So many inspirational projects, heres a few

Throughout all stages of the course so far, I have been researching projects, each using a selection of the softwares mentioned above. The following is a list of projects and links which have inspired me from the early days prior to the development of my scenarios.

Project name: Lights On! Keplers Watch (2009)

What was used: Architectural lighting, software, loudspeakers

Description: Lights and Sound performance, it consisted of both permanent and performance installation components. The performance, featured light patterns synchronised to music.

Link: http://frey.co.nz/lightson

Project name: Olympic Oval Vancouver

What was used: OpenFrameworks

Description: A visual installation which has two pieces. The first is a building projection and the section an installation part where users can interact with the ribbons.

Link: http://www.openframeworks.cc/gallery/olympic-oval-vancouver-realtime-video

Project name: Amsterdam Metropol 2040(2009)

What was used: Software, projector

Description: An interactive metropol – data visualisation projected on to a table from overhead, visitors interact using 9 ipod devices installed on the table.

Link: http://frey.co.nz/mm2040

Project name: Audience

What was used: Sensors, software, motors

Description: An installation of 64 head-sized mirrors which synchronise and turn their heads towards the object. It uses individual tracking using optical flow, to help stick with that person through the crowd and also uses blob tracking.

Link: http://www.chrisoshea.org/projects/audience/

Project name: Waves to Waves to Waves

What was used: Sensors, software, loudspeakers

Description: This project visualises and sonifies ambient electromagnetic energy by using devices sensitive to changes in electromagnetic fields.

Link: http://frey.co.nz/waves

Project name: Sounds Like Light, Lights Like Sound

What was used: LED lights, computer vision tracker, software, loudspeakers

Description: is an interactive immersive installation which converts space into a playful environment for the exploration of sound and light

Link: http://frey.co.nz/sll

Where to start.....ideas, ideas, ideas

Well here goes my first blog. I was never very good at keeping a diary or anything like that but I promise to try my best to keep ontop of this one. So my project.....its always hard to know where to start so i guess ill start with what I can do, what I have done and what I love to do.....

What I can do - my Skill Set
Flash - Industry Level
Photoshop - Industry Level
In Design - Industry Level
Illustrator - Industry Level
3D Studio Max - Basic
Java - Degree Level
After Effects - Basic
Premier Pro - Degree Level
Logic - This year only

Areas of Interest
Irish Dance - I have been partaking in Irish dance since the age of three and it has been more than just a hobby it has been my life. When I started college my efforts to practice all the time slackened so I currently help out teaching the class at home. I plan to do my teachers as soon as i finish the course.

Drama - Iv always been involved in drama, and like to think that im good at it. I have gone to many courses including Gormanstown and taken part in classes thoughtout the years. When i went to college I was head of the drama society in LIT which I loved every minute of. I also did a course with Shane Munroe (Guy from one of the Bulmers ads) in screen acting which are hopes I still havnt fully left behind. Im a firm believer of being able to achieve anything I put my mind to, and so far in college I have done just that and loved every minute of it. Who knows what the future brings.

Performance - of all shapes and forms. This ties in with the two above but I purposely stuck it in separate here as performance of all types of dance and music also tie in here.

Technology - Yes it is true, I am a nerd when it comes to technology. If I hear about something I have to go look it up and see what its all about. As for programming, I can honestly say I love the feeling when its all solved (even if it does take copious amounts of coffee...)



Project Concepts -
Motion - the use of the body to control. The Wii fit first took my interest as it moved away from the controller method of interaction. I think this is an area that will vastly change in time.

SenseCam - after doing a project on Microsofts SenseCam I have become hooked. Iv read every article out there I can find on MyLifeBits and the SenseCams possible use in many areas. I carried out research on possible areas of use and think this would be a fascinating are to explore for my thesis. Also, we are lucky enough to have one here in U.L. which would be great to get to carry out trials with.

Augmented Reality - I first came across it when I say an article in a design magazine. The gave you the name of a website to go onto and a black graphic to hold up in front of your web cam. I had never come accross this before and can honestly say from the first moment I was fascinated....

Continuation of my Degree Project -
For my degree I created a website that was truly designed around the user. It was aimed at young Irish dancers who were traveling to competitions frequently. It gave many guides and tips for the day, as well as listings and results. It also included a costume creator section, where the user could pick the colors and patterns and preview what their new costume would look like. I wanted to extend this to display a 3D model of the costume and allow the user to choose their hair color and skin color in order to get a full preview of their costume before purchase.

