YDreams' Development Framework for Interactive Public Spaces
In April 2010 YDreams described the reusable development framework behind its interactive installations, among them the robots and LED columns of the El Faro Visitors Center near Madrid. Its old web address now forwards to a Portuguese-language site.
Updated
What the framework was
YDreams worked on natural user interfaces (NUI) for about nine years before 2010 and had deployed hundreds of applications in museums, stores, event venues and movie theaters. Early projects were built by copying source code from earlier ones and adding customization, which made maintenance difficult. The company therefore built a reusable development framework so that applications took less time to write and ran more reliably, leaving teams time to innovate.
The framework also carried the knowledge of senior engineers into projects they were unable to join. Its listed components covered multi-threading, image processing, tracking, real-time 3D graphics and physics, artificial intelligence, FreeFrame plugins, Flash integration into 3D graphics, support for USB, FireWire and IP video cameras, and Microsoft Surface support. The platform ran in almost every interactive application the company produced.
The El Faro Visitors Center
YDreams' largest project at the time was El Faro, the visitors center that serves as the gateway to the Santander Group's financial complex on the outskirts of Madrid. It combines advanced robotics, high-resolution LED-paneled columns and interactive interface design so that visitors can explore the group's history and its global presence. Knee-high autonomous robots greet visitors and guide them to their destination.
The framework let the team simulate the robots' behavior in 3D before the physical machines existed, and the code that drove the simulator is the same code that runs inside the robots.
Depth cameras and the augmented reality demo
In 2010 YDreams partnered with Canesta and added support for its depth-sensing video cameras. The company already combined real and virtual content in real time; with depth data the result was also registered in 3D, which meets Azuma's definition of augmented reality. The demo built on this was meant to show what the camera could do and to run first usability tests on how people perceive invisible 3D objects and which interactions work. YDreams reported a strong response from the users who tried it.
Visitors could try the demo at the YDreams booth at the Augmented Reality Event (ARE 2010), held June 2 and 3, 2010 at the Santa Clara Convention Center and billed as the first global event on the business of augmented reality.
What is true today
The address ydreams.com forwards to ydreams.com.br, a Portuguese-language website under the name YDreams. Its home page presents multisensory experiences for cultural spaces, corporate venues, governments and communities, and shopping centers, with sections for available experiences, a blog and a contact page. It does not present the 2010 framework or a games product.
Whether the Brazilian site belongs to the same organization as the 2010 company is not stated on the page, so this entry treats it only as the place the old address now leads.
Questions about YDreams
What did YDreams build?
It built interactive installations based on natural user interfaces, such as the robots, LED columns and interactive displays of the El Faro Visitors Center, and a reusable framework that sped up that work.
What is the El Faro Visitors Center?
It is the visitors center at the entrance to the Santander Group's financial complex on the outskirts of Madrid, where robots and interactive displays tell the story of the group.
Where does the old YDreams address lead?
The ydreams.com address forwards to ydreams.com.br, a Portuguese-language site presenting multisensory experiences. The framework from 2010 is not described there.