The Arts Meet Technology

Real Accolades for a Virtual Tour




This spring, thousands of people came to the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA), put on funny 3-D glasses, and admired the creative work of UMBC's Imaging Research Center (IRC). They came to walk through rooms that no longer exist‹taking a "virtual tour," created by the IRC, of the Baltimore apartments of Miss Etta and Dr. Claribel Cone--rooms that were filled with the paintings of the Impressionist masters and the works of struggling modern artists named Matisse and Picasso. Those artworks now hang in the museum, making up the world-famous Cone Collection; the sisters are long gone, and the apartments are only a memory captured in photographs. But through the magic of computer generation and the skill of the IRC, the Cone sisters' home has come back to life in time for the refurbishing of the Cone Wing at the BMA.

It was an extraordinary collaboration on every level, involving the museum's director, curators, and archivists; IRC faculty; and about 35 UMBC undergraduate and graduate students.

Using the most advanced computer visualization technology, real-time animation, and an artist's eye for light and shadow, the IRC staff and students digitally recreated every detail of the physical space--down to curtain rods, dust, and the view from the windows--as well as the artwork in the Cone residences, where the sisters lived for more than 40 years.

The resulting "tour" is like visiting the Cone sisters' home for lunch and being allowed to poke around: The visitor is the eye of the camera, moving from room to room, from object to object, through the interactive capabilities built into the installation, which will be a permanent exhibit in the BMA's Cone Wing. To learn more about the IRC, visit www.irc.umbc.edu.

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