TP7

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Webinar for European Theatre Convention

In this Webinar for the European Theatre Convention, Franziska Ritter will show different approaches and possibilities based on the research project “Im/material Theatre Spaces” by digital.DTHG, the digital competence centre of the Deutsche Theatertechnische Gesellschaft.

Theatre has always been a pioneer for the development and application of new technologies, it is a place for artistic and technical innovation, experimentation and research. How can immersive technologies such as virtual and augmented reality unfold their potential in front of, behind and on stage – as a creative design tool, as a construction aid for virtual building rehearsals, as a teaching and learning space, or as an extended stage for the arts?

Tuesday 27 March 2024, 14:30 – 16:30 CET (Online)

REGISTER HERE (for ETC Members only)
Kindly register by Friday 22 March 2024.

Franziska Ritter is a scenographer, researcher and educator in the fields of art, culture and theatre. After studying architecture and film and photography in Berlin and London she co-founded the master programme Bühnenbild_Szenischer Raum for Technical University Berlin and works as assistant professor. She teaches and researches scenography, theatre architecture and technology at various international universities. She was in charge of the DFG-project »digitalisation of the collection of theatre architecture« in the Architekturmuseum of TU Berlin. In 2019 together with Pablo Dornhege she founded digital.DTHG – the digital competence centre of the Deutsche Theatertechnische Gesellschaft. In the first research project “Im/material Theatre Spaces” they investigated the potentials of Immersive Technologies like VR and AR for theatre. At the moment she is doing her PhD about the Visual Image of Theatre Architecture at the department of art history in the research project Theaterbauwissen. Besides that Franziska is flute player and Artistic Director of 1:1 CONCERTS, the smallest but most intensive concert format ever.
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Final publication of research project “Im/material Theatre Spaces”

The research project “Im/material Theatre Spaces – Augmented and Virtual Reality for Theatre” has been successfully completed after 2.5 years. This publication summarises the findings of the project and provides insights into the interdisciplinary, practice-oriented research work. Download publication (pdf 8 MB)

Continue reading “Final publication of research project “Im/material Theatre Spaces””

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“We are navigating an experimental field, which is still finding its form” Interview with Alex Segin

Project lead Franziska Ritter talks to Alexander Segin, Head of Event Technology Konzerthaus Berlin. During the 2020/21 season, which marked the concert hall’s 200-year anniversary, we had a chance to test workflows for virtual construction rehearsals with him and his team. Continue reading ““We are navigating an experimental field, which is still finding its form” Interview with Alex Segin”

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Presentation at Bühnentechnische Tagung Ulm

In June 2022, the 61st stage technology conference of the DTHG took place in Ulm: with an extensive program of presentations, panel discussions, round tables and lectures, the theatre landscape was finally able to celebrate its industry meeting live again.  71 companies and more than 1,100 guests were on site, got to know each other and exchanged ideas. Continue reading “Presentation at Bühnentechnische Tagung Ulm”

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Bauprobe – why virtual?

The Bauprobe is an important milestone in the theatre production process, where the participants usually come together physically for the first time in a large group: the artistic team (first and foremost the stage designer, but also the director, costume designer, make-up artist) and the technical team (usually with the technical director, stage manager, lighting, sound, video and workshop manager). During the rehearsal, the stage design previously submitted in the model is marked on the stage – with simple means and standard materials. This enables all participants to see the ideas and dimensions on a scale of 1:1 on the stage and to perceive the overall impression in the atmosphere of the theatre as well as to check sight lines. The Bauprobe is used to discuss and check the technical feasibility and implementation ideas. Depending on the stage design, it is also about the materialities, the use of light and projection. 

There is an interesting parallel here to the development process of computer games: There, so-called greyboxing takes on very similar functions, in which all parts relevant to the functioning of a computer game are simulated prototypically. This does not involve the final visual appearance, which is why simple grey cubes (hence the name) are usually used as placeholders for a later level architecture. Based on the greyboxing, the decisions and changes necessary for further work can then be made.

