Coinciding with the April 2011 release of the book, Outdoor Sculpture in Baltimore: A Historical Guide to Public Art in the Monumental City by Cindy Kelly, the IRC initiated a second early stage, seed-funded project with the working title Big Public Objects to investigate the potential of public monuments and sculptures to facilitate community development [...]

The SeeIntuit Website SeeIntuit (a combination of “See-Into-It” and “See-Intuition”) was commissioned by the Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Science for the first annual USA Science and Engineering Festival at the National Mall in Washington DC on October 2010. The mission of the festival is to “re-invigorate the interest of our nation’s youth [...]

The goal of this educational resource is to improve health by linking the efforts of those in medicine with those in the arts in order to stimulate meaningful public discussion that can expand our culturally normal views of health, healthcare and medicine, and ultimately affect personal and collective choices.

The IRC participated in the visualization of the UMBC Campus Master Plan Update process and presentation to the Board of Regents. Using an extensive 3D model of the campus, it created three visualizations: a highly rendered animation showing future buildings; video motion tracking showing future buildings in live video settings, and a cutting-edge augmented reality [...]

Since 2008 the IRC has partnered with NASA/Goddard to create earth science animations and visualizations that explain the important information that NASA missions are discovering. This partnership funds IRC media specialists to oversee the production and creation of animations and to involve UMBC undergraduate students in the process.  The partnership is run through UMBC/GEST’s cooperative [...]

Partnering with NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, the IRC created visualizations for upcoming satellite missions for future Earth and solar system explorations. The Solar Dynamics Observatory will observe behaviors in our Sun while the Vesper satellite will explore planet Venus, providing insights into the evolution of Earth’s changing climate.

USDemocrazy.com Political Cartoonist Kevin “KAL” Kallaugher has been an IRC Artist-In-Residence for the last 5 years. With generous support from the College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Sondheim Scholars Program and the Office of Institutional Advancement, KAL has returned to the IRC to work exclusively on creating USDemocrazy.com, a website and active blog built [...]

Playing Pericles: Shakespeare for Social Change, was a collaborative effort in experimental theater between the departments of Theater, English and the IRC in the Spring of 2010. As its grounding premise, the project explored notions of play and the role of imagination in guiding all production decisions. The undergraduate actors performed all roles using a [...]

ShermansMarch.org History Professor Anne Sarah Rubin received the prestigious American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Digital Innovation Fellowship for her proposal to document the facts, myths, and perceptions of Sherman’s March during the Civil War. Part of this fellowship, written with support from the IRC, included funding for the IRC to design an innovative online [...]

The task of visualizing early Washington DC has proven to be more challenging than anticipated. Technology is not the problem; the problem is lack of reliable historical evidence. The IRC has worked with architectural historians, cartographers, engineers, and ecologists to assess the often-unreliable eyewitness accounts and to recreate a “best guess” glimpse of the early city. The project and research are ongoing.

Visual Arts Professor John Sturgeon’s contribution to the field of video art is widely acknowledged and is included in the permanent collections at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Professor Sturgeon is working with the IRC to produce two new works funded by UMBC’s [...]

A touch-activated interactive virtual tour that gives a detailed view of the Cone Sisters’ 1930 apartments and the incomparable collection of early 20th Century painting with which they lived. 

Bellows is a research initiative between Visual Arts Professor Eric Dyer and the IRC. It pushes zoetropic animation to a new level, introducing a 3D printing technique called rapid prototyping. Bellows was installed at the Baltimore Museum of Art’s Sondheim Prize Competition and Exhibition.

Editorial Cartoons Move into the 21st Century: Kevin “KAL” Kallaugher is the international award winning editorial cartoonist for The Economist magazine of London and former editorial cartoonist for the Baltimore Sun. He will be working on a research project involving creating 3D real-time virtual caricatures of contemporary political figures.

Electronic Textbook Pilot Project The Life Cycles of Hurricanes was a project directed by David Stroud and Dr. Jeffrey Halverson from UMBC JCET and GEST Centers. It was produced in partnership with the IRC in the fall of 2008. Funded by a research grant from Prentice Hall Publishing through Pearson Publishing, the goal was to [...]

Ohr am Wattenmeer is an interdisciplinary art, science and technology project created by Visual Arts Professor Steve Bradley. It will provide both real time and cumulative data regarding ecological changes between the Jones Falls Watershed and the Baltimore Inner Harbor water systems. A buoy equipped with solar and wind power navigational devices sensors will provide a ‘voice’ for the delicate ecosystem that is normally overlooked by the public.

Seven teenage filmmakers examine, document and deconstruct their experience in America’s public school system during this phase of the multi-faceted FieldTrip Project. A closed online community of nearly 100 teenagers actively watch the videos and engage in discussions that question the very foundation of education in America.

Euphoria is a feature film about the pursuit of happiness. Lee Boot conceived of the film during his time as a high school teacher after seeing his students’ strong positive response to information about the potential of their own brains to help them build meaningful and engaging lives.

The IRC is currently developing a multiplayer online video game that focuses on teamwork and strategic utilization of specialized skillsets. This premise was birthed from the general conflict between behaviors and skills that are valuable in the Real World versus those deemed valuable in a school institutional setting.

Jennifer Web and Jewel Jemison are 3D, digitally animated puppets that were created as Keynote Speakers for UMBC’s Center for Women and Information Technology (CWIT) Computer Mania Day. “Jennifer and Jewel represent cutting edge technology that can figuratively and literally talk to girls to get the message across that technology is fun,” Claudia Morrell, Director [...]

