Cosma / Knowledge / Navigation / Worlds
Cosma features “Worlds” which are 3D interfaces that enable spatial Knowledge Navigation and invite exploration of the Knowledge Resources inventory hosted on this Web site as well as traditional and 3D resources on other Web sites.
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Web Worlds are made by creating spaces in the virtual world SecondLife, capturing 360° photos of those spaces and uploading them to the 360° image sharing service Kuula to overlay links to Cosma pages and the many great 360° and 3D immersive experiences on the Web.
They are currently the main type of 3D interface that you will find on Cosma.
This is Cosma’s main Welcome Area were you can start your journey into knowledge!
Touch posters and objects to find out about them or visit other worlds.
You can also explore it on Kuula.
If you click on the (not very well hidden) trap door, you will find yourself in this Web World that is an exhibit about Cosma’s history.
You can also explore it on Kuula.
The Web World below is a special one with links to many of the others that you can find distributed across this Web site. You can use it to find hundreds of immersive 3D and 360° experiences to explore!
Click on the objects to see 3D and 360° experiences, and click doorways to go to other Web Worlds which also feature objects and doorways with links to 3D and 360° experiences.
You can also see it directly on Kuula.
You can find out on the Web Worlds page and in the post Hike, Wander & Walk-in the Web!
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Cosma still features Toy Worlds that served as 3D interfaces to Cosma before Web Worlds.
Toy Worlds were made in the same way was Web Worlds, except tat they were made by capturing 360° images of “real world” physical spaces made with toys.
This is the Welcome Area that is similar to the Welcome Area above.
Click on objects to find out about them.
Use the menu or doors to visit other Toy Worlds.
You can also explore this Toy World on Kuula.
Find out more about on the Toy Worlds page.
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There is also a Welcome Area in Second Life. If you have a SecondLife account and software, then you can click the image below to explore the Welcome Area and the four other rooms (Solar Extremes, Gaia’s Greenhouse, World Travel Lounge and Walk-in-Art).
There is also a much older site that is an archive of the Knowledge Places (K-Places) project. The project began in 2006 and covered more than a million sq. meters of land in Second Life. The sites were made up of thematically organized spaces that used a variety of metaphors (Port, Park, Plaza, Pier, Palace and Paradise). You can find out much more about the overall project on the K-Places page.
The largest archival site is K-Park — it preserves the spaces and objects that were an interface to the Knowledge Realms on the Cosma Web site.
There is also a “sky-space” situated above the ground-level sites — it preserves the spaces and objects that were an interface to the Knowledge Forms on the Cosma Web site.
Click on this image to explore it.
Here is a video of an extended walk-through of the K-Places archival sites.
This map shows where the archival sites are in Linden Village. If you have a Second Life account and the software is installed on your computer, then you can click the map to teleport there.
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The above are just a few examples of Mary Hopper’s experiments with creating 3D interfaces. The first generation of experiments were created with Apple’s HyperCard that ran in color on an Apple IIGS with ProDOS in the 1980s. There have been many other experiments and prototypes since then. You can find out more about them on the Worlds Challenge page.