The picture says it all. BBC Research & Innovation is considering presenting video in surround. Just as audio surround assumes a still-central source, enhanced by additional material in the 360-degree audio field, the idea here is to capture ambient visuals using a fish-eye lens and then project that beyond the screen.

Of course, whatever the (uh, dubious, potentially) practical applications of such technology, there are plenty of compelling directions this could lead VJs. In general, the ability to control more of the environment and break out of the rectangular frame helps live visuals and installations. And there are other consumer, examples, as well: TV maker Phillips has toyed with creating ambient, colored light that matches the on-screen image with Ambilight, something DIYers have already cloned (see Hack a Day).

Hmmm.. I think BBC should just give us all projectors and we’ll go work on it, eh?

Graham Thomas, one of the researchers, explains:

Surround Video is a means of visually immersing the viewer into a TV programme.

It is like surround sound, an optional extra that enhances viewing on a normal display. The idea is to use a wide angle (or fisheye) camera fixed rigidly alongside the normal camera shooting the programme, and project the image onto the walls, ceiling and floor of the viewer’s room.

Wait, you know, this could have practical applications — making English children hide behind the couch even more readily during Doctor Who.

Pic Of The Day: Surround Video [BBC Internet Blog]

Via ChromaTouch, aka Leon Trimble

John Hutchinson pointed us to this hack a day post about a new projector calibration system. Skip to minute 3:00 in the video to see the applications for multiple projections and non-rectangular, curved surfaces. It uses embedded light sensors in the projection surface and software — no projector hacks — and was created by researchers at Carnegie Mellon (pdf), Stanford, and Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs. Not only could this be a huge timesaver for groups like the Circus of Now, the time saved could be used to get really ambitious and experimental with your projection design.

Ed. Thanks to John Hutchinson for the tip!

Digital process has often been the enemy of craft. Italy, once the land of highly skilled typographers, calligraphers, and music engravers, has given way to static, boxed-up, boring fonts like the rest of the world. It’s only fitting, then, that some lovers of type and digital media would fight back.

Andren writes in to share his Master Degree Thesis in visual communication design at Politecnico di Milano, an open source investigation of type and process called “A Digital Remake.” The results are simply stunning: drawing upon the 1906 work of Edward Johnston on type, he reconstructs in digital form the process of constructing illuminated type. The translation from traditional media to digital manages to be loving without being slavish: this is truly a digital analog to the original process. Generating random particles and connecting them with beautiful curves, the new type evolves organically, unmistakably digital but rooted in the past.

A Digital Remake Project Page, with open-source code, poster guides to the project in PDFs in English and Italian, and Italian research
EXP Research Team blog

I can’t look at these without getting ideas for animated text. It’s surprising to me, in fact, that text hasn’t inspired more visualist exploration and live VJ sets. Previous font coverage here on CDM:

Free, Open Source, Remixable Fonts, and Embedding Fonts in Flash 9 / AS3

The project was coded in Python using NodeBox, a Mac OS X 2D design tool. The syntax and design concepts are actually not unlike Processing, and I could imagine Processing coders being inspired by the results to think of some analog in that tool, with the added option of 3D. Here’s a brief, oversimplified but hopefully vaguely accurate comparison of the two (I’ve only used Processing, not NodeBox):

It’s remarkable what a difference accurate multi-touch can make for interface design, especially when the surface is scaled relative to the human body (sorry, iPhone). Jeff Han’s work, widely spread around the blogosphere, is significant because his team has really rethought the whole interface. Gestures for moving things around in 3D space just make perfect sense. The only bad news is that large-scale back-projected screens take up space, and make possible a number of implementation details that wouldn’t work (for the time being) on smaller displays. The good news is, this kind of work could soon be finding its way into performances. Right now, live visualists still focus on the DJ mixer as their primary performance metaphor — a surprisingly deep resource, to be sure, but likely only scratching the surface of what could be possible.

Via Mac Rumors

Half of you readers right now I think are at NYU, so, ahem, feel free to fill us in. (Or join in a chorus of “Our Dear Old NYU”, if you like. Darnit, CUNY needs a song.)