In this sub-project, methods and tools were sought for conducting virtual rehearsals – that is, rehearsals that cannot take place physically in the theatre and on stage, but in virtual space and independent of location. How can VR technology be integrated as a visualization, design, construction and communication medium at the theatre, even beyond the construction rehearsal phase? The basis for our research is this prototypical theatre production process that represents the complexity of the creation process and shows potential intersection points for working with or in virtual reality. 

The result is over 30 blog posts on the  digital.DTHG website, providing basic knowledge for beginners, explaining terms, recommending projects and revealing connections. This knowledge has been presented in detail at over 12 conferences and symposia so far.  The core of this sub-project is the workshop series „How to go Virtual“, which was conducted in cooperation with associations and cultural venues with the teams of nine different theatres and will be continued.

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Results of project Virtual Bauprobe

Workflows and Guides for Virtual Bauprobe

In this subproject, methods and tools were sought for conducting Virtual Bauprobe – building rehearsals that do not take place physically in the theatre and on stage, but can take place in virtual space and independent of location. How can VR technology be integrated as a visualization, design, construction and communication medium in one’s own work process at the theatre? 

For this purpose, we developed the workshop format “How to go Virtual” in order to test possible applications in an uncomplicated way with theaters and venues on site. Together with our cooperation partners, the focus was placed on practice, both in trying out existing applications and programs, as well as in developing theatre specific usage scenarios: for example, adapting a stage design to a different venue, presenting construction variants, or visualizing a spatially particularly complicated design. 

The result of the collaboration was a series of workflows and methods that are now being made available to the theater community as guides and tutorials:

Workflow 1 – Sketchfab / Zoom “Semi-Virtual Pre-Rehearsal”
https://digital.dthg.de/en/workflow-1-en/ 

This scenario uses the free internet platform Sketchfab to present models. Here, meetings can be presented via screen sharing in a video conferencing tool or made available time-shifted for illustration via a link across different end devices. This scenario does not allow live editing of the Virtual 3D Model during the meeting, but is convincing as a starter scenario due to its easy accessibility and implementation for all production participants.

Workflow 2 – Mozilla Hub’s “Bauprobe for Everyone
https://digital.dthg.de/en/workflow-2-en/ 

This scenario uses the free Internet platform Mozilla Hubs with the associated editor Spoke. Meetings can be held simultaneously in the virtual room via various end devices with several participants. This scenario does not allow live editing of the virtual 3D model during the meeting, but is convincing as an entry-level scenario due to its easy accessibility for up to 30 people.

Workflow 3 – Virtual Bauprobe with VR sketch
https://digital.dthg.de/en/workflow-3-en/

This scenario uses the paid plugin VR-Sketch for the program SketchUp. Meetings and build rehearsals can be conducted in Virtual Space via VR headsets simultaneously with multiple participants from different locations. This scenario enables live editing of the virtual 3D model during the meeting and also offers many other possible applications. 

Link to the project
https://digital.dthg.de/en/projects/virtual-stage-rehearsal

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

The results, workflows and methods are now available to the theatre landscape via the digital.DTHG website as guides and tutorials. In addition, a comprehensive compendium of „knowledge articles“, glossaries, programme comparisons has been created like a kind of WIKI. The blog articles are already linked to other knowledge platforms such as Nachtkritik.plus and thus reach a large audience.

The knowledge transfer, which was already achieved during the project period in the form of lectures at many congresses and symposia, is currently being carried on within the framework of the newly created „Bildungsbühne“ of the DTHG. Free online impulse lectures and the further development of the workshop series have already been practised by Vincent Kaufmann and the DTHG team for several months. 

The workflows developed are largely based on applications that we have adapted for our scenarios, but which were actually designed and developed for other purposes and areas of application. The discussions we have had with software companies such as ShapesXR (Tvori VR) or Vektorworks in this regard give us hope that tools will be developed for the specific needs of the theatre and event industry and application scenarios such as the Virtual Bauprobe.