The IRC’s partnership with NASA/Goddard for satellite and science visualization was expanded to include the creation of a 3D interactive web-based model of the Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) satellite. The project allowed the IRC to engage three former UMBC students. Katie Chrzanowski, a CWIT scholar, Visual Arts Major, Computer Science Minor, and IRC Fellow, directed [...]

An Internet2 connection was created between the IRC and the Franklin Institute Museum of Science in Philadelphia. Professor Jeff Halverson was then able to lecture about hurricane development with the aid of high definition media streamed in real-time.

Imaging and Digital Arts graduate student and IRC graduate research assistant, Aaron Oldenburg, fully developed the game Cop Baby as part of the ongoing research for the Fieldtrip Project. The game was programmed using Flash and offers a unitque 3D effect that Aaron developed. After working on “Machinema” films made from screen-captured gameplay, Aaron created [...]

The IRC created a visualization that allows viewers to see how three dimensional laser technologies are used to compare multiple casts of similar sculptures, showing what the naked eye cannot view alone. Through this study, Matisse’s casting methods are revealed for the first time.

Presented at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Dallas Museum of Art and the Baltimore Museum of Art, an interactive touch-screen display encouraged visitors to be active in the process of observing sculpture. The exhibition enabled viewers to move the sculpture, change the lighting and see the sculpture in both profile and contour modes.

In celebration of UMBC turning 40, the IRC produced hand-drawn blueprint-style animations of the campus being built. A simulated fireworks display over the Albert O. Kuhn Library were uniquely programmed using Mel Scripting within Maya.

W-47 is a virtual reality artwork retracing the foundation of America’s atomic bomb program. The project is directed by Timothy Nohe and supported in part by the Center for Land Use Interpretation, the Imaging Research Center at UMBC, the International Corporation of Lost Structures, and the Maryland State Arts Council.

Distinguished Professor Zary Segall conducts and promotes research in the area of wearable computers that are able to read human physiological and emotional states. Rhino 3D was used to design and create digital models of a number of handheld and wearable devices in support of his transdisciplinary CMSC 691W wearable computing class.

In collaboration with artist Jann Rosen-Queralt, the IRC developed a design for the Brightwater plaza in Washington state using solid modeling software. Her mission for this project was to use sculptural elements in a public art context to articulate the flow of water into and out of the treatment system and to educate visitors about the treatment process.

The Imaging Research Center created a 3D interactive presentation designed for marketing and training purposes of the Fillmaster pharmaceutical water purification, dispensing, and measuring system.

This digital reconstruction allows anyone to explore UMBC’s campus realtime on a basic laptop computer.

In collaboration with the University of Maryland’s Democracy Collaborative, a team of IRC researchers, including students from a variety of disciplines, developed a Web presence to initiate discussion about a number of public policies issues.


Landscapes of Liberty is an interactive program with 3D animated sequences created for permanent installation in the Maryland Historical Society’s Looking For Liberty in Maryland state overview exhibition.

This is an interactive real-time computer simulation of the ancient Sun Dagger site on Fajada Butte in Chaco Canyon, NM. Users may interact with the scene by navigating in 3D space and also adjust the time of year and time of day controls.

The IRC was approached by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC to recreate the original Paris Salon, complete with the nine paintings of Édouard Vuillard. There was no documentation of the series in its orginal setting and this visualization was the first opportunity to experience it as Vuillard had intended.

When The Commons opened, the campus’ newest hangout immediately had a student touch – animated logos which serve as transition points on the building’s video messaging network, created by interns from the IRC.

City of Cine; City of Signs This CD-ROM project is a collaborative, cross-disciplinary, theoretical and artistic documentation of the hand-painted advertisements for the cinema industry and local political parties that dominate the urban landscape of Chennai, located in the southern state of Tamilnadu, India. The project undertakes an experimental ethnography to create a dense layering [...]

The animation for this one hour documentary illustrates not only how the ancient cities of Chaco Canyon may have looked but also how they oriented to astronomical events.

The IRC created a visualization of an experimental samll passenger jet with a unique “lifting body” aerodynamic design. Full body motion capture was applied to 10 detailed human models to illustrate the jet’s interior design.

A project to create a web-site of VRML models and animations of ASL signs. The IRC created the web-delivered avatars along with motion capture data for the signs.

Virtual Dave was exhibited at Maryland Art Place accompanying an exhibition of work by IRC founding director David Yager. This interactive animation allowed up to four users to “probe” a virtual David Yager using a Plastic Camera and toy medical instruments.

The IRC was commissioned by Art Modell, owner of the Baltimore Ravens football team, to create a 3D animated version of the team’s logo and symbol, the Raven. The project allowed UMBC students to create 3D animated mascots to rally fans during home games

Many of architects Louis Kahn’s most significant designs were never built. Unbuilt Hurva, is a pilot visualization that presents the unrealized design of the Hurva Synagogue as a virtual photorealistic building, complete with a live action host.

Working with Interactive Children’s Televison, the IRC developed a 3-dD animated character for the educational show It’s Kinder Time. KinderCat was designed as a hip, fresh character who would appeal to a diverse multi-cultural audience.

Animation brings to life the award winning children’s book and symphony of the same name. 15 UMBC student interns each animated a sequence of the video.