In 1986, 900 years after William the Conqueror’s original Domesday Book, the BBC published the Domesday Project. The project was probably the most ambitious attempt ever to capture the essence of life in the United Kingdom. Over a million people contributed to this digital snapshot of the country.

What better way to present this fascinating content than to utilise the G2 Multi-Touch touch-screen by PQ Labs.

Aerian Studios conceptualised the project as-well as designing the user interface and graphics. We worked closely with BBC Domesday team to design a user interface that not only complemented historical data but also provided an exciting and modern experience for a wide range of users.

To allow the software to seamlessly load content on-the-fly as users interacted with the system, Aerian Studios processed and re-organised all of the hundreds of thousands of files that made up the Domesday project into a new rapidly-accessible structure. The task of aggregating what came to finally be 31 Gigabytes of data was not without its difficulties. To accomplish this task we developed a script to aggregate and process content extracted from the original Domesday Project Laserdiscs as well as new 2011 content. Thankyou to Sundive Networks which provided us with the key information necessary to make sense of all the data extracted from the Domesday Project discs.

Using the G2 touch-screen allowed eMoot Limited to write the software powering the project to respond to multiple finger interaction, natural pinch, zoom and flick gestures to providing an immersive and enthralling experience.

This project represented a significant technological leap in 1986 full of logistical challenges. We believe this reincarnation will allow people to discover, explore and lose themselves in this incredible project in a way previously impossible.

The Domesday Reloaded Touch-Table is available to the public at The National Museum of Computing in Bletchley Park.

Be sure to take a look at some of the great press coverage of the Domesday touch-screen and don’t forget, you can also explore the Domesday Reloaded project online, developed by Aerian Studios here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/domesday

A big Thankyou once again to everyone that was involved in making The Domesday Touch-Screen happen:

Bletchley Park
The National Museum of Computing
eMoot Limited
PQ Labs
Sundive Networks
BBC

To read more about the touch screen project go to this link on the BBC news site http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16053184

View the touch screen in action on vimeo here http://vimeo.com/33591133