Mediacommons Framework: An Immersive Storytelling Platform And Exodus

Scientific storytelling can be utilized to effectively convey research by synthesizing media-based data sets within a narrative frame. The "MediaCommons Framework" (MCF) was developed to efficiently integrate high-resolution media via cluster display systems for immersive, collaborative visualization. By incorporating temporal, spatial, and audio localization components into a wide-range of high-resolution media types, the MediaCommons Framework provides an ideal platform for scientific storytelling as it offers a coherent view of contextualized data, imparting a more engaging and intelligible experience to the public. As a case study, we describe our experiences using the framework to develop a storytelling application for the 2013 EX3: Exodus, Cyber-archaeology, and the Future digital museum exhibit. The use of the MCF within EX3 demonstrates the significance of advanced visualization in archaeology and the exigency to advance cyber-archaeological and other transdisciplinary research endeavors. This chapter's focus is on the technology used during the Exodus exhibit to convey stories to an audience within a museum-like environment. It includes high-level technical details about the framework used, our experiences developing and using storytelling applications for tiled-display walls, and the outcome of the public events these applications were used in. The experiences mentioned in this chapter are from the points of view of the framework's developers, exhibit content creators and managers, as well as archaeologists who have had the chance to use the applications to tell their stories to their targeted audience. This research embodies the ancient World Building methodology outlined in Seldess et al. (Chap. 11).