VEX Expanding Virtual Services in Exhibition business

1
VEX Expanding Virtual Services in Exhibition
business

• Giorgio Valle
• Università di Milano

2
Project objectives

• Designing web-based support for
• present operations
• innovative services
• Started in 1997

3
TradeShows now

• predefined amount of exhibition area
• no advance stand location information
• interaction between visitors and exhibitors when
  visiting stands
• everything closes when show ends

4
The players

• TradeShow organisers
• Exhibitors
• Visitors

5
VISITORS

• PROS
• are able to explore the state-of-the-art being
  fully immersed in the concrete products and
  interact directly with experts (in contrast
  with e-business purchases and on-line catalogues)
• CONS
• must repeat several times their requirements
  and loose time to fill in several
  different forms
• walk around the booths without a driving guide
  and feel in the end to have lost their time
• are confused by several different messages, not
  tailored for their specific needs

6
EXHIBITORS

• CONS
• are not able to keep history of visitors
  profiling and are confined only to people
  physically visiting them
• message and advertising material have not been
  tailored for the specific visitors' needs

7
VEX services

• From 2D stand layout to a 3D rendered scenary of
  realistic exhibition stands
• Catalog expands into a hypertext with information
  from exhibitors
• Users can access the Exhibitions info
• before
• during
• after the planned operational days

8
Benefits to Organiser

• Added value to traditional visitors
• Possible Concurrent Virtual and Real exhibition
  areas
• All virtual when Show closes
• New e-services in between scheduled Exhibitions

9
Benefits to Exhibitors

• Exhibition layout is visible in advance and
  company communication is better focused
• Much more direct interaction with previous
  e-visitors
• Exhibited products could be sold on-line

10
Benefits to Visitors

• Advance looking at floor layout
• Planning visits to stand and set appointments
• Items could be searched on-line through companys
  products database

11
Project feature

• It is a Web data-intensive application
• graphics realism is limited
• (virtual representation of the Fairground is
  meant to help the users find its way)

12
Prototype implementation

• Unix environment
• Database MySQL
• Scripts PHP

13
Unix

• Pros
• Open Source application SW
• easier portability
• better scalability
• security supports

14
MySQL

• Pros
• Relational DBMS
• access privileges
• Efficient to handle large databases
• Multi-threaded
• concurrency

15
PHP

• Pros
• HTML language embedded
• Platform independent
• extensible through API

16
Virtual Fair Layout

• 
  

17
VRML97

• Pros
• Vector-based graphics representation
• Good visualisation
• Possibility of animation

18
VRML97

• Cons
• Syntax complexity
• low realistic visualisation

19
Show Organizers reaction

• no interest at all since last year
• www.neoexpo.it / Smau365
• http//www.3dstate.com
• http//www.3dstate.com/StandsGallery