Outdoor multimedia solutions for the project Meeting the River

"Meeting the River" is the name of the Karlovac County project within three cities - Karlovac, Ozalj and Ogulin, and the areas along their rivers. The project initiates the construction of promenades, lookouts, tourist infrastructure and multimedia content, as well as the organization of educational and entertainment workshops. Themed promenades are located on the right bank of the river Korana in Karlovac, on the bank of the river Kupa in Ozalj and in the vicinity of Đula's abyss of the river Dobra in Ogulin, which are all protected by NATURA 2000.

The aim of the project "Meeting the River" is to ensure the sustainable use of natural resources and preservation of NATURA 2000 areas along the rivers of Karlovac County. This initiative will be accomplished by increasing the tourist attractiveness of these areas, educating people about biodiversity, and raising awareness about the protected areas. Special emphasis was put on creating educational content with the help of modern technologies and multimedia, which provides visitors a unique opportunity to experience rivers and learn about their biodiversity.

Background

Karlovac County has decided to initiate a project that will improve and preserve the areas of three cities and promote the area in which they are located. The city of Ogulin was looking for various multimedia solutions that would tell the story of the project in fun and educational way.

Challenge

The main challenge was to design the concept and content for our PandoPad solutions that would educate visitors and provide useful information in a multimedia format.

Our approach

The biological data of the project area was collected and presented on thematic promenades, which give an educational component to the whole setup. Special emphasis was put on the preservation of protected NATURA 2000 project areas and exploring flora and fauna. All visual content was created and a user interface was designed, which was later enabled via PandoPad Manager.

Solutions

In the City of Ogulin in Đula's park, one PandoPad ® TOTEM unit was delivered and it was placed along thematic promenades. With their unique design, color, and content, they appropriately represent the sustainable goal of the whole project "Meeting the River". Various types of multimedia have also been implemented, such as hologram, interactive floor, and VR glasses (virtual reality glasses). Multimedia equipment is also protected by video surveillance visitor counter.

The housing of totem units has a modern, attractive design intended for installations in open spaces (outdoor) and allows for an easy placement of hardware units. In addition, at the base of the totem, there are ports for charging mobile phones and tablets, and at the top there is also a set of lighting, which makes this totem more visible during night walks.

Mobile interpretation centers consist of a totem unit that uses one static and one interactive touchscreen. The interactive screen contains a set of PandoPad applications that provide general information about the city and where it is located, a brief description of the NATURA 2000 project goals, photo galleries, various games, a postcard application that uses a camera, and the tourist offer of the place.

Interactive floor projection allows the visitor to become part of the interactive story through motion detection. Interactive projections and games are performed by professional projectors and an infrared camera system for motion detection.

A holographic projection was set up, through which the underwater fauna of the rivers was presented in a unique way. The peculiarity of the hologram lies in the fact that it can accurately reproduce a three-dimensional copy of the original object, which includes all the characteristics of the actual object, its size, shape, texture and its movement.

As a part of multimedia solutions, visitors will be able to try virtual reality (VR) glasses. With virtual reality content, visitors can explore certain areas of the project "Encounter with the river" through educational interpretive video content.

Since the multimedia equipment is located outdoors, video surveillance has been placed on the lighting poles of the promenades as an additional measure of protection against the vandalism. There is also a built-in visitor counting system that collects data on the number of visitors on a daily, weekly, monthly, annual or multiannual scale.

As stated in project, the improved areas of the river Korana in Karlovac, the river Kupa in Ozalj and the river Dobra in Ogulin are expected to boost the county's tourism potential.