5-in-5_Day3_Breathe

tease(a teaser)

More to come, too cold to edit at 4am…

**Update**

Inspired by Wriggles & Robins(check out theirs!)
Set up in my bedroom with window wide open at night, tempurature -12ºC/10ºF,
LG HX350T projector, a lot of layers, and hot water stand by. Animation made in AE!

For now, it’s just a one-day simple projecting test. For future, I’d love to connect this with more interactions, exploring possibility to be generic art of emotions and communications. Pam suggested using words recognition to tell user’s speaking content then it can easily avoid pre-rendering! Seems to be having a lot of potentials. Exciting!

Oh there’s one big cannot unsee problem. It’s restricted by the temperature and amount of breath! Hmmm…

5-in-5_Day2_Moving Eye

eyes

(click pic to play! Using keyboard’s ↑ ↓ ← →)

JavaScript, first time! Nearly die…. I think I’m too used to Java/C++ syntax and too greedy/ambitious to try to do projects with JS… I spent whole afternoon searching on internet, and although I did found some awesome source codes, they just simply blown my mind. SO FOREIGN.

Thanks to Andy‘s suggestion, I narrowed down my goal to make a simple bouncing image in window. And it worked! After kind of (really just kind of) understanding JavaScript’s syntax and structure, I added extra functions: auto-moving and controlled by arrow keys at same time, and speed up/slow down feature.

Below are some of the resources I found:

I know right? Crazy.

5-in-5_Day1_Unicorn Striking through the Grass

“n-in-n”, a tradition around ITP, where students complete n project in n day, over a certain number of days.

In this case, 5 days, 5 projects. Besides participating bunch of workshops held by amazing 2nd-years, for my Day1 project, I was thinking about doing StormLighter with this tutorial, but cut it off because of the shortage of materials. So I moved on to other new stuff: Capacity Sensing Library, which I always wanted to try, and RGB Led, because why not. For few hours here’s my rainbow-ish project result.

wires

unicorn_circuits

code

#include <CapacitiveSensor.h>

int redPin = 11;
int greenPin = 10;
int bluePin = 9;

int sendPin = 4;
int RreceivePin = 2;
int GreceivePin = 6;
int BreceivePin = 8;

CapacitiveSensor   cs_4_2 = CapacitiveSensor(4,2);
CapacitiveSensor   cs_4_6 = CapacitiveSensor(4,6);
CapacitiveSensor   cs_4_8 = CapacitiveSensor(4,8);

void setup()
{
  pinMode(redPin, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(greenPin, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(bluePin, OUTPUT);

  Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop()
{
  long start = millis();
  long total1 =  cs_4_2.capacitiveSensor(30);
  long total2 =  cs_4_6.capacitiveSensor(30);
  long total3 =  cs_4_8.capacitiveSensor(30);

  Serial.print(millis() - start);       
  Serial.print("t");                   
  Serial.print(total1);                 
  Serial.print("t");
  Serial.print(total2);
  Serial.print("t");
  Serial.println(total3);

  int colorR = (int)map(total1, 0, 100, 0, 255);
  int colorG = (int)map(total2, 0, 100, 0, 255);
  int colorB = (int)map(total3, 0, 100, 0, 255);

  setColor(colorR, colorG, colorB);

  delay(50);
}

void setColor(int red, int green, int blue)
{
  analogWrite(redPin, red);
  analogWrite(greenPin, green);
  analogWrite(bluePin, blue);  
}

references: 1, 2

Triangulation!

Triangulation.. Finally! Want it so bad for a semester. Luckily having a winter break to do it. Have a lot of rooms for improvement but still, one step further!

*UPDATE*(in the middle of writing this post UGH)

New version. Normal speed!

In the middle of documentation, the ill performance, both low speed running and wrong color picking bothered me a lot, so I went through the whole codes again and making adjustment around. And then I found out what the problem is! It’s the random plotting of points for triangles! It not only slows down the process, but also causes the ill performance of choosing the right color for the triangle. OH YEAH SO HAPPY. It’s the similar “bitter yet sweet moment” I usually will have when coding… I think I’m ready for the new semester!

Old version. x3 speed! Slow and chaos.

Old Line version. Slow but it seems to have better outcome with the random plotting points methods!!

 

Image Gallery

colorV20252line544outcome06 outcome01 outcome04 outcome02 outcome03 outcome05 outcome07

 

Basic idea of code

  1. capture image from webcam and save as PImage source
  2. iterate through source, pick up every pixel, compare either a) colors or b) brightness difference(I found comparing by colors will be more accurate).
  3. if the difference is bigger than certain threshold, plant a point in class Voronoi. Voronoi does all the calculation to transform points into triangles.
  4. for each triangle gotten out from Voronoi, using getCentroid() to pickup the color to fill the triangle built up with beginShape(), endShape() and vertex().
  5. wipe out Voronoi and build a new one every 10 frames to speed up the performance.

 

References

  • from Robbie Tilton. ITP alumnus! This is where my base came from! Clear description made me not afraid of trying the code out! From him, I got the idea of using Cols and Rows to boost up the performance, and plotting points for triangles with a random deviation of 5 pixels to make it look less grid-like(BUT randomness is not good for picking color, and it also slows down the performance).
  • from Jan Vantomme. Very well documentation! From him, I learned the difference between getCentroid() and getSites(), and also learned that, since getCentroid() and getSites() don’t return the voronoi regions and points in same order, to fill the right color for right position it has to be looped to iterate through, picking and filling up the color at the same time.

 

Inspiration & Further

 

Code, as below: Continue reading

Hacking flashlight for party!

Collaborated w/ Ziv, Alex, Jorge, and Kristina.

Long long time ago(Oct, 2013), Ziv came out of an idea for the photo booth of ITP Halloween party–> Photoboo, which is using strong light to frighten whoever walk in and taking pictures of them. Big success.

I was responsible for the light part and came out of an idea that just using the external flashlight kit of Canon 5D. With this reference, flashlight worked like a charm with a simple button(P.s. We used transistor instead of optoisolator).

Connected to the complicated Max/MSP patch Alex made, the flashlight triggered once infrared sensor detecting people approaching.

Here’s the simple circuit.

flashlight_hack

And here’s the code for Arduino.

#define CAMERA_FLASH_PIN 8
#define BUTTOM_PIN 2

void setup()
{
  pinMode(BUTTOM_PIN, INPUT);
  pinMode(CAMERA_FLASH_PIN, OUTPUT);
  digitalWrite(CAMERA_FLASH_PIN, LOW);
  Serial.begin(9600); // open serial
  Serial.println("Press the button to trigger the flash");
}

void loop()
{
  if (digitalRead(BUTTOM_PIN) == HIGH) {
    digitalWrite(CAMERA_FLASH_PIN, HIGH);
    delay(100);
    digitalWrite(CAMERA_FLASH_PIN, LOW);
  }
  else {
    digitalWrite(CAMERA_FLASH_PIN, LOW);

    Serial.println("Press the button to trigger the flash");
  }
}

 

And…. I also designed some frames for the Photoboo!

 

Happy time 😀

Quick notes after Winter Show 2013

Dope Ropes

doperope

Feedback

  • “Is it NIME? Just PComp? Wow good job guys, amazing!”
  • “What does it do?”
  • “Wow I like that, check this out, this is my favorite!”
  • “Why do you choose those sounds?”
  • advices for the ropes