Services

We only offer a design consultancy service based on the University of Sussex Consultancy model.

During our consultancy we follow a fairly generic workflow that maps onto most of our consultancy activities. Our first activity involves finding out what you need. We will meet you at your premises or ours to discuss your requirements. This may involve you describing your requirements by way of a ‘user scenario’ that outlines the desired functionality of your virtual exhibition, e.g. virtual tour (video, AVIs, QuickTime, etc.), virtual museum (virtual reality fly- or walk-through), virtual reconstruction (simple or complex 3D model), 3D enabled web site (some or all the previous technologies integrated with your website. We can write this scenario(s) together from both a user (your target audience) and technology perspective .

We will then map your requirements into a requirements specification, which you will help to refine. The requirements specification will outline the essential and desirable features for your virtual exhibition.

Once we have agreed the requirements specification, and this may involve several iterations with you, the client, we can then begin to estimate the cost of your virtual exhibition. The cost will take into account several factors:

  1. We prefer to build a research and/or educational relationship with our clients that gives us added value by working with you. For example, consultancy services will be performed by academic, research or PhD candidates, and as such we look at the educational benefits or potential research value of a project that may be considered to offset costs.
  2. When working with educational or charitable clients, e.g. museums, schools, etc. the end solution is often for educational purposes. As such when using 'design applications' (such as 3ds max) if the solution is used purely for 'educational purposes' then it may be possible to use an educational licence—this will first be confirmed with the software vendor. If this is not possible, we would have to pass the cost of commercial software licencing onto you.
  3. The University of Sussex Consultancy cost model is based on the University recovering all reasonable costs including approiate licences fees for commercial use of software such as 3ds max or Maya, and other software where applicable. A project will not start until the University Consultancy is signed off by both parties, which will included all known costs.

Once we have agreed the requirements specification, we will produce a design specification that will define the parameters and technology choice for your virtual exhibition. For example, if you require a virtual reconstruction we will define parameters such as size and quality of the 3D model, its intended use, e.g. for the Internet, or stand-alone visualisation on a PC. Do you need to reuse the 3D model for various applications, e.g. as part of a virtual museum.

Once the design specification is signed off, we can start the implementation of your virtual exhibition. Implementation details will vary a lot depending on what your requirements are, 3D Model, 3D website, … however, you will need to be involved from the start. For many digital content creation (DCC) based projects we will need, for example, CAD drawings, digital photographs, access to artefacts for scanning, textual descriptions for public dissemination, and so on. This stage will involve the development of at least an initial prototype, perhaps a second prototype, and a final version, each stage being discussed with the client. As the final stage appears you will begin to see the interactivity that 3D gives you depending on your specified requirements.

The final part of our workflow involves testing, commissioning and any ongoing maintenance you may require. A crucial part of the workflow is of course keeping you in the loop at all times.