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Infrastructure
The Infrastructure challenge focuses on the components and tools needed to interleave physical and the digital interaction. This is closely linked to the Understanding Interaction
and the Devices Challenge, a distinguishing characteristic of Equator's infrastructure work is that it takes place within the broad setting of system research undertaken in the context of use, its design informed by practical use within experience projects.
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As part of these experiences we have developed a large number of software components
that are catalogued in the Equator Infrastructure Repository. Our initial set of experience projects have been assembled from a variety of components tailored to meet the practical needs of the projects.
Construction Tools
Construction tools have recently started to emerge that significantly reduce the cost of development. Emerging construction tools work includes:
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Equator Component Toolkit
ECT is a lightweight platform designed to support the rapid development of ubiqutous computing installations.
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Status, Event Architecture & Prototypes
In this work we are exploring fundamental platform semantics required to support the creation of Ubicomp environments. A key challenge is how to best support the data exchanged in such platforms when it represents the status of real world things. Once represented in the data space, such information loses its relation and temporal coherence with the real world.
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Mixed Reality Toolkit (MRT)
A lightweight and flexible image-based modelling tool that can be rapidly and interactively applied over live video to reconstruct and describe meaningful 3D-scene geometry for use within Mixed and Augmented Reality systems.
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Infrastructure services
Infrastructure services have emerged from the use of key components within experience projects. Some services can be regarded as basic to Equator others are higher-level services, and indicative early examples of these include:
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An Experience Structure
A
service which ammends a MUD infrastructure as part of the Ambient Wood experience. This allows users actions to traverse through the various discrete elements of an experience.
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Auld Linky
An information linking service
through the amendment and use of an existing link service in Ambient Wood and City. This allows the links between different elements of experiences to be established.
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Distributed systems fabrics
Distributed systems fabrics have been developed to link the various entities together that make up our components.Our distributed systems fabric includes:
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EQUIP
EQUIP is a purpose-built "Equator Universal Platform" that merges state sharing and notification-based paradigms in order to allow flexible sharing between components. This has been used to support work within Citywide, City, Playing & Learning and Domestic.
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Globus Toolkit (GT3)
The Globus Toolkit (GT3) allows its service-based architecture to handle mobile and handheld devices that are placed in the field. This has supported both the medical and environmental parts of our e-Science experiences.
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Elvin
Elvin is
a network messaging infrastructure with an emphasis on
simplicity. As an integrative fabric for distributed Equator
components, it presents the programmer with a small yet powerful
interface to a flexible message structure.
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