David Iraia's Flask

Project Description

Auckland War Memorial Museum opened a new gallery, Pou Kanohi New Zealand at War, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele, an enduring legacy of the First World War centenary period.

I was the technical lead and solutions architect on this interactive kiosk project, scoping out hardware requirements and liasing with IT and project stakeholders at Auckland Museum, in conjunction with our internal project manager. I lead members of the design team at Gladeye, a front end developer and a 3D artist contractor to bring the story of David Iraia’s Flask to life for the gallery on a touchscreen kiosk.

My main tasks were to build and test a React Electron app capable of running on Intel NUC hardware, as well as building a 3D visualiser for the flask 3D model using THREE.js. Close coordination with the 3D artist was required to get the flask looking as close to the original specimin as possible in the interactive renderer, while preserving legibility of the surface details.

The final application allowed users to browse through points of interest labelled on the 3D flask which could be rotated by touching and dragging the scene. Location names etched into the flask’s metal surface were connected to a point of interest which showed additional information when tapped.