Madison Buffalo Jump Virtual Reality Project — Intro
Last year my wife applied for and received a seed grant from Potlatch Fund to create a virtual tour of the Madison Buffalo Jump. The goal of this project is to build a prototype virtual reality application to help protect the endangered Madison Buffalo Jump. It will be a showcase of the buffalo jump’s relationship to indigenous peoples throughout Montana. This project is a coordinated effort between the non-profit organizations Friends of Madison Buffalo Jump and Buffalo Tongue — I am cofounder and a board member of the Native American run Buffalo Tongue nonprofit.
The Madison Buffalo Jump State Park is an important and sacred location that preserves a Native American communal hunting site. It has been used for thousands of years but is endangered by commercial housing development. It was almost destroyed by developers if not for The Friends of Madison Buffalo Jump, a non-profit run by my friend Bill Goold.
A more in-depth explanation of the project’s goals will be on the BuffaloTongue.org and Friends of Madison Buffalo Jump support websites. On this site I will be exploring the technical side of this project, I am a software developer and have a Masters of Science in Computer Science.
This VR app is Buffalo Tongue’s first project and I am the technical lead on this effort. Since I have been experimenting with the Oculus Rift and Google Cardboard, I figured I would direct my interest in VR toward a worthy cause.
My overarching technical goal is to create an interactive experience that showcases how my ancestors used the site. The goal is to build an animated 3D VR world where you can see and experience a pre-horse and rifle buffalo hunt. I realize this is ambitious so the first step is simply to create a minimum viable product that demonstrates our intentions to potential supporters. We took our first step towards the demo last weekend by creating panoramic photographs and filmed stereoscopic video of the Madison Buffalo Jump.
The next step is to create a simple proof of concept website using the WebGL VR framework A-frame and Google StreetView generated panoramic images. If I have time I would also like to create an actual iOS app using Unity 5 and the GoPro footage we created.
We are chasing a deadline to create a tangible demo for Tribal Cultural Committee meetings for Montana Tribes in March. A key component of the project is to encourage the tribes of Montana to voice their support for preserving the Buffalo Jump by contributing cultural knowledge and content for our application.
With this content we will build a Unity 5 based app with limited interaction using stereoscopic video and panoramic pictures. The cultural content provided by our tribal partners will form the basis of the experience.
My father, a traditionally raised Lakota, told me stories about buffalo jumps since I was a kid. I am excited to participate in a unique and challenging technical project that preserves my heritage. Check back on this site for more technical details as this project progresses.
I promise it will get nerdier.
