As 3D environments are becoming increasingly popular (in some cases, essential) in gaming, movie and multi-media applications, we thought it could be a great additional outlet to demonstrate our project results. What distinguishes this 3D project demonstration area from our normal project web site is that this 3D project demonstration is intended to be fun, interactive and educational and not only for academics.

Among several 3D computational environments, we have chosen to build our 3D project exhibition in a virtual exhibition gallery in Second Life that will become a part of the well-established development of Virtual University of Edinburgh (VUE).

EXAMPLE RESULTS Here are some results: Link to Fish4Knowledge SecondLife Gallery and Aquarium Example view of the Fish4Knowledge SecondLife Gallery (March 1, 2011) Example view of the Fish4Knowledge SecondLife Aquarium (March 1, 2011)

About the Fish4Knowledge SecondLife Gallery

The Fish4Knowledge virtual exhibition gallery is situated at a beauty spot by a river bank at the heart of VUE. In this gallery, visitors are able to "walk" leisurely around our virtual building to read about our project work and watch our underwater fish monitoring movies. They will be able to learn and be entertained in a surreal environment where the sunset is reflected by the nearby river shining through the large floor-to-ceiling glass windows. Alternatively, visitors can choose to visit our gallery on starry nights, or at any other times of the (virtual) day.

In this gallery, there is a passageway that leads visitors down to an underwater virtual aquarium. We call this the "Virtual Fish Lab". Here we exhibit example fish that we observe in real life. Our virtual fish are of an interactive species that can tell visitors their life story. We also plan to link up live videos as captured from the coral reef in Taiwan and display them on a large virtual screen in this lab.

The central design idea of the virtual exhibition gallery is to provide a fun, interactive and educational space that gives its visitors a "surreal" experience - in that visitors can "walk about", "touch" things", interact with objects or "talk" to fishes. When there is more than one visitor in this space, people can choose to share their experiences through SecondLife's live talk and text-chat facilities. This learning experience is intended to be different from those provided by a conventional 2D media.

F4K pavilion in Unity

More recently, examples of the F4K pavilion have been developed in the Unity model scheme, with some examples here.