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Now it is possible to have advance look at the animals via the Digital Zoo project. A few cameras are already set out, and there will be more. Since this is a new project, it will take some time to set out and arrange the cameras. But you will get a peep at the animals in the zoo, while the project is being launched.
Soon it will be possible to follow the animals at Lycksele Zoo with only a few clicks on your computer. Researchers at Umeå University have been granted EU funding for the development of a Digital Zoo. To be able to see Lycksele Zoo from above via a map service like Google maps is nothing new. The new dimension will be from there to go further and really visit and experience the animals.
- We would like to give you an experience of really being there and also beiing able to have a look at life from the animals' point of view. To know what musk ox "Hektor" is doing, how he moves about in daytime, to watch him live and have a lok at the zoo from his point of view are a few of the activities that might be possible. The idea of "visiting" a zoo will get a new meaning, says Johannes Karlsson, who is project manager.
The vision of the "Digital djurpark" research project is to create new experiences from the visit to an otherwise quite traditional tourist attraction as a zoo. Imagine that you are surfing on på Google maps, and you click yourself on to Lycksele Zoo and really get the feeling of really being in the zoo. The idea is that you - via clicking - will get more facts about the animals in the zoo, like general facts about the species but also specific information about excly the individual you have chosen. And then to be able to place yourself in the zoo plan will give you a feeling of being there and see what the place in the zoo that you have chosen to visit really looks like. You are supposed to get a feeling and experience of actually being on the spot.
The technology that will make this possible is a wireless snsor network, which will collect information about the animals and their surroundings via e.g. vision and sound. The information will then be processed so that it will be possible to present it with an interactive design on the web, in hand units as well as in more stationary computers.
It is a group o researchers at "Digital Media Lab" of the Department of Applied Physics and Electronics, Umeå University,who have been granted EU Target 2 funding for the implementation of this project. The total budget for the project is SEK 7.6 million, and it will go on for three years, through 2011. It will be carried through in cooperation with Lycksele Zoo and with a group of researchers from CSIRO in Brisbane, Australia.
Further information:
Johannes Karlsson
project manager
+4690-786 70 56
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