibilities for Birmingham organisations within virtual worlds. B-scape exploits state-of-the-art mash-ups to pull layers of different information from elsewhere on the net through into Second Life.
B-scape was developed in order to investigate how virtual worlds can be used to support City activities, particularly in conjunction with Digital Birmingham and its aim to establish Birmingham as a leading European digital city by 2010.
What can b-scape do?
B-scape integrates a range of different innovative uses of virtual world technologies to illustrate how collaborative virtual worlds can be used for local organisations to interact with the public. All activities being explored aim to add value to existing online content and do not aim to merely display the same information in a different environment.
As a briefing facility, b-scape, can pull through a wealth of applications and display them on the various screens located throughout the environment. B-scape currently showcases a number of innovative applications at the touch of a button, all of which can be viewed by multiple users at the same time. This allows multiple users to view the exact same information simultaneously unlike using traditional web based applications.
2D Google Maps
This live information is pulled through onto the screens in b-scape directly from Google Maps. It is not only viewable but also fully interactive through an innovative Google Maps controller, which allows the user to zoom and pan around just as they would on the web - but with the added advantage that you could do it collaboratively with the others present. There is the addition of an easy access "find" function, which allows the user to type "find London" (or wherever) into the chat bar and the map zooms straight to the point of interest.
Google Maps has been enhanced with the inclusion of 360° panoramas. These enable the user not only to stand on the map and look down at specific sites, but also have the panorama displayed all around them allowing them to see both geographically where they are, and also how that environment physically looks - this can be seen in the examples which include Bullring.
3D Google Maps
In addition to the 2D Google Maps, b-scape also includes using Google Maps images to create a pseudo-3D view of the city. A number of landmark buildings have also been rendered in 3D directly within Second Life such as Selfridges and the Mailbox, allowing users to be able to link to relevant web sites or, in the case of Millennium Point, a scale replica in Second Life by simply touching them.
RSS Feeds
B-scape builds on pulling through Google Maps by highlighting how a range of additional existing data can be pulled through from different locations and displayed in b-scape. A number of specific data feeds have been pulled into b-scape to make this point; including links to the top stories on the BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera websites; recent photos of Birmingham from the Flickr website and also webcams of Bullring and Spaghetti Junction.
The news and Flickr feeds are displayed on the Google Maps imagery and have been appropriately geocoded - i.e. the locations have been plotted on the maps to reflect the geographic location of the news story or photo. This displays a link to a news story e.g. about the US presidential election by way of a pin displayed in its specific geographic location on a map - in this case America. The Flickr images similarly appear as pins on a map of Birmingham, which link to recent photos - each one geocoded to display where in Birmingham the image is representing.
The webcams are pulled through from the local BBC website and are displayed exactly the same as they are on the website, with the same key difference as the other applications - a number of users can view the exact same information at the same time.
Video and Presentations
B-scape provides the opportunity for users to view powerpoint presentations and also videos. These can either be pulled from a server or alternatively pulled in from another existing source such as a website.
Future Use
Digital Birmingham is working with various departments in Birmingham City Council on the future use of b-scape.
Interested departments include Planning and Regeneration, and the BEST team.
If you would like further information or to get involved, email: digital@servicebirmingham.co.uk
