Customer Experience

Ideum teams with National Gallery of Art on touchless kiosk

July 14, 2020

Working with the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., Ideum, an interactive design firm, will design a touchless kiosk that will orient visitors to the "nation's collection of fine art" with a wave of the hand, according to a press release. This zero-touch kiosk will allow visitors to safely interact without touching the screen or any physical interface elements.

This interactive entry experience will introduce visitors to the National Gallery of Art's collection and suggest a range of ways to browse and explore. The kiosk will offer suggested tours of the galleries based on a variety of themes, making artwork more accessible to visitors. The touchless technology system will allow visitors to use simple gestures to navigate and make selections.

The hardware system will include a depth-sensing device and an additional small display, and LEDs will provide real-time feedback to visitors as they interact with the kiosk. Ideum used the Intel RealSense depth camera D435 and Leap Motion controller for touchless gesture recognition. The software for the system is being developed with the Unity3D authoring platform.

The development of the kiosk will include the creation of prototypes and continuous user testing.

The kiosk will be deployed at the National Gallery of Art in the fall of 2020, and it will be made available to other museums, design firms and organizations as open-source software.

The open-source project received funding in part from Intel as part of their Pandemic Response Technology Initiative.

For an update on how the coronavirus pandemic has affected kiosks, click here.

Picture provided by Ideum.