Exhibi
Summary
A spatial art planning app for artists.
Often given limited information and access to exhibition spaces from exhibition calls, artists face challenges in planning and presenting their proposals. Exhibi is our vision of a spatial application that allows artists to experience and work within a digital twin of the exhibition space.
Over the course of 2 months we learned, ideated, created prototypes and eventually developed the application using Unity. Currently, we designed 3 main features but will be adding more in later development.
Details
Type: XR Case Study
Team: Andrew Keung | Brian Chen
Timeline: 8 Weeks
Skills
Prototyping
XR
Unity Development
Tools
Figma
Unity
Problem
Artist's Challenges in Creating Proposals
Artists often answer to exhibition calls without having access to the physical exhibition space. Without an intimate understanding of proportions, scale and textures of a space, creating site specific art pieces is simply guesswork. This is compounded if artist lack access to 3D modelling software and know-how.
Design
Solution 01
Navigate and Interact with a digital twin of the exhibition space.
Artists can explore a digital twin of the exhibition space, allowing for accurate planning and visualization of artwork placement. Being immersed in the space enables artists to easily get a sense of scale and atmosphere for their ideas.
The app is completely hand tracked, to reduce friction for users unfamiliar with controller usage.
Solution 02
Insert placeholders to quickly test for position and size of artwork.
Exhibi offers a variety of preset 3D models that artists can pick from and place as placeholders in the exhibition space.
This feature allows artists to experiment with different positions and sizes before finalizing their artwork, ensuring optimal display and fit within the space.
All interactions are extended from buttons placed on the user's wrists
Solution 03
Bring your artwork into the VR environment
Artists can bring their artwork into a VR environment, seeing firsthand how their work integrates into the space. They can also manipulate and scale their pieces, allowing for full featured experimentation.
Using any mobile 3D scanning app, users can scan and import their pieces into Exhibi. Two dimensional work is also supported.
Solution 04
Present your artwork directly in the digital exhibition space
Exhibi features a built-in capture mode for artists to represent their ideas in the gallery spaces, giving curators the best sense of how their proposal is going to fit into the exhibition.
Conclusion
Further Development
Features such as art placement and manipulation will be refined to allow for easy snapping to gallery surfaces such as walls and floors. Two dimensional work will also be supported at launch.
Exhibi will continue in development and is slated to launch in beta 2025
Future plans are to add curator/gallery focused features for reviewing art submissions, as well as direct partnership with curators to create digital twins of their galleries. In addition, allowing for fully accessible digital exhibitions in the app.