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Results, licences, sustainable usage

The solutions we developed as part of the research project “Im/material Theatre Spaces” (2019-2022) serve as sustainably transferable concepts due to their prototypical model character. The gained insights and developed model solutions were published on various channels and are made available to the entire cultural landscape for free and flexible use. 

Licenses
For this purpose, all software developments created in the research project appear under an open source license (GNU GPL, MIT License, etc.). If partial components subject to licensing (plug-ins, copyrighted image and sound documents, etc.) were used in the overall work, we make the newly developed code components available as open source without the components subject to licensing. In the code documentation, we refer to the license-required subcomponents.

Open source code of prototypes and sample solutions
We primarily use Github as a platform for publishing source code: https://github.com/digitaldthg. Some of our projects are hosted on the DTHG web server due to very high data volumes.

Augmented Reality in event technology

Interactive user manuals of complex constructions and systems

Highly complex equipment is used in the event sector and on theater stages. The technologies and products used are so diverse that their operation cannot be taught comprehensively in training. In addition, assembly and operating instructions available as paper documents are often too unspecific and – especially in the working environment on stage – impractical to handle. At this point, digital instructions can support the work of stage technicians and create a decisive added value by increasing the readability of digital 3D models.

As a basis for a practical examination of the requirements of such assembly aids and for discussion with the various stakeholders and dialog partners, we created a first functional prototype for the AR-supported assembly of a curtain rail. The instructions – in the form of an interactive website – guide the user through the assembly in ten simple steps after an overview of all required parts used and tools. A short accompanying text (theoretically also possible in several languages) describes the procedures and points out pitfalls. The individual construction steps are stored as three-dimensional animations and can be sequentially triggered, whereby the viewing angle and zoom factor can be determined by the user. 

Open source codes on Github
https://github.com/digitaldthg/Web-XR-Digitale-Aufbauanleitung  

Link to the project
https://digital.dthg.de/en/projects/augmented-reality-in-event-technology/ 

Virtual teaching and learning spaces 

The current situation shows how important digital teaching and learning formats currently are and will be in the future at universities, but also in training and learning situations in the theater and event sector. In cooperation with teachers and learners of the Theater and Event Technology and Management course at the Berlin University of Applied Sciences, we have developed prototypical new teaching and learning tools in virtual reality. In a practice- and project-oriented approach, we developed and tested specific scenarios and tried out new ways of learning. The result is a series of digital, interactive training units.

Individual articles on the developed prototypes
https://digital.dthg.de/en/projects/virtual-training-tools/ 

Open source code on Github
https://github.com/digitaldthg/BHT-VR-Prototypes  

Link to the project
https://digital.dthg.de/en/projects/virtual-training-tools/ 

Digital twins of the history of theater technology

This subproject is dedicated to the challenge of making theater heritage visible and finding new virtual forms of mediation that do justice to “theater” as an immaterial art form in its entirety. The use cases arise both in the context of exhibitions / in the museum or in teaching situations in training or studies.

In the digital.DTHG team we designed the requirement profile for an augmented reality application based on 3D learning materials and developed a feature set. For this purpose we partly used existing material (e.g. digital reconstructions of historical theater architecture like Shakespeare’s Globe) and the results of other subprojects (e.g. the cloud machine from the Großes Schauspielhaus). In some cases, we have also digitized entirely new objects, including, for example, a wind machine including sound.

Open source code on Github
https://github.com/digitaldthg/Web-AR-Canon-Timeline  

Link to the project
https://digital.dthg.de/en/projects/canon-theatre-technical-history/ 

Bringing theatre heritage to life

Virtual reconstruction of theater architecture as an immersive experience

On the occasion of the 100th stage anniversary of the Friedrichstadt-Palast Berlin, the goal was to bring the no longer existing predecessor building “Das Große Schauspielhaus Berlin” and its stage art back into public awareness. The VR project “An Evening at the Großes Schauspielhaus – Virtual Reality Time Travel Berlin 1927” opens a digital experience window into the past: the history(s) of the theater, its architecture and its art can be spatially experienced in the here and now. The special feature of this project: historical objects from the Stadtmuseum Berlin and other archives are integrated into the virtual narrative. In this way, the digital exhibits such as posters, props or stage-technical apparatus convey theater-historical knowledge in a poetic way.

