Project report

Internship at KIO

Sam and Francis report on their time at the
KIO - and how they had the opportunity
to take a look at all areas of research!

Project participants

Sam & Francis

Project status

Done!

Sam's and Francis' journey
through the KiO world

Francis and the 'walk-in orchestra'

For the 'Walk-in Orchestra' project, Francis worked primarily in Blender and with Unreal Engine. The 'Walk-in Orchestra' is a VR application that allows users to move freely on the stage of an orchestra and perceive the sound exactly as the musicians would hear it.

Francis has made the orchestra visually accessible with 3D models. At the beginning, a floor plan was modeled with the help of drawn plans of the stage and the position of the instruments and microphones.

A look on the stage...

The next step was to arrange and correctly position the models of the instruments and chairs in the audience area.

After an introductory test run in virtual reality with the Unreal game engine, which went well, work began on texturing the project. Once this work was complete, the final project and all additional files were successfully handed over to HFM.

Francis created some 3D models from scratch and also made use of free models.

An interactive splat of the Hermann monument

Francis was also involved in the Gaussian Splat project! The landmark - the Hermann - was brought to life interactively on behalf of the Lippe regional association.

Key facts about the monument were to be presented in an appealing way on the related website. To this purpose, extensive research was carried out on the Hermann monument, on the basis of which informative texts were created. It was also necessary to integrate the correct coordinates and proportions into the website code - a challenge that Francis also successfully mastered.

Learn more

The entire KIO team would like to thank Francis for the time we spent together and for his great support in the projects. To let him have his say: Francis, what did you enjoy the most?

I enjoyed working on the 'walk-in orchestra' the most, as I was able to see how the finished project turned out in the end. Especially with the background that the audio can then also be assigned in the 3D space using the Ambisonic audio format!

Sam works on the wall design in the KIO meeting room

About humans and
machines: Sams' design
for the expansion of
our AI murals

Sam has enriched the communications team with many fresh ideas over the eight weeks. The design of the KIO meeting room was completed thanks to Sam's creative input: The wall design was inspired by the existing AI-generated images. The result was a human interpretation of the concepts of creativity, vitality, knowledge and the future. The hands were chosen as a symbol of creating, as they represent the overall concept of the human without referring to an individual. The works were first extensively sketched and then designed in Illustrator. The vector files were then cut out in vinyl using Cricut and placed on the wall.

Artwork 1:
Creativity

A hand holding some sand was designed for the term 'creativity'. Sand was chosen because it is difficult to grasp and trickles through the fingers - similar to creative ideas, which are often difficult to grasp or force.

Artwork 2:
Future

On the subject 'future', a kind of portal was depicted into which the hand reaches. Viewers look at the portal from “behind” and should see themselves as an extension of the hand. This is intended to illustrate that the future is something that can and must be actively engaged with. On one side, it supports a call to action, and on the side, it symbolizes the connection between humans and AI in the future.

Artwork 3:
Vitality

For the representation of 'vitality', a hand with a flower growing from its palm was chosen. This symbolizes that nature must be actively protected in order to maintain the quality of life on earth.

Artwork 4:
Knowledge

In the case of 'knowledge', the illustration shows a hand building a stack of blocks - knowledge can be continuously expanded and builds on previous knowledge. The falling cubes and the general imperfection of the stack symbolize that mistakes and risks are part of the learning process and are necessary in order to gain knowledge. The illustration shows that the acquisition of knowledge is not a perfect process.

All-round support in digital and print

It wasn't just the walldesign - Sam also created a unique room signage for the building. In addition to an A3 calendar (Riso printed!), greeting cards for the first-semester-students were also designed.

In the digital field, Sam contributed a video animation in which the research areas and the KIO itself are presented: