This project is an HTML-based interactive display for the Captain's Office exhibit which demonstrates that common "web design" practices can be used to create off-line, open-source, hardware and OS independent interactive display elements - without the high cost and inconvenience of relying on outside vendors and/or proprietary systems.

The exhibit includes two vitrines containing Captain Larry Ernst's Dress White and Service Blue uniforms. Each uniform includes his decorations: medals, ribbons, and insignia. I was initially requested to create "static" signage to identify and explain each of the decorations. But after a first draft, I proposed making the "signage" interactive instead.

While I quickly built an interactive demo of the concept in Power Point, the final products are two "HTML web sites". Each is locally hosted on its display hardware - one on a Windows mini-computer connected to a touchscreen display, and the other on a 10" tablet computer. Both touchscreens allow visitors to tap a decoration and see its details.

The Dress White display is presented in portrait orientation on a 22" diagonal, 1920 x 1080 pixel touchscreen display. It was designed to be mounted in a wooden picture frame and secured to the bulkhead (wall), replicating the look of a "shadow box" - commonly used to showcase a retired US Service Member's military career achievements.

While my concept was to wall-mount the framed touchscreen forward of the Dress White uniform vitrine, it is currently unframed and mounted on a stanchion, aft of the vitrine. It also shows a previous design iteration of the HTML file. Shots of the touchscreen display, as installed, can be seen below the following Chrome browser screen caps.

The project team included Manny Arias: hardware, Bill Coleman: research, and Albert Munoz: initial project management.

The Service Blue Uniform display (below) is designed for use on a landscape-oriented, stanchion mounted 1280 x 800 pixel, touchscreen tablet. The Service Blue Uniform shows the same decorations as the Formal White, but with all medals represented by ribbons.

Although it was installed and delivered on one of the museum's tablets shortly after the Dress White wall display, it has not yet been integrated into the exhibit.

My proposal was to switch each uniform to the opposite vitrine and then move the vitrines slightly aft, toward the animatronic Captain. This would have allowed both the stanchion-mounted tablet display on the left and the wall-mounted display on the right, to be placed forward of their vitrines, and thus be more obvious to museum visitors.