Link to Steam / Download VR Project
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1535360/Opening_Night_at_the_Groen_Schauspielhaus__Berlin_1927 

Links to the open source code
https://digital.dthg.de/data/Unity-VR-Grosses-Schauspielhaus_WithoutAssets.zip
2.6GB Unity project without assets

https://digital.dthg.de/data/Unity-VR-Grosses-Schauspielhaus_Assets_Audio.zip
4.8GB Assetfolder: Audio and FMod

https://digital.dthg.de/data/Unity-VR-Grosses-Schauspielhaus_Assets_Models.zip
1.9GB Assetfolder: 3D Models

https://digital.dthg.de/data/Unity-VR-Grosses-Schauspielhaus_OtherAssets.zip
700MB Assetfolder: all other assets

Link to the project
https://digital.dthg.de/en/projects/bringing-theatre-heritage-to-life/ 

Hybrid-Real Stage Spaces

Cocreative performances in analog-digital interstices 

The central field of investigation in this subproject is the relationship between physical reality and virtual space and interaction processes between spectators and musicians/performers. With the development and realization of the VR performance “Spatial Encounters” we explored the extent to which the linking of a real/physical space with a digital/immaterial space can be used as a design tool, thus enabling new spaces of experience. The aim was to explore cocreation processes in the context of artistic stagings and performance spaces, with a focus on musical experience.

A web-based XR application we developed, controlled by a local server, serves as the software foundation for the performance. Mobile VR glasses (e.g. Meta Quest 2) can access a shared virtual space via the integrated browser. This is where the live performance takes place: One or more musicians, a visual jockey as “Master of Virtual Scenography” and up to nine visitors meet in an equal dialogue. On an open space of about 150 square meters, the audience is immersed with mobile VR glasses into a virtual scenery, which is played, designed and experienced together during the following 20 minutes. The users move freely in these digital landscapes and generate visual effects and sculptures through their encounters and spatial relationships. 

Open source code on Github
Server: https://github.com/digitaldthg/Web-XR-Spatial-Encounters-Server
Client: https://github.com/digitaldthg/Web-XR-Spatial-Encounters-Client 

Link to the project
https://digital.dthg.de/en/projects/hybrid-real-stages/ 

XR-Editor for visualization of theater architecture 

Complex building projects, new buildings and renovation projects for theatres and cultural venues bring great communicative challenges for all involved. Not everyone is trained to read floor plans and many find it difficult to translate a plan drawing into a three-dimensional image. To what extent can digital technologies such as augmented reality be used to support communication on models, on drawings and in real space and to present complex architectural transformation processes in a comprehensible way? 

Together with the Luisenburg Festspiele in Wunsiedel we outlined an easy-to-use, „augmented“ presentation format: Using a tablet, smartphone or AR glasses, users can present three-dimensional content on a drawn floor plan or a physical terrain model, for example the current planning status or variants of a stage design. The physical-real objects serve as anchor points for the overlay of digital three-dimensional content. The presentations can be prepared in advance by the presenters and contain a wide range of information. Similar to the slides of a PowerPoint presentation, the presenter and viewer can then click through the different 3D models. The developed application consists of two related components: On the one hand, this is the WebXR editor, in which the „slides“ are compiled and prepared, and on the other hand, the WebXR viewer, which can be called up online to display the presentation. This browser-based and device-independent use allows the same content to be played out in different ways. 

  • The WebXR editor, where the “slides” are compiled and prepared.
  • The WebXR viewer, which can be accessed online to display the presentation.

Both applications were designed in such a way that they are not only specific to this subject area, but can also be transferred to other areas: Thus, with this application, we were able to develop parallel adaptations for the topics „Augmented Reality in Event Technology“ and „Digital Twins of Theatre Technology History“.

