DIORAMA ENGINE

Environments that behave like places.

Diorama Engine takes a scene — a panorama, a reconstruction, a showroom, a wall of work — and performs it. Light moves across the day. Content opens where someone looks. The same package runs on a kiosk in the room, a phone in a pocket, and a browser anywhere else.

Open the Triassic demo

A working Diorama Engine demonstration.

Triassic forest of the Blue Mesa, c. 225 million years ago. Artwork by Victor Leshyk, Paleovista.

A walk through the Triassic.

One minute inside the package — the Blue Mesa day moving, points of interest opening, inviting a visitor to actually interact, or simply watch it evolve…

DEMO CLIP — recorded from the running Diorama Engine.
Like a player piano, the Triassic Journey Package is the sheet music being performed. Nothing in this demo clip is animation. It captures an actual user exploring a journey autonomously, clicking on what calls to them, while the main score plays along in harmony.
Try it yourself »

What it looks like running.

Frames from the Triassic package — the way in, content opening, two ways through, and the shell it is all authored in.

Tap any frame to see it whole.

The way in The way in
The scene, four languages, and the accessibility controls on the same screen as the play button.
Content opens where you look Content opens where you look
A point of interest open over the scene, which keeps running behind it.
One way through One way through
The board — every point of interest in the journey, as a persistent tile grid.
And another way through And another way through
The atlas — every journey in the package, plus the lobby, invoked over the scene.
Content you can handle Content you can handle
A drag-to-compare block inside a card — the visitor moves the handle themselves.
Catalogued, not just illustrated Catalogued, not just illustrated
A specimen card — the same package, a completely different register from the animal scenes.
Where the content is made Where the content is made
The authoring shell over the live scene — text in four languages, media, hotspot position and styling.
What the venue controls What the venue controls
Audio, timing, attract behaviour and accessibility, without touching the content.

One engine, and a package it performs.

The engine knows nothing about the Triassic. It reads a content package — images, timings, text, effects, translations — and performs whatever is in it.

Swap the package and the same engine performs a different place: a canyon, a shop floor, an excavation, a gallery wing. That is the whole architecture, and it is the reason a second installation is mostly authoring rather than engineering. It is also why a venue can change what a visitor reads on a Tuesday without anyone rebuilding software.

Time and weather

A day passes over the scene — sun angle, sky colour, stars, moon, mist, rain, and ambient life. Computed while you watch rather than pre-rendered, so no two visits sit at the same moment.

Anchored content

Points of interest fixed to places in the illustration. A visitor taps one and a card opens: text, images, video, or an interactive module, in whichever language they chose at the door.

Several ways through

A tile board, a timeline, a filmstrip, or the scene itself. Which one a venue gets is an authoring decision rather than a build, and it can differ between the kiosk and the phone in the same package.

One deployment, every screen

The same package serves a wall-mounted kiosk, a visitor's phone, and a desktop browser. Layouts reflow to the screen in front of them; nothing is rebuilt per device.

Authored, not coded

Scenes, timing, effects, and translations live in the content package. Day-to-day changes are content changes, and they do not route through a developer.

The Diorama Engine is built for rooms with people in them. Screens that run for eleven hours and go back to an attract loop when nobody is there. Phones held in one hand in bright daylight. Screen readers, reduced motion, and four languages in the same package. The unglamorous half is most of the work.

The same place, twelve hours apart.

One viewpoint, one package, two moments. Drag the handle.

Neither of these is a video or a second painting — the light, the sky, the moon and the water are computed while the visitor watches, so no two visits sit at the same moment.

The Triassic scene at midday The same scene at night MIDDAY NIGHT

From a projected wall to the palm of a hand.

Every frame here is the same content package as the ones above — not a mobile version, not a cut-down build.

The layout reflows to whatever surface it lands on: a wall, a kiosk, a tablet on a plinth, a phone held sideways in daylight. Turn the device and it reflows again.

The board, portrait The board on a phone in portrait
The board on a phone — every scene in the journey, stacked for one hand.
Compare, under a thumb The drag-to-compare block on a phone
The drag-to-compare block on a phone — the handle works under a thumb.
Landscape, afternoon The board on a phone in landscape, afternoon
The board on a phone in landscape, mid-afternoon.
Landscape, after dark The same board on a tablet after dark
Now on a tablet, the same board, after dark. The day cycle runs on every surface.

Three ways people are using it.

The engine doesn't change between these. The content package does.

Interpretive installations

Interpretive installations

Museums, parks, science centres, visitor centres. A reconstruction or a landscape that a room full of people can walk up to, in four languages, running eleven hours a day and returning to an attract loop when nobody's there.

Live: the Triassic package above, and an event package at Northern Arizona University.

Collections and showrooms

Collections and showrooms

Galleries, studios, makers, retail. A wall of work becomes a scene: each piece an anchored point, opening to whatever you want beside it — provenance, process, dimensions, price, a video of the thing being made.

The same machinery as the Triassic demo, pointed at a wall instead of a floodplain.

Deployable presentations

Deployable presentations

For researchers, artists and specialists who need to show work somewhere and can't carry the room with them. Author the package once, then run it on a conference screen, a laptop, a tablet handed across a table, or a link.

Authoring happens in the shell shown here — no code, and no developer between you and a change.

A time machine bringing the past to the present.

A Triassic Blue Mesa snapshot, come to life.

Thirteen points of interest across a landscape reconstructed by paleoartist Victor Leshyk, with a full day cycle running over it. Not a video and not a slideshow — the engine, performing the package, on whatever screen you open it with.

Give it a minute before you tap anything. The light is doing something.

Open the Triassic demo

A working demonstration. The engine and its artwork are proprietary; device and network details are recorded while it runs — what this site collects.

Where it runs.

“Adapting space and time around my storylines in ways I never imagined.” Victor Leshyk, paleoartist — Paleovista, LLC

Paleovista

Victor's reconstructions are the artwork behind the Triassic package, and his installations are where the engine keeps finding its next room.

ECOSS Sci-Art Show 2026

Northern Arizona University. An event package launched from the show's own pages — the same engine, a different content package, standing up in days rather than months.

A prehistoric forest museum, France

A second package, authored in French, currently in build. Same engine, no fork.

Petrified Forest National Park

In discussion for an interpretive installation.

Tell us what you're working on.

If you have a room, a trail, a wall, or an artwork and you're wondering what it would take, write and say so.

Enquiries are answered personally, usually within a day.

Your message is emailed to us and kept only so we can reply. It isn't added to a list, sold, or shared — what this site collects.

Sent. We'll come back to you.