Pixzilla & TeamSpot debut in the InfoCommons

For the past few weeks, it’s been crouched patiently against the north wall of the InfoCommons. All day long, it broadcasts a changing series of images across its 12 display screens: telescopic views of the cosmos, space-probe views of Mars, satellite images of Earth’s continents seen from space. In case you were wondering, its name is Pixzilla, and it’s hoping for passersby to stop and play.

NUIT Academic Technologies, which developed Pixzilla in its 2East Visualization Lab (Vislab), describes it as “an interactive, ultra-high resolution, collaborative display environment.” Says NUIT Architect for Visualization Doug Roberts, “The 12 high-resolution screens are combined together to form a large Tiled Wall Display (TWD) that can display very large images. This system allows users to view about 30 times more information than they could see it on their personal computer screen, while giving them the capability to zoom in on the image’s small details.” This kind of technology, Doug explains, allows scholars whose work involves manipulating huge amounts of data—for instance, astronomers and historians—to visualize their data in manageable ways.

“What makes Pixzilla unique in terms of other technologies that are out there,” Doug says, “is that it’s very easy to use. TWDs exist at other universities, but with those programs typically you’d need a technician mediating the user’s interaction with the system.”

Pixzilla, on the other hand, is so friendly that anyone can walk up to it, activate its touch-panel, browse its phenomenal library of high-resolution images, and manipulate their mega- and micro-views on the TWD. Additionally, authenticated Northwestern users can upload their own images to the system through a Web interface and view it on the Pixzilla display in the IC.

By unleashing Pixzilla in the IC, says Associate Director of NUIT Academic Technologies Bob Davis, AT is hoping to explore its full potential. “We didn’t see the point of keeping it hidden in a room upstairs,” he says, “because until people experiment with it, we don’t really even know how it could be most useful. We’re putting it somewhere public because we want faculty members who are interested to feel free to come interact with it.”

“The InfoCommons was developed as a place that would encourage both individual and collaborative learning,” says AUL for Public Services Laurel Minott. “So we’re welcoming Pixzilla as an innovative technology that supports both. And TeamSpot, which is also new in the IC, is another example of a tool that supports group work.”

TeamSpot

Pixzilla’s neighbor on the west edge of the IC, TeamSpot features a large plasma screen on which multiple users can easily share and edit documents for group projects. With its own small study nook, it offers a less formal alternative to the Project Room, which also facilitates group project work. Any group of two or more users can network their laptops with the plasma screen, which then essentially becomes a large desktop on which they can share documents. Participants can select options that allow them to upload documents for viewing only (for instance, a PowerPoint presentation) or for shared editing by the other participants. The shared editing function drastically increases the efficiency of document revision that would otherwise have to be accomplished by emailing the document around to all the members of a group, then collating and tracking all the individuals’ revisions. At the end of a TeamSpot session, the shared document on the plasma screen—now incorporating the whole group’s revisions—is automatically saved to everyone’s individual laptop.

Bob Davis sees TeamSpot as a technology that is likely to proliferate on campus, especially in venues like Kellogg, where students are all issued laptops and group project work is integral to the curriculum. “And maybe,” he adds, “the ideal spot for something like this would be in a quiet study room. But having it in the IC while it’s new is important, because this is a place where we can give it maximum exposure, and where we have AT support for it, so we can work out any kinks.”

New IC Screensavers

A third change in the landscape of the IC is the rotation of digitized images from Northwestern’s World War II Poster Collection in the Government and Geographic Information and Data Services Department that just debuted as the IC’s default screen savers, replacing the collection of Africana maps that previously appeared on IC screens.

“The idea,” says InfoCommons Manager Scott Garton, “was that a lot of the time when you walked through the IC, you were looking at some kind of commercial screen saver on an unused terminal. And then Harlan Wallach in AT suggested we use the displays on all those screens to promote these wonderful Library collections we’ve gone to so much trouble to digitize.”

Scott notes that AT actually developed the software that controls the switching and fading of the screensaver images, and worked with LITSS to configure it on the IC terminals. The Africana maps first appeared on IC screens this past spring, and following the display of World War II posters this fall, the displays can be expected to change roughly every quarter.

The World War II posters can also be viewed on the Web at www.library.northwestern.edu/govinfo/collections/wwii-posters/index.html , consistently among the most popular areas of the Library’s Web site over the last several years.

(Photo by Mary Bradley)