MathML Track and SVG Track – We’re making good progress on integrating our summer work into the t24 document set. We’re staggering the release of the material of the MathML work to be on the same schedule as the SVG graphics which are still in production. We’re starting with an “alpha” release of the full document set by the end of the week, and moving into “beta” by the end of 2011. You can view our work in progress here. The majority of the work at this time is ensuring that the MathML equations parse correctly within PrinceXML 8.0 while generating the final document PDFs. So far, we have had success using the MathJax CDN, with our SVGMath equations as a fallback. It is very rewarding to see our work this summer begin to make a difference on this document set.

One such example of how much we are improving the art is below – Jasper’s equation is shown above the original JPG representation of the equation. Not only is it more pleasing to the eye (read: actually legible), but the code is now readable by machines (and even capable of audible renderings as we demonstrated at our Rural Design Collective Launch Party).

The next big step in functionality for this piece would be to write some of the more sophisticated equations in Content MathML so they could be used in mathematical software programs. All of our equations are written in Presentation MathML which is fine for this first stage – but it is fun to think of the possibilities!

WordPress Track – We are happy to announce that we are in technical support mode for New Artists Productions! At this time, all of our Kickstarter Rewards have been delivered, and the crew at NAP are successfully managing the site themselves (we especially like the new and improved slideshow on the home page!). We’ll be writing tutorials over the next few months for posterity – but for now, we are simply looking forward to the next New Artists Production: The Incan Princess!

AN UPDATE ON THE UPDATE: We’ll have a few more announcements regarding the status of our 2011 projects as we complete the document conversion phase. We’ll keep you posted through the usual channels … stay tuned

WordPress Track: Today we shipped out the majority of our Kickstarter rewards to our generous backers of our WordPress Track. We have a second shipment going out next week when we obtain some bumper-sticker sized envelopes … so keep your eye on your mailbox if you are expecting a care package from us! We also completed coding the stage and are beginning to write the tutorials to support transition of the site to New Artists Productions. We have received several emails from individuals interested in the content of the tutorials (as well as any code patches) and are working on the first draft which will become part of our Resource Library. We will post a notice here when those tutorials are available.

MathML Track: We are converting Jasper’s equations from MathML to SVG and testing our workflow. We have 486 equations in the repository, and have successfully rendered a test page using PrinceXML 8.0, which is our target software for the next step in the workflow: HTML → PDF transformations of the t24 documents containing the equations. We are on schedule for alpha release of this track and supporting documentation by the end of September (with some expected iteration as we refine the document set).

The SVG Track is moving into a new phase of development – we’re breaking down the remaining graphics into what can be more easily rendered using HTML/CSS (which was outside of the scope of the summer program). Development on this track will continue until the end of the year … Stay tuned!

Nate put a lot of work into his first serious movie production – and it shows! Congratulations, Nate!

Please note: We had some technical difficulties uploading the final cut – but we are trying again today, and the final version will be available here on Vimeo at approximately 7PM PDT.

We all learned and accomplished so much working together as a team. All that is left to do between now and the Rural Design Collective Launch Party on September 4th is to finish coding the stage – at that event, we’ll be rewarding our mentees, Jenn and Oceana, for their wonderful contributions to our project and begin sending out rewards to our generous Kickstarter backers.

Thank you for helping make 2011 another incredible year!

More news soon – Go #rdcHQ Go! …

As the graphics get more complex, we are encountering questions that may require a research trip to a library to clarify details of the original art files. We are flagging any graphics that are unclear and will revisit them in post-production. Fortunately, we haven’t come across a lot that fall under this category, but there is enough to merit a second look. Also, we are beginning to think about integration of these graphics into the t24 document set, and several of the charts and tables would be more easily represented in HTML as opposed to an SVG graphic. This will also be addressed in our post-production run.

In other SVG post-production news, we have the intent to contribute several of our public domain icons to the ICONATHON efforts, as we mentioned in a previous post. We plan to do so this Fall once we wrap-up our summer program for 2011. It has been an incredible season, and it has been such a great experience working with such a talented group of artists. We have one more week left in our program and then we celebrate with our annual Rural Design Collective Launch Party – hosted in tandem with “Art in the Information Age” at Point.B Studio this Labor Day weekend!

We’ll be spending the next week getting the site ready for our Rural Design Collective Launch Party on September 4th. This primarily involves completing the animated stage by adding the navigation into the site and the photography slideshow. We also have a pesky bug with IE9/Windows Vista that we are trying to track down (if you view the stage with this browser combination, the curtain will not open, and even though the site is not 100% ready yet, this is definitely a BUG not a FEATURE ).

The month of September will be devoted to writing tutorials to support the transition of the site, and helping New Artists Productions create the password-protected area for the participants in their program. Speaking of which, we spent much of this week’s session reviewing Users and Roles in Wordpress, and how we will utilize this feature to build this section of the site. We have an idea how this will work, and will be setting up a test page soon to “kickstart” this really cool feature.

Thank you to our kind and generous backers again – we could not have done this without your support! Thanks for supporting another successful #rdcHQ Project!

The Sandbox Speaks!

Surprisingly, MathPlayer does not work with the MathJax CDN, which is unfortunate given all of the other features that MathJax supports based on the prior work of Design Science. Hopefully, support for audio renderings for equations in ALL browsers is on the horizon. And although SVG is supported in Internet Explorer 9, the equations that we transformed to the SVG format using SVGMath are not rendering in Microsoft’s latest web browser offering. More news soon.

In more productive MathML news – Jasper has 70 equations left to author before we beta-test the workflow that we have developed. We’ll be releasing this with our documentation at the Rural Design Collective Launch Party!

Zoo Adventures, Part II

In RDC Home Movie News, Nate has released Part II of Zoo Adventures! He worked with Friend of the Rural Design Collective and mentor Dave Wilhite of PortOrford.TV to finesse some of the earlier parts of the video in iMovie, so we are re-publishing Part I as well.

Zoo Adventures, Part III is coming … next week … stay tuned!

Kickstarter News

We’re still on the fundraising campaign trail for our Wordpress Track. The funds we raise via Kickstarter go to our two mentees – Jenn and Oceana – who are working to make this project a reality! We have four days to go in our fundraiser, and we need just $294 to make our goal. Kickstarter is all-or-nothing funding, so we are hoping to raise the rest for this worthy project! The Rural Design Collective thanks YOU for your support!

SVG Meetup + RDC Launch Party!


We shifted gears in our SVG Track this week, working out a consistent style for graphs in the MEDIUM level. We added six new schematics to the repository, and are working on a new production schedule to extend the SVG Track into September. We are excitedly beginning preparations for our third annual art exhibit in the “Art in the Information Age” series – αἰτία – and our Rural Design Collective Launch Party where we share and celebrate the work we have been creating all summer with the art and design community.