Introducing the Samuel Knight Chapter Website

by Andy Fahrenwald, Chapter President

Check it out at>http://reality.sgi.com/mccauley

Thanks to the work of Chapter board member, Jay McCauley, we have a an
operating home page website set up at the temporary internet address
above. The Historic Skill Archive task force have had some preliminary
discussions since our first Chapter meeting last month. We can use the
facilities of Silicon Graphics to prototype the Archive. Presently, SGI is
doing all of their design work over the web, which speaks volumes about
the practicality of this new medium.

In a recent eye-opening visit to SGI, we learned what the current state of
the art will enable us to do now as well as what to reasonably expect over
the next few years in terms of new capabilities. The key limitation we face
with the Archive is the amount of information that can be transmitted over
phone lines in a given amount of time, i.e. the data transmission rate. We
want to be able to display both video of people and processes, and three
dimensional models of sites and machines that the user of the site can
explore on her home computer, i.e. virtual reality (VR) renderings. Both
video and VR have required data transmission rates which severely restrict
what can be sent from a website to a home computer. New VR techniques
which Jay demonstrated allow the website to send compact programs for
generating 3D models which you can control like a video game right into
the visitors home computer. For instance, you could take a walking tour
through a VR Knight Foundry, click on the lathe and then simulate the
operation of the lathe.

We have come up with a novel concept of how the data transmission
bottleneck for video can be overcome: having the video demonstrations by
the lathe operator separate from the websiteon a CD-ROM or DVD (a Digital
Video Disk, which can hold six hours of video). The user buys this disk, or
a disk of demonstrations of any other skills, then goes to the website which
provides all the navigational aides necessary for exploring the topic. For
instance, you may be interested in lathe turning techniques. The web site
shows you a process diagram and when you click in on a particular part of
the process, the video is cued up to the appropriate material and played.
The key to success here, as with any archive access problem, is indexing,
and indexing is integral to the disk medium. This strategy has the potential
of harnessing much more interactive and search power via the website
than is currently possible with an interactive multimedia CD-ROM.

This in turn provides an interesting model of how materials can be
published via the website. The site provides free information to all visitors
of the broad outlines of a given skill. Those who wish to learn in real
depth then buy the video disk, or book on disk, (or even book on paper),
with the income supporting the work of the scholar, artisan or preservation
site doing the documentation and recording of the skills.

We plan to have an operational Archive prototype up and running by
September. This demonstration website will then serve as a key element in
securing the substantial support we will need to establish the full scale
Archive. We will schedule a meeting and demonstration at Silicon
Graphics at our June 14th get together at Ardenwood. Call Andy at 510
595 5835 for information on how to get involved.

Samuel Knight Chapter SIA Newsletter

May 9, 1997

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