For Budj Bim I was brought in as a third-party subcontractor to handle the software development for a touch-screen installation. My client builds sound and vision installations – touchscreens, sound, lighting and the like – and I’d worked with them before on software to run on their touchscreens.
The installation had a few parts to it. A projector projects a video experience down over a 3D, landscape-shaped table, and set into recesses around that table are five touch-screen tablets. The tablets are interactive and informative in their own right, but they can also drive what’s happening on the table – triggering and changing which video projection is being shown.
I built the software using Electron, React and websockets. The PC driving the projector runs an Electron app that acts as a websocket server, able to project one of several different 3D video experiences on demand. Each tablet runs a client Electron app with its own touch experience, and uses websockets to send messages back to the projector to change what’s being projected onto the table.
The client liaised with a third-party design studio for the graphics and UI design, while my team and I did all of the software implementation. I was the lead developer and architect on the project, with someone from my team helping out on the programming.