The technical basis for the application is the new WebXR standard, which allows three-dimensional content to be displayed on a wide variety of devices, whereby the type of display depends on the technical capabilities of the hardware. This browser-based and device-independent use allows the same content to be played out in different ways.

Open source code on Github
WebXR editor (backend): https://github.com/digitaldthg/Web-XR-Editor-Backend
WebXR viewer (presenter): https://github.com/digitaldthg/Web-XR-Editor-Presenter  

Link to the project
https://digital.dthg.de/en/projects/mixed-reality 

Workflows and Guides for Virtual Bauprobe

In this subproject, methods and tools were sought for conducting Virtual Bauprobe – building rehearsals that do not take place physically in the theatre and on stage, but can take place in virtual space and independent of location. How can VR technology be integrated as a visualization, design, construction and communication medium in one’s own work process at the theatre? 

For this purpose, we developed the workshop format “How to go Virtual” in order to test possible applications in an uncomplicated way with theaters and venues on site. Together with our cooperation partners, the focus was placed on practice, both in trying out existing applications and programs, as well as in developing theatre specific usage scenarios: for example, adapting a stage design to a different venue, presenting construction variants, or visualizing a spatially particularly complicated design. 

The result of the collaboration was a series of workflows and methods that are now being made available to the theater community as guides and tutorials:

Workflow 1 – Sketchfab / Zoom “Semi-Virtual Pre-Rehearsal”
https://digital.dthg.de/workflow-1/  (german)

This scenario uses the free internet platform Sketchfab to present models. Here, meetings can be presented via screen sharing in a video conferencing tool or made available time-shifted for illustration via a link across different end devices. This scenario does not allow live editing of the Virtual 3D Model during the meeting, but is convincing as a starter scenario due to its easy accessibility and implementation for all production participants.

Workflow 2 – Mozilla Hub’s “Bauprobe for Everyone
https://digital.dthg.de/workflow-2/ (german)

This scenario uses the free Internet platform Mozilla Hubs with the associated editor Spoke. Meetings can be held simultaneously in the virtual room via various end devices with several participants. This scenario does not allow live editing of the virtual 3D model during the meeting, but is convincing as an entry-level scenario due to its easy accessibility for up to 30 people.

Workflow 3 – Virtual Bauprobe with VR sketch
https://digital.dthg.de/workflow-3/ (german)

This scenario uses the paid plugin VR-Sketch for the program SketchUp. Meetings and build rehearsals can be conducted in Virtual Space via VR headsets simultaneously with multiple participants from different locations. This scenario enables live editing of the virtual 3D model during the meeting and also offers many other possible applications. 

Link to the project
https://digital.dthg.de/en/projects/virtual-stage-rehearsal

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Opening of the Knowledge Plattform nachtkritik.plus

The platform Knowledge on nachtkritik.plus bundles and reflects the achieved state of development in the field of theater and digitality. There are already almost eighty contributions on various technical tools, tutorials and workshop discussions that explain digital technologies and their application or reflect on experiences with them. Continue reading “Opening of the Knowledge Plattform nachtkritik.plus”

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Interview: “VR is the driving force for us!” digital.DTHG in conversation with theater junge generation Dresden

The digital.DTHG team visits the theater junge generation Dresden, one of the first cooperation partners in the research project “Im/material Theatre Spaces”. Project manager Franziska Ritter and VR coach Vincent Kaufmann ask about experiences and insights and show how the Dresden colleagues have made it from their first virtual attempts to established digital workflows in their daily work. Continue reading “Interview: “VR is the driving force for us!” digital.DTHG in conversation with theater junge generation Dresden”

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“How to go virtual?!” Workshop for freelance stage designers – together with the association “Bund der Szenografen”

To raise awareness of digital and virtual tools in theater, digital.DTHG created the workshop series “How to go virtual?!” and has now expanded the format for freelance scenographers and set designers.

Continue reading ““How to go virtual?!” Workshop for freelance stage designers – together with the association “Bund der Szenografen””

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