Closed edsilv closed 1 month ago
ErinOCon
commented
2 months ago Hi @edsilv, thank you for your proposal! This proposal has reached the final round of our review. We will be in touch if our team has any questions before proceeding with a final decision.
ErinOCon
commented
1 month ago Hi @edsilv, thank you for your patience with our review. Unfortunately, we will not be moving forward with a grant for this proposal. If you have any questions for our team, please contact grants@fil.org.
Thank you again for your interest in our grants program.
Project Name: NIIIFTY x Storacha
Proposal Category: Storage
Individual or Entity Name: Mnemoscene Ltd
Proposer: edsilv
Project Repo(s): https://github.com/NIIIFTY/NIIIFTY, Storacha client library (TBD)
(Optional) Filecoin ecosystem affiliations: Storacha
(Optional) Technical Sponsor: Dietrich Ayala
Do you agree to open source all work you do on behalf of this RFP and dual-license under MIT and APACHE2 licenses?: Yes
Project Summary
This project proposal builds upon the success of Mnemoscene's previous Filecoin devgrant project, NIIIFTY.
We are delighted to have received positive feedback from our client Royal Holloway, demonstrating their interest in improving upon and testing the software for the benefit of their faculty and students.
Impact
In 2021, Mnemoscene successfully delivered the ARStoryDecks project for Royal Holloway as part of the StoryFutures Train the Trainer programme. This project introduced an augmented reality storytelling platform, enabling the display of 3D models on mobile devices using markers on cards. The project's success led to Will ShĂĽler, Vice-Dean at Royal Holloway, being shortlisted for the prestigious Times Higher Education "Most Innovative Teacher of the Year" award.
However, a setback occurred several months after the project's launch when Google discontinued their 3D model hosting platform, known as "Poly." This platform played a crucial role in the ARStoryDecks project, and its closure meant that existing stories would no longer function, and new stories could not be created.
Furthermore, Royal Holloway has recently implemented an "Acting 360" course for their students, incorporating the use of 360-degree video hosted on YouTube. However, during a recent visit to Shanghai to build partnerships with other universities, they encountered a challenge. YouTube was inaccessible in China, preventing them from sharing these videos with their counterparts.
Outcomes
Royal Holloway is interested in leveraging the 3D model upload, compression, and retrieval capabilities of NIIIFTY. These features could serve as a viable alternative to the now defunct Google Poly platform, allowing them to revive the ARStoryDecks project. Additionally, they see value in NIIIFTY's utilisation of Filecoin (via storacha.network) as a storage medium. This would ensure that their uploaded data is backed up in multiple locations, safeguarding against potential platform failures.
The implementation of IPFS/Filecoin also presents an attractive solution for storing their 360 video content, granting access to their Chinese partners via censor-proof URLs.
To proceed, we propose setting up an instance of NIIIFTY and Storacha account specifically for Royal Holloway.
Furthermore, we will make necessary modifications to the ARStoryDecks website, enabling it to load 3D models from Royal Holloway's NIIIFTY instance rather than relying on Google Poly. NIIIFTY will also require a new Google Poly style search function in order for ARStoryDecks users to be able to locate assets to use in their stories.
We aim to expand the capabilities of NIIIFTY to support the upload and preview of 360 video content.
We also need to make uploaded content discoverable via search by implementing auto-tagging of 3D model thumbnails and 360 videos using the Label Images with Cloud Vision AI and Label Videos with Cloud Video AI Firebase extensions.
Value
Deliverables
Adoption, Reach, and Growth Strategies
The target audience is higher education institutions running creative arts and design courses. There are 338 Universities in the UK alone who offer creative arts and design degrees. Currently we engage with Universities like Royal Holloway through programs like StoryFutures.
Development Roadmap
Milestone 1: 3D model search and loading into ARStoryDecks
January 6th - March 14th 2025
10 weeks by one full stack developer
Milestone 2: 360 video
March 17th - April 11th 2025
4 weeks by one full stack developer
Milestone 4: Documentation
April 14th - April 18th 2025
1 week by one full stack developer
Total Budget Requested
Total: $45,000.00
Maintenance and Upgrade Plans
Potential paths forward for maintenance/upgrades will largely depend on uptake from the community and any further funded projects that emerge. It is our intention to promote NIIIFTY to this end.
Team Members
Edward Silverton
ed@mnemoscene.io
Github profile
Team Member LinkedIn Profiles
Edward Silverton’s Linkedin profile
Will Shuler’s Academic Pure Profile
Team Website
Mnemoscene
Relevant Experience
Edward Silverton is a full stack web developer with more than 20 years of experience, 10+ years of which working with galleries, libraries, archives, and museums. He is experienced in IPFS, nodejs, next.js, tailwindcss, and firebase, is the lead developer of NIIIFTY, the Universal Viewer, and Exhibit, and is co-chair of the IIIF 3D Technical Specification Group. He presented at the 2018 Internet Archive Decentralised Web Summit on the subject of P2P IIIF.
Will Shuler is the Vice Dean of Education and Student Experience for the School of Performing and Digital Arts at Royal Holloway, University of London, where he has worked as a Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre Studies since 2014. He has experience developing funded pedagogic projects integrating new technologies in performance training, including storytelling for Cinematic Virtual Reality and actor training for Volume LED Virtual Production. His published work ranges from articles in Times Higher Education such as “Augmented Reality in Teaching: Key Challenges and How to Overcome Them” and book chapters such as “The Emancipated Educator: Chance, Will and Intellectual Equality in Higher Education Role-Immersion Pedagogies” in Rancière and Performance (paperback re-release 2023).