ZooBurst Public Blog

Special Announcement: We will be upgrading the entire ZooBurst website on Sunday, August 29th, 2010, and the system will be unavailable for most of the day. This upgrade will introduce the following new features into the ZooBurst framework:

• Automatic sign-up: new users will gain immediate access to the ZooBurst site
• Privacy options: Books can be set to publicly visible, password protected or private only to you
• Customizable book backgrounds
• Improved page control (reorder and duplicate pages within your books)
• Enhanced character control and placement
• Larger file size upload limits
• Multiple embed size options for your books

All users will need to re-register their accounts with ZooBurst after this upgrade has been completed. This is a simple process and should only take a minute or two to complete. Books that you have created prior to this upgrade will remain available in a “read-only” mode – you will still be able to view, embed and delete books created before the upgrade, but you will no longer be able to make changes to them.

This upgrade will allow us to move forward and begin to implement a number of new features into ZooBurst, such as classroom management mode and audio / speech integration.  We will keep you posted as these new features become available.

If you have any questions please feel free to get in touch with us a zookeeper [at] zooburst [dot] com. Thanks! -Craig

Hi everyone, I hope you’re all having a great summer so far!  It’s been incredibly busy here at ZooBurst H.Q. – as of today we have over 4,000 people from around the world using ZooBurst.  Amazing!

As you may know, we have been working hard to develop a new version of ZooBurst based on your feedback.  We’re shooting to have this new version out by the end of August, and it will be chock full of new features, including:

• Privacy options:  Designate your books as public to the world, password protected or completely private
• Customizable backgrounds:  No more canned backdrops!  You can color your own backgrounds as well as drag and drop images onto the background to make your own landscapes for your books.
• Sound effects:  Choose from a library of sound effects to bring your characters to life.
• Record your own voice:  Use your computer’s microphone to record your own voice to have your characters “speak” when they are clicked
• Classroom management:  Teachers will be able to easily set up private spaces for their students inside of ZooBurst.  Classes in ZooBurst can be public, private or password protected, and teachers can set up usernames and passwords for all students in their class using a simple classroom dashboard tool.

Here’s a quick video shows some of these new features in action.  Thanks again for using ZooBurst!  If you have any questions, please visit our online feedback form.  Thanks!

Boy how time flies!  ZooBurst v1.0 has been up and running for a little over 3 weeks, and during that time we have seen an amazing level of interest from the educational technology community.  In fact, I’m thrilled to report that as of today, May 6th, we have over 500 authors registered with the system!

Thanks to those of you who have sent suggestions on how to improve ZooBurst.  We are taking these very seriously and will be rolling out changes to the site very soon.  Here are a few new features that will come online within the next week:

1. Augmented reality mode will be updated to allow you to change the position in which your book appears.  You will be able to select from a set of predefined angles, such as having the book lie flat on top of the ZooBurst marker.  This should hopefully make presenting a book in AR mode a little easier.
2. Characters in AR mode will become “clickable” based on the position of the AR marker in space.  This will allow you to inspect a book without having to click on the characters using your mouse – simply hold the desired character up to the center of the screen to cause it to “speak”

If you have any other suggestions please feel free to get in touch using the ‘Feedback!’ button on the ZooBurst homepage.

Thanks again for your interest in ZooBurst!

-Craig

ZooBurst is a web-based digital storytelling tool that is designed to let anyone easily create their own customized 3D pop-up books. As of today I am pleased to report that version 1.0 of ZooBurst is up and running, and is accessible to the world at http://alpha.zooburst.com.

Here’s an example ZooBurst book (requires the Adobe Flash player plugin – sorry iPad/Pod/Phone users!)

Here are a few screen shots for those of you who are viewing this post via an aggregator:

Zooburst 3D Pop-Up Book

Zooburst 3D Pop-Up Book - Augmented Reality

The current version of ZooBurst supports the following features:

• Web-based access to user created books
• Embeddable content that allows a ZooBurst book to exist on any website that accepts HTML embed code
• Augmented Reality mode that lets you experience a book in the palm of your hand (requires a webcam)
• Web-based creation of new books
• Integration with the Open Clip Art Library of public-domain vector images
• Local file upload feature to allow you to use your own artwork within a book

Over the next week I will be contacting individuals who have signed up for the public beta version of ZooBurst with an invitation code. We are still accepting new users on a rolling basis – to sign up for an account please visit this form and tell us a little more about yourself and why you would like to give ZooBurst a try.

I’m happy to report that a working version of the Zooburst viewer is now online! This viewer will allow you to experience the kinds of 3D pop-up books that Zooburst v0.1 will be able to create. The viewer currently has the following features:

• Multiple pages: Use the arrow buttons at the bottom of the screen to cycle from page to page.
• Spatial positioning: Click and hold your mouse on the Zooburst book to orbit around it in 3D space.
• Clickable characters: Some characters have more to say than others!  Click around to learn more about items on each page.
• Augmented reality: Click on the ‘Augmented Reality’ button at the top of the screen to experience the book in AR.  Note that you need an active webcam installed as well as access to a printer to print out the necessary marker.

Please visit http://www.zooburst.com to see the latest version of ZooBurst – thanks for visiting!

The Zooburst viewer

Hi everyone, thanks for stopping by!  This is the public blog of the Zooburst 3D Pop Up Book creator.  Zooburst is currently under development, but we are planning on opening the system up for limited public use in early April 2010.  Feel free to check out the video below to learn a little more about Zooburst – thanks for stopping by!