We have the tools. We have the techniques. Now, what happens when you put technology for tracking physical objects into the hands of artists around the world?

On June 6, members of the CDM community joined in our first “global hackday,” assembling tangible interfaces on tracking tables. Martin Kaltenbrunner of reacTIVision and the reacTable joined us from Vienna, Austria, while Adam Kumpf of the OpenFrameworks-powered Trackmate and MIT Tangible Media Group chatted from Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Much of the day was about saying “hello, world,” and helping each other through getting cameras working, troubleshooting, and the like. But there was an extraordinary variety of ideas even in one day. I can only imagine where things might go from here. I can also see the tools people were developing as being expressive for live visuals and visual performance - and via a really cheap interface, too.

Some of the accomplishments of our first day:

• Endless ideas: Drawing interfaces using objects, a floor tom as a housing, a musical instrument with soda bottles as the interface, a game with blocks featuring the Tokyo skyline, and others.
• Troubleshooting data: Both the Trackmate and reacTIVision projects got lots of feedback about how people were using the tools, where tracking was and wasn’t working, and where people got stuck up. We also compiled lots of information on cameras, drivers, builds, and operating systems. I’m working with Adam and Martin to dig through a lot of this information so we can compile a really practical guide to make it easier for people to create their own projects.
• Special guests: Marco had his augmented magic show and we had the beginnings of an interactive glove. Check out the video highlights to see what the NYC event was like.
• noisepages for networking, and other tools: Livestream video was a bit of a mixed bag; I’m still looking for easier ways of doing that (both on the video shooting side and the streaming side.) Text chat was an easy win, though IRC can still be cumbersome; I’m looking into integrating standardized XMPP chat instead, and providing access via any client or a webpage. But the other big success story was that noisepages worked nicely for documentation; see the fritzcrate and i3games sites for great examples!

Building Communities Around the World

A real highlight to me was getting to hear from Valeria (jalea.tv) and Jose (Estado Lateral Media Lab), visiting New York from Argentina. They talked about what the scene is like in Buenos Aires, and touched on issues of community, learning, open source, and the multilingual world of coding. And they do some really beautiful and hip visual work, both commercial and experimental. We also wound up with a significant amount of the online chat being in Spanish. That to me is a healthy sign - “global” really doesn’t necessarily translate to “English.”

Hackday Results, and the Future

For more documentation, head to our noisepages site:

Tangible Interface Hackday: The Projects (So Far)
http://hackday.noisepages.com/

http://trackmate.sourceforge.net/
http://reactivision.sourceforge.net/

And, yes, this is only the beginning. My suspicion is that a single weekend would be enough to get workable tracking projects going - especially as we iron out some technical wrinkles. But we’d certainly love to do more of this, whether it’s another “official” hackday or simple an open lab with chat and sharing.

To continue this moving forward, you can join the Tangible / Multi-touch Interfaces group on noisepages.com:
Tangible + Multi-Touch noisepages Group

And I’d like to brainstorm how we might proceed, whether it’s a formal event or a sort of online open lab. You can join that conversation on the group:
Let’s make every day a Global Hackday - the event continues

noisepages is still in alpha state, but we’re working aggressively to move forward to beta, and content placed there is safe and future-proof. (Most importantly, I’ve fixed the jpeg library on the server so that avatars work!)

We look forward to hearing from you.

The need for spatial, 3D interfaces is prompting students and inventors to try some creative and economical solutions. Earlier this week, we saw a touch-free, gestural interface built entirely on the principles of electrostatic – yes, as in static electricity. (See the original story, with video.)

Justin Schunick of the team at Northeastern University wrote CDM with more details on the project.

I am the guy who is talking in the video.  We filmed this in our lab today.  We are all seniors in Electrical/Computer Engineering at Northeastern University and this was created for a senior design
competition called "Capstone".  What you see here is a culmination of ~8 months work.

The interface uses an array of copper electrodes to sense a certain change in the electric field created by the device.  The black material covering the electrodes shows how the interface can be hidden beneath surfaces to create a completely invisible interface. It is simple black felt you can buy at any fabric store.  The total cost of this prototype was around $60.00 USD.  [Ed.: Justin notes that that was just an estimate of the parts themselves - let's just say it wasn't pricey. -PK] We created custom software to communicate with our microcontroller with C++ and it enables us to use our device as a new type of XYZ computer mouse.  Think nintendo wii controller without the controller — or minority report without the gloves.  This is a perfect interface for a holographic display.  There are millions of applications and we are just scratching the surface - I am sure you are already thinking of all the possibilities enabled by this device.

And yes, I was right that the whole thing is built around a big felt blanket.

I’m thinking of one possibility – something useful to do with your Snuggie (half sweater, half blanket) after the bar crawl. As seen in the WTF Blanket (NSFW, at least with the sound on, depending on where you work).

In all seriousness, while you probably can’t say this of the Snuggie with a straight face, this 3D interface is truly an awesome use of mundane, everyday technology you take for granted.

More photos:

3D Computer Interface from Free Flow on Vimeo.

During long winters with indoor heat running overtime, I imagine you’ve built up your fair amount of static electricity, and as the sparks fly, wondered why you couldn’t put that power to some good use.

Working with electrostatics, a team of students at Northeastern University in Boston have done just that. For their senior design capstone project, they assembled a gestural interface which allows 3D control just by waving a hand in front of a computer. That sort of idea is all the rage these days. The difference here: there’s no camera, no IR emitters, no markers or physical controllers.

You just move your hand in three-dimensional space, and the control data is transmitted to the computer. In fact, it’s one of the more touchless interfaces I’ve seen since the father of them all, the Theremin.

That does appear to be a blanket underneath their hand. Now, being the glutton for punishment I am, I want to figure out a way to do this in which there are sparks.

More on this project as I learn about it, but it looks like it’s got some great potential. The bottom line to me is that there’s every reason to begin interacting with three-dimensional onscreen interfaces using spatial physical interfaces. Joysticks and mice actually do a reasonably good job, but they don’t cover the entire gamut of what’s possible. Now it’s up to the software to start using that control data.

lb to sf via bike from vince mckelvie on Vimeo.

What will become of 3D gaming engines when in the hands of new digital artists? You’ll get plenty of surprises and unexpected artwork. This is no ordinary California bicycle trip: it’s a trippy, Magical Mystery Tour in 3D, played as a game from a (real) stationary bike.

Reader Bince McKelvie writes to describe his project:

Lb to Sf via bike is an interactive installation/game that documents a bike trip my friend and I took from long beach to san francisco. The user rides a stationary bike through a the 3d world by pedaling forward and steering with the bike handle bars. The world consists of three mini games and a huge chunk of the california coast. I am going to be releasing a version that is playable on a computer without the hardware soon. It is made with the blender game engine, a bit of processing, a wii controller and the makingthings board.

By the way, if you happen to be near CalArts in Valencia, the piece will be exhibited there May 2-15.

With the exception of the (very affordable) Wii controller, this is all free and open source technology in the toolchain. In addition to Processing [site | cdmo tag], it’s a fascinating use of the Blender Game Engine. Not satisfied with being just a hugely-powerful, free and open-source, triple-platform (Mac/Windows/Linux) 3D design tool and video composition tool, Blender also has a real-time engine built in – something well worth considering if you’re looking for a live 3D performance and installation environment. That’s already gotten attention for this piece from the excellent Blender blog BlenderNation.

The 3D models and physics are sometimes a bit rough around the edges, but I actually rather like that effect: in a world of look-alike, big budget 3D creations, I can imagine a renaissance of “outside art” for 3D.

Hope to have more details on this and the tools soon.

I just recently got my BUG developer hardware from Bug Labs and have begun to work with it. The idea: a Linux-powered, open source mini computer with little modules you snap on and off like Lego bricks to form whatever gadget you want. It has a lovely development environment, connects intelligently to the Web, and has some significant power behind it, but the real usefulness is in its modules. That makes today’s announcement more important, because the BUG gets some really interesting modules:

• BUGprojector, 480×320 pico-projector with TI DLP inside. 9 lumens, but then the thought of doing a performance for three close friends is kind of nice … like VJing in a closet somewhere.
• BUGsound, audio input / output and speaker, with internal audio processing on the hardware itself. Just got the dev module of this.
• BUG GSM, for unlocked 3G phone capabilities – GSM, text, the lot.
• BUGwifi: 802.11b/g + Bluetooth 2.0, which allows both wireless connections with computers and gadgets and connectivity with Bluetooth hardware (like headsets)
• BUGbee: 802.15.4 radio for short-range networking – often superior to 802.11b/g for certain applications.

Unfortunately, that’s all we know, because pricing, specs, availability, info, and even photos of most of this aren’t yet available. Fortunately, I live a short subway ride away from BUG Labs, so I hope to have details.

Add these to current modules with accelerometers, proximity sensors, GPS positioning, a touchscreen, camera (still/video), and even a new vonHippel module that turns this into an I/O device for sensors and robotics (and can even connect to Arduino).

Bug Labs Announces New BUGmodules and Applications at CES 2009 [Bug Labs]

I think there are powerful possibilities for what BUG describes as “hardware mash-ups,” and in the context of the CDM sites, unusual new concepts for performance, installation, and mobile art. The only challenge I see is that even with these snap-on modules, the capabilities of the Google Android platform or a small laptop pose a considerable threat. That’s not to say it’s an either/or choice, though, as there are strengths and weaknesses to each, so it really depends on the project. I hope to show off a bit more of what this means practically and creatively soon, and you can bet I’ll be watching for more module details – particularly that projector.

In fact, BUG, any chance of the projector as a hackable standalone, too, and some sort of video out on the BUG?

Who’s von Hippel? Why, it’s Eric von Hippel of MIT. Here’s what he has to say about democratizing innovation (well, beyond what you have to buy his book for). It really cuts to the heart of what this gadget is all about.