Michael Graves Warehouse 360 VR Tour

INTRODUCTION

Michael Graves Warehouse 360 VR Tour
  
   The Michael Graves Residence VR Experience takes users on a journey through the former home and studio of the world-renowned architect, Michael Graves. Through a 360-degree experience, users are invited to  explore the unique spaces within the home. The purpose of this project is to provide Kean University and the public with immersive experiences about the property in a remote setting.

TEAM

Small team of SPF Research Assistants from the Robert Busch School of Design at Kean University

MY ROLE

As the lead student researcher and designer, I was responsible for the research, experience strategy and interaction design of this project.

TOOLS

GoPro Hero, Fusion 360, Adobe Audition, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Premiere Pro, YouTube Studio

THE CHALLENGE  

How might we empower the public and classrooms to be able to experience
the residence immersively and learn about the significance of its various rooms and artifacts without physically visiting the property? 
  
THE SOLUTION 
    
A virtual reality tour of the residence was created. Virtual reality scenes were captured with a 360-degree camera. A voiceover experience was also created to accompany audiences as they virtually travel through the different spaces. For the current iteration, my team and I decided to leverage the 360-degree capabilities of YouTube, which allowed us to share the content broadly with the public and classrooms off-site.

PROCESS OVERVIEW

This project was realized in several stages 
  
  1. Field Work: 

The team discussed the scope of the project and established a clear understanding of goals that we had for the project. 
 
  2. Understand: 

We then visited the Warehouse in Princeton, NJ. While on-site, we captured an initial set of 360 photographs with the GoPro camera. 

  3. Ideate: 

User flows and storyboards were created and helped the team determine the order in that we wanted to take our audience through the home. 

  4. Design and Build: 

Using the Adobe Creative Cloud and editing software, an immersive 360 experience with a voiceover was created and published to YouTube.

PHASE ONE

Shooting in 360°
  
   One challenge when shooting 360° footage is determining where to place the camera. In this
specific project, we wanted to make sure that we were not in any of the shots. So, we used the Bluetooth capabilities of the GoPro camera and connected it to an iPhone. The iPhone acted as the remote control for the camera. Then, we needed to hide out of view to capture the desired shots while still being in range to control the camera.

  
      In order to provide an optimal experience moving from image to image, it was important to maintain consistency of the exposure, vertical height, depth of field, and grain quality of the outputted 360-degree images. Achieving this consistency was challenging.

     Each room of the residence was carefully and purposefully designed, including the quality and amount of natural light and artificial light in each space. While it results in a wonderful physical experience, the 360-degree images needed to express the same quality via a single camera. This required multiple takes, analyzing each captured frame, making adjustments in one part of the image while balancing those changes in other areas of the capture.

PHASE TWO

Preparing the photographs
  
 After capturing the footage on site, I organized 104 folders of interior photographs and 14 folders of exterior photographs. It was very important to carefully organize all of the project files in order to be able to process, edit and optimize them correctly. Each shot involved several files.

PHASE THREE

Stitching the photographs
  
 For each 360-degree monoscopic photograph, we had to stitch together two fish-eye photographs, one being the front view of the image and the other being the back view. We leveraged Fusion Studio's capabilities to stitch and render the photographs.

A closer look at the Fusion Studio interface:

PHASE FOUR

Mapping the experience
  
 Another important challenge that we faced was deciding how we wanted to take the user through the house. I found floor plans of the house and used them with my team to map an intended flow through the different rooms and spaces.

PHASE FIVE

Storyboarding
  
 After identifying the intended flow, I prepared an experience storyboard, which was essential for determining the needed copy for the voiceover script. To do this, I took screenshots of the 360 photographs and created a series of thumbnails.

 My team and I arranged the thumbnails in the order that we intended to take the user through the house. 

PHASE SIX

Editing the photographs
  
 Using Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, I was able to edit and optimize the various images. I then took the edited image files and imported them into Adobe Premiere Pro, where I organized them in the intended order within a sequence.

PHASE SEVEN
Drafting, editing & recording the voiceover

Once we had a script established from various sources and stakeholders, we enlisted Dean David Mohney’s assistance in recording the voiceover. I then made edits to the voiceover in Adobe Audition. After making edits, I took the voiceover and added it to the main project file in Premiere Pro.

We synchronized the 360-degree photographs with the narration of the virtual walkthrough.

PHASE EIGHT
Publishing the video to YouTube

In the final phase of this project, the video was published to YouTube. One reason that we chose YouTube was because it enabled us to make the project more accessible through closed captioning. To experience the full VR tour on the Michael Graves College YouTube account, please visit bit.ly/graves360

mgw360

Results 
  
The Michael Graves Residence VR Experience is a YouTube 360° VR experience that my team and I are proud to share with Kean University and the public. We also designed the experience for viewing on an Oculus headset for an upcoming exhibit at the China Design Museum in Hangzhou, China. 
  
I was grateful to have had the opportunity to work on this project, especially during the uncertain times of COVID-19. It's exciting how a project like this can make a historical building more accessible during unique times, allowing people to visit the property virtually.

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