Inspiration that has lead me to my idea so far

At the beginning of the course I was advised to attend workshops during the Tweak festival in Limerick and it was from here my inspiration first began. I attended two workshops, which were the Arduino workshop and the OpenFrameworks workshop. I found them very interesting and from the minute I stepped in the door ideas began flowing. These two workshops were my initial inspiration for my project, a discription of each can be found below.

The Arduino workshop

Arduino is an embedded system platform based on a simple open hardware design for a single-board microcontroller, with embedded I/O support and a standard programming language. (1) The first half of the Arduino workshop entailed an introduction to the microcontroller, which included example projects paying particular attention to physical computing and how humans express themselves physically. We looked at the integration of sensors, actuars and microcontrollers, and the possibilities of combining it with software such as Quartz composer a visual programming language which is part of the mac environment for processing and rendering graphical data, Processing which is free software used to program images animation and interactions and PureData a graphical programming language mainly used for the creation of music but also used for multimedia. The second part of the workshop entailed hands on work, where we programmed and implemented basic sensors and led lights and also looked at additional components from Spark Fun Electronics. The Arduino language is based on C/C++ and although I had not studied this language I implemented it with ease, due to my knowledge of Java which is also an object orientated programming language. The goal of the Arduino project is to make tools available that are accessible, low-cost, low capital investment, flexible and easy-to-use for artists and hobbyists, particularly those who might not otherwise have access to more sophisticated controllers that require more complicated tools.(2) For this reason I was intrigued as to how I could make use of the Arduino in future projects and I began researching current implementations in the area of Interactive Media, of which I will explain more further on.

The OpenFrameworks workshop

We began the workshop by being introduced to OpenFrameworks which is an open source C++ toolkit for creative coding. We looked at how and why it was developed and we were shown example projects, which have been undertaken using OpenFrameworks. I will look into a selection of these projects later in this report. We then downloaded code from the OF website and implemented it. This allowed us to see the ease of use of OF as an open source software and also tested my ability to adapt the code to our needs. I found myself running ahead of the brief, trying out new and interesting implementations. The second part of the workshop involved tracking the motion of a user using the imbedded camera on a mac book. We discussed the advances in the area of motion tracking / blob tracking and flow motion tracking and also the current limitations such as passing objects, etc. After the work shop we discussed possible projects and what we would like to try using OF.

Semester One Modules

Much of the software I had heard mentioned at the above workshops began to creep into the material I was reading and also began being implemented in class. For this reason, I gained the ability to expand my ideas across many domains, with the implementation and interaction of various software.

MAX/MSP and PureData

I took an elective in MIDI programming in semester one where we were introduced to MAX/MSP. Here we learnt the basics of the software and towards the end of the year undertook a project which allowed a more advanced learning of its possible use. For this project I choose to add additional features so as to gain experience with the program. I connected a Java patch to the patch which read in information which was used to adjust the display of the Quartz file. By integrating software I gained a better understanding of MAX/MSP. As of yet I have not used PD to a great extent, however, due to its similarity to MAX/MSP and the fact that it is open source I plan to use it to a greater extent in future work.

Quartz

I had heard Quartz mentioned during the workshops and also in the projects I had researched, however, had not worked with it myself. During the year for our assignment for MIDI and Programming we got the opportunity to work with Quartz. The assignment had not requested that we change the Quartz file but in order to understand the possibilities of the program I decided to adjust the patch for this assignment. I only touched on the functions of Quartz, but was inspired by what it was capable of doing.

Project concepts Im planning to explore and develop

After working with the software mentioned in previous posts to varying degrees I began to research possible project concepts. The following is a description of my initial idea which is currently yet in an early stage.

Initinal idea
I plan to implement an interactive motion detection device which projects a visual display relevant to the movement of the user. Using a sensor I will track the motion of the user. The sensor which will be implemented using an arduino will then be connected to a display device. By using OpenFrameworks I plan to implement a motion detection program using the information coming from the arduino and code it before sending it to PD which will carry out the nesseccary changes and send the relevant information to the Quartz file. The Quartz file will then display the visuals to the user.

Stage two idea
After discussing the project ideas with many people the importance of the link between sound and music became evident. I plan to use information coming from the audio playing in order to effect the visuals patch also. One possible way of doing this could be having the user play the audio file on the computer which the arduino is also connected to. This means I can read information from the track regarding pitch and combine this information with the motion information in the PD file. Another option would be that the speed of the music is controlled by the movement.

Possible additions
After looking at projects which were carried out implementing building projections I began to brainstorm regarding the projection aspect of the project. Rather than displaying the image on a screen, the visuals could be projected onto a number of canvas, for example a building.