SOS Explorer® 1.4 Release Notes

In SOSx 1.4 the virtual reality feature is fully supported. Other work includes ways to localize and personalize the exhibit for individual sites to improve the customization capabilities including more language support.

In SOSx 1.4.1 we integrated a feature that will auto-upgrade your SOSx version automatically upon start-up if you are out of date. This way you will never have to manually upgrade or miss out on new data (that requires a new version) again! We have also included some really fun new animal migration datasets including a humpback whale, a loggerhead sea turtle and a great white shark!

Release Date

Version 1.4.1: May 2018
Version 1.4: November 2017

New Features and Improvements in 1.4.1

Software auto-update upon load
Audio capabilities in tour place marks
Nested 360 bubbles in tours
Time-matching support for movie-based datasets
Large scale models of animals as part of migration datasets
Population widget to count people in the population dataset
Numerous bug fixes
Zooming window “explorer” on the Mandlebrot Fractal dataset

A large model of a sea turtle follows a yellow line up a coastline. — An example of the loggerhead sea turtle migration with large scale animal models.

New Features and Improvements in 1.4

Full Virtual Reality capability using Oculus Rift and Leap Motion technology
Capability to add 360 degree geolocated bubbles (spheres within the sphere) in order to add more localized and site-specific content to the exhibit
Capability to add ground overlay maps in order to add more localized and site-specific zoomed-in maps to the exhibit
Graphical user interface for configuring an exhibit, i.e. turn on VR, use one screen only, resize user interface on touchscreen
Improved language support for right to left languages, e.g. Hebrew
Compatibility with most interactive projectors and smart boards
Content: Tornado Experience allows users to learn about tornado safety, experience a tornado outside their window and choose where they take shelter. This experience also highlights SOSx compatibility with Unity game assets
Tour Builder upgrades: Graphical preview of textbox, video, and image placement; ability to add portions of datasets into tours, i.e. only the last week of Clouds - Real-time; ability to stay in 2D flat map mode without the software defaulting to the sphere; addition of ground overlays, bug fixes