NOTE: The following is a 3-page report on a multimedia project by Steve Schoenherr, Department of History, University of San Diego, posted in the November 1993 log of DIRECT-L mail list on the Internet.

The Joshua Tree Project was started in June 1993 at the University of San Diego to explore how multimedia could be used in the teaching of history. I began with the idea of producing a simple five-minute show to jazz up my class on American history, and to illustrate the significance of pathways in American history from Columbus to the Oregon Trail. Inspired by the 1985 Joshua Tree album by the Irish rock group U2, I sought a new road in the desert of teaching, as lyricized in the albumÕs first song:

I want to reach out and touch the flame Where the streets have no name.

The show would be called ÒStreetsÓ and would use the U2 song to illustrate images from the early period of American history. Dr. David Tiedemann, Director of the university Media Center, joined the project by offering some startup funding and guiding the project into the world of multimedia. By producing the image and sound components of the show on computer rather than by traditional videotape or slide/tape methods, Dave argued that greater flexibility and impact could be achieved. The show would be a history lesson for the Jurassic Park generation. Dr. Jack Pope, Director of Academic Computing, offered the use of his new multimedia computer lab, and assistant director John Paul worked all summer to get it up and running. I have been fortunate at the University of San Diego to have had the support of staff and administration. I hope this is the case at other universities starting to equip faculty for the computer age.

THE HARDWARE

The multimedia lab included a Quadra 700 with 20 megs of internal RAM and 240 megs of internal hard drive capacity, the Apple CD300 CD-ROM drive to read color images from Kodak Photo CD disks and to play the audio soundtrack from audio CD disks, an H-P ScanJet IIc flatbed color scanner to digitize color images. The universityÕs Macintosh consultant, Thor Brickman, trained me in the use of these new machines and provided valuable assistance during the entire production process. The Macintosh platform was equipped with image processing software (Adobe Photoshop), multimedia presentation software (Macromind Director), drawing programs (Superpaint), 3D rendering software (Swivel 3D), and a Radius VideoVision card with software to translate to and from videotape. The IBM platform in the lab did not yet have adequate software -- and having used both platforms in other environments I much preferred the Mac. There is a Windows version of Director but the IBM operating system is not implemented across different hardware and software as is the Mac System 7. Try doing a copy & paste with Windows across the Internet. Hopefully, the new multimedia authoring software being developed at Kaleida by Apple and IBM for the CD-ROM market, called ScriptX, will solve the problem of compatibility. Another interesting platform is the Amiga 4000 with the excellent Video Toaster and Lightwave software -- but not until Jack Pope can dig deeper into those budget pockets will faculty have the opportunity to make seaQuest DSV videos.

THE IMAGES

The first step was to produce the highest quality images possible. Maximum size would be 640 x 480 pixels, the standard screen size of the Quadra and close to the size of a standard television screen. Resolution needed to be no more than 72 dpi (dots p er inch, same as pixels per inch), unlike the hard copy output of desktop publishing that allows resolution of 300 dpi or more, the higher the better. But in the video environment, the standard resolution of computer and TV screens is 72 dpi. Image colo r, on the other hand, is a different story. It could range from low-quality 8-bit (256 simultaneous colors created from an 8-bit lookup table referencing three 8-bit channels of red, green, blue), to better 16-bit (32,768 simultaneous colors from three s eparate channels of 5 bits each plus one effect channel), or to best 32-bit (16,777,216 simultaneous colors from three 8-bit channels plus eight effect channels; this is the internal Quickdraw capability but in the external world this is also called 24-bi t color). Only 32-bit color approaches the image quality of a photograph, particularly in the subtle shading of solid colors found in the sky or a sunset. Most of my source images were 35mm slides of historical subjects that I either have purchased or taken myself. These included color slides from sites such as the Mesa Verde National Park and Fredericksburg Civl War Battlefield, copy slides from old books and journals such as Harper's Weekly, black-and-white photographs of Abraham Lincoln from the National Archives, and original Kodachrome slides that I took this summer at Joshua Tree National Monument. These slides were sent to Kodalux in Los Angeles t o be scanned and digitized onto Kodak Photo CD disks. The cost of $1.79 per slide was very reasonable, compared to the older method of drum scanning at $20 per slide. For comparison, I copied some slides onto Vericolor III negative film using a Bowens I llumitron with electronic flash. Kodalux charges $16 per roll of 24 negatives to digitize onto a PhotoCD, so the cost was about half that of getting the slides scanned. Both methods produced a good color image on the PhotoCD (but the old rule still appl ies: the better the original, the better the copy). From the five resolutions of each image that Kodak puts on the CD (all in 24-bit color), I copied the base size of 768 x 512 to the Quadra internal hard disk, then used Photoshop to crop the image down to my working size of 640 x 480. There was no need to use the 16/Base image on the Photo CD; at 3072 x 2048 it is only larger in size, not in resolution.

DIRECTOR

Macromind Director is a powerful software tool that mixes images, graphics, movies and sound using the metaphor of a theater production. The images are loaded into the computer program as Òcast membersÓ and placed on a ÒstageÓ (the computer screen). The ÒscoreÓ programs the timing and movement of the images on the stage. A ÒscriptÓ is written (in a programming language) to coordinate the flow of the stage production and to access external devices such as an audio CD (to play music with the images) or a videodisc (to show moving images). Director becomes the key element in multimedia production, bringing together and integrating each of the different media that form parts of the whole. After production has been completed using a rather elaborate arra y of hardware and software, the finished show can be copied to videotape and played back using only a standard VCR and TV. It can also be copied to any digital medium, such a a floppy disc or CD-ROM, and played back on any size Mac computer using the stand-alone Player program that accompanies the Director software package. Director shows can also be produced to be interactive, allowing the viewer to press a key or click a mouse button to branch off in different directions from the primary score.

THE SCORE

For the simple five-minute ÒStreetsÓ show, I planned to load 79 images as cast members. However, as each of the 32-bit color 640 x 480 images emerged from Photoshop as PICT files around 900k in size, I had to link the images to the score rather than load them. The Director limits the size of a score to 15 megs, and the total size of my score would be 81 megs. I reduced some of the images to 8 and 16 bit color, and scripted parts of the show to load as many images as possible into the 20 megs of RAM memory on the Quadra. Using RAM was the only way to show a rapid sequence of images during one part of the song at the rate of one image every 1.75 seconds. The Nubus architecture of the Quadra 700 is apparently the weak link in the image-loading chain, allowing a transfer from hard disk to RAM of only about 500k per second. The revised Nubus-2 architecture in the Quadra 840av will load much faster, a necessity for the future display of full motion at 24 fps. Despite this hardware problem, the images were timed by script to load at precise intervals in synch with the beat and lyrics of the song. Transition wipes and fades were added where appropriate, although most of DirectorÕs effects did not work well with the large 24-bit images. Those effects tha t did work well included Dissolve Bits Fast, Edges In Square, Vertical Blinds and Venetian Blinds. I tried some animation effects, such as having an image move off screen or zoom out from a small size to a full screen size, but the motion was jerky, prob ably due to the large image size, so no such effects were used.

TEXT

The show used only the CD music as its sound source, without narration or any computer-generated sound. At the beginning and end, text graphics were added over the color image to explain the theme of the show. The text was typed in Photoshop using a WindsorDemi bold Truetype font at 24 points and anti-aliased to soften the jaggies. One of the severe limitations of 72 dpi screen resolution is the inability to produce smooth letter outlines that is possible on hard copy at 300 dpi. Therefore, anti-aliasing is a necessity to blur the sharp pixel angles. Director has some built-in text and drawing tools but most of them are not as good as those in Photoshop or Superpaint. Each text block was finished in Photoshop first, then loaded as a cast member and changed from black to white with a transparent background using DirectorÕs Ink controls, the Add Pin ink effect working best.

QUICKTIME MOVIES

Two brief movies were inserted in the early part of the show for humorous effect and to test the feasibility of mixing moving images with the still images. Quicktime is AppleÕs feeble attempt to integrate motion pictures with computers. Full motion of 24-bit color 640 x 480 images at 24 frames per second a la Jurassic Park is not yet possible on desktop computers. Quicktime allows small-screen motion of 16-bit color 160 x 120 images at 15 fps and although jerky and small, it is better than no motion a t all. One Quicktime movie was made by capturing 5 seconds of video with the VideoVision card and translating it into the Quicktime format. The other movie was a short scene from Jurassic Park downloaded by ftp from the info-mac mirror at metten.fenk.wau.nl on the Internet. Both movies were loaded as cast members and dragged onto the stage at the appropriate point in the score. Although the movies slowed down the score, they worked very well with the other elements.

CONCLUSION

Multimedia has finally arrived in the classroom. The hardware and software now exist to do fairly sophisticated media projects on desktop computers. The Joshua Tree Project is planning its next show, a 25-minute documentary on the history of Old Town San Diego from the Spanish era up to the present. Full motion video, historical paintings and photographs, 3D images of reconstructed buildings, music and narration will all be coordinated by a Director score and dumped to videotape for playback. It is n o longer necessary to invest half a million bucks in a television or sound studio, or rely on an army of professional technicians to operate the equipment. It is no longer necessary to use A-B roll editing methods requiring multiple videotape decks, swit chboards, genlocks, time-base correctors, and character generators just to make a little show about the significance of Columbus in American history. Individual college faculty should be able to walk into a computer lab and with a little training, begin to produce materials that can significantly improve classroom learning. It is the goal of the Joshua Tree Project to do precisely that ... and help others who seek to follow the same path.

And when I go there, I go there with you ItÕs all I can do