More tennis in Second Life – Australian Open
If you’ve been reading eightbar for a while, you may know that last year, some of the group put together a nice demo for Wimbledon (video available). The build was a proof-of-concept for taking a live feed of the balls from the Hawkeye system, and replaying the action in-world.
Well, the news is out on the Sydney Morning Herald site today, and Chris Yeoh mentions it too… a group from IBM has put together a really stunning build for the Australian Open. From the SMH article:
Over the duration of the two week tournament, data will be fed from games in the real Rod Laver Arena into the unreal one, nano seconds after happens.
The feed will come from game-tracking technologies such as the line-calling system HawkEye, PointTracker which plots shots and ball trajectories and Speed Serve which clocks the players’ serves.
I took a sneaky early tour of the site. There are some fantastic touches – for example, you can see rallies played out on the court, there are plenty of shops, open areas to chat, and video screens. Well done to the team involved (Pipe Hesse, Gizzy Electricteeth, and all the others) – this is really one of the best builds I’ve seen.
Click through for slightly larger screenshots, and be sure to visit once the site is open to all :-)
January 12th, 2007 at 15:33
I have snapzilla’s of some more of the tour here onwards
January 12th, 2007 at 16:01
IBM’s Virtual Australian Open In Second Life
Stephen Hutcheon of the Syndney Morning Herald has a nice piece about a new build by some of the IBMers in the virtual world of Second Life, which does for the Australian Open tennis tournament what IBM did for Wimbledon on a smaller scale last summer…
January 12th, 2007 at 17:26
A great venue for sure. And what’s best about it is the cross-over interaction between the real event and the SL event. Also, it’s sure to encourage longer stays than at a normal building/venue/event due to its nature.
Bravo, and certainly the signs of things to come in SL.
January 14th, 2007 at 23:09
Also check out the latest issue of The Avastar at http://www.the-avastar.com/ for more coverage on the Australian Open!
January 15th, 2007 at 02:52
can i sleep now? =)
January 15th, 2007 at 06:01
how do you find it? i’ve searched for it but it’s not in the list
January 15th, 2007 at 20:07
[...] Taking simulcasting to a more advanced level, IBM are re-creating the Australian Open inside SL by taking real-time data from the Hawkeye system which tracks ball trajectories and simulating matches as they happen. [...]
January 16th, 2007 at 05:12
gr8 blog this
January 16th, 2007 at 11:22
The aus open tennis sim is called Slam1 on the main map.
The team are using it currently as an invitation event, much like the real thing and as a deeper proof of concept than the original Wimbledon build.
We wanted to show people the pictures and the work but given the limit on the number of AV’s on a sim we did not want cause people problems by not being able to TP in and see it because it is full.
IBM sponsored tennis events, the grand slams are some of the most heavily used sites as I know from my years of Wimbleodn experience.
As this is stage 2 of a much bigger experiment the team are looking at ways to scale it, the best way to run an event such as this and just how big it may have to be.
April 27th, 2007 at 11:18
This is a good article…..But I think joining the secondlife is more interesting and Learn how to easily find, court and finally marry a beautiful Girl in Secondlife…
http://www.secondlifepartners.com
May 29th, 2007 at 15:41
[...] Ian Hughes who has pioneered this tennis project with others at IBM sent me a message from Second Life earlier, in response to my questions about when tennis on Second Life would open to the public: The tri board has schedule, completed matches and matches in progress, the main court will be showing live current match (all being well) or a replay of a match some videos and other things around. We are doing this quite gently as its the first tennis one we have gone public with. [...]
May 29th, 2007 at 16:05
[...] We have gone live with our mini build of for the French Open tennis on the “IBM 7″ sim. We have previously had the builds for last years Wimbledon (video here) , and the previous Australian Open, but they were all private. This is out in the the public areas. The team, Laronzo Fitzgerald, Andy Remblai and I have taken Pipe Hesse and Gizzy ElectricTeeth’s australian open and adjusted it for the Roland Garros event. We have all discovered on the way lots of interesting gotchas on collaborative building, with sharing of permissions and how to make things portable. The area itself is branded and in the style of the actual event with a central clay court. We get data from the same feeds as we use for the website with current matches and complete matches represented on a main board. The court itself is central, it houses the match replay gadget. The replay shows the play of the ball from a rally and updates the main scoreboard. People can pose at each end of the court for a players view. We are going to keep adjusting the experience as we have realized a few usability quirks that may not be obvious to people. 1. The rally is played after the real rally has finished, that is when the data is sent in Real/Web life. So the main scoreboard and court will always be behind the live one (at the moment) 2. When players change ends, or there is a break in play it looks like the court is not doing anything, so that may be confusing as a spectator 3. Rain delays, its started with one yesterday and we have not represented one as the Autralian Open has a roof. Anyway we welcome your comments on it, as we try and bring the experience of the tennis event to the metaverse. The main website extends the experience with news and photos aswell as scores. In Second Life we can obvioulsy extend that experience to one that can be shared. Here is a mini youtube with a famous metaverse personality playing tennis at the end with a golf club [...]
December 3rd, 2007 at 07:52
It will be interesting to see what is in store at the 2008 Australian Open. One year is a long time in terms of technology improvements. I enjoyed the 2007 version with the added dimension of the hawkeye system.
I wonder if players will better manage the challenge system. Some players seemed to have a knack of knowing when to challenge while others seemed to not have a clue.
May 2nd, 2008 at 07:48
Anyway we welcome your comments on it, as we try and bring the experience of the tennis event to the metaverse. The main website extends the experience with news and photos aswell as scores. In Second Life we can obvioulsy extend that experience to one that can be shared.
June 7th, 2008 at 17:02
Great Read well written
http://www.mytennissecrets.com
January 3rd, 2009 at 06:42
I honestly hope IBM doesn’t continue to blow their customers money on this. They should focus their energy on the next concept that is better than Second Life. Is their any Third Life concepts out there yet?
David
TennisPlaza
January 5th, 2009 at 14:55
David – we actually picked up on your comment on episode 83 of Dogear Nation (http://dogearnation.com). It’s hard for me to see how pushing the boundaries and innovating is wasteful… we’re learning how to engage in these new spaces. Bear in mind that this isn’t all about Second Life, it is about the 3D Internet and virtual worlds in general. As for a so-called “Third Life” concept – what would you suggest? and why go further immediately when there’s more to do in this existing space?
May 13th, 2009 at 22:13
God people, just go out and play some real tennis already. Innovative? I guess, but a waste of time? In my opinion yeah.
June 11th, 2009 at 00:05
I keep listening to the news speak about getting free online grant applications so I have been looking around for the best site to get one.
July 6th, 2009 at 02:59
I tend to agree with Lasik’s comments above…if you can, go outside…Of course, if you live where it is freezing cold, virtual tennis is not a bad idea.