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Put simply EyeGlass is a smart label. All art galleries, museums and other public buildings such as cathedrals need some way to tell the visitor what they are looking at. This is the interpretation and labelling problem.
Of course, one solution is to provide a human tour guide. This person can describe the object and answer visitors' questions. At the other end of the spectrum, is the traditional postcard label with a few lines of text. In between comes EyeGlass, for where you want to provide exhibit and picture labelling and interpretation information, but do not want to spoil the visual impact with graphics.
A visitor would pick up EyeGlass at the entrance to the gallery or room, and select language or age group. Built in spatial awareness allows EyeGlass to monitor its position in the room.
Autolocating 
As the device approaches an exhibit, the
local positioning system identifies the exhibit and retrieves its
label pages. This label is not restricted to a few lines; several
pages of content and interpretation can be assigned to each location,
along with pictures and sounds if required.
Clarity of Vision
The backlit graphic LCD used in the device
has exceptional clarity and contrast, making it comfortable to read
and capable of displaying text of different sizes and styles. This is
beneficial, both
for presentation purposes and to assist legibility for the poorly
sighted.
Portable
The device is A6 in size (13*10 cm), which is the size of a sheet of paper folded twice. This can be comfortably carried in the hand but will also have a shoulder or neck strap, in order to leave the hands free when not being read.
The case is designed to allow easy
customisation. It can support themed mouldings and high quality
print graphics, in order to tie the handheld into the concept of the
exhibition.
Invisible Computer
There are few external user controls; the
labels appear automatically when near the exhibit. If the page is
longer than the screen, you can tilt the device forward to scroll
down the text, tilting the device backward beyond the vertical
scrolls back up to the top. This is a gesture based user interface
that is striking in its simplicity.
Multi-Lingual, Multi-Level
EyeGlass supports any language and level of education - child, adult, guru etc. These settings are entered by placing the device in the appropriate position on a labelled tablet. e.g language flags and age group pictures. You want Sanskrit - you can have it.
Simple Authoring
Content authoring is very simple. Just type the
information for each location into a text file. You can use plain text or HTML
(Hypertext Mark-up Language). This is the language used on web pages
and allows one to mark up elements of the text as being headers,
paragraphs, tables etc. Simple graphics can be added using image
tags. All the files for a programme are placed into a directory
along with a contents file which maps the Local Positioning System
references on to the relevant pages.
Simple Administration
When new content is available EyeGlass simply has to be placed within range of a base station PC. The files are then synchronised - new content is sent to EyeGlass and in turn EyeGlass sends back statistics on the amount of time spent at each location. This device is competitive with an equivalent solid state audio guide and more flexible than a printed guide.
A Helpful Guide
Although inherently non-linear, allowing visitors to move around exhibits in any order they chose, EyeGlass can support tours by careful design of content. The built in spatial awareness can guide visitors along a pre-programmed route.
With a Memory
EyeGlass can also accumulate administrative information about routes taken, time spent at various locations etc., which can later be collected into a database showing patterns of use and movement throughout an exhibition.
At this stage, EyeGlass is in the final stages of development. If you are interested in using EyeGlass for your visitor centre, museum, or exhibition, or if you have features and requirements that you would like to see in the product please contact us now at
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Technical Talk
An ultra thin client, mobile wireless web browser - What's that ?
Where Am I
What is a local
positioning system, and why ?
Notional Nose Museum
A simple web based demonstration of EyeGlass
EyeGlass brochure 
The brochure is available as a PDF document.
Left click on the link to view the brochure. Right click and select 'Save target as...' to download the brochure.
EyeGlass drawing
This document shows a dimensional drawing of EyeGlass and is available as a PDF document. Follow the same directions as the brochure (above).
Gnole
What is Gnole? It was our project name for the product we now call EyeGlass. But some people still remember Gnole. Find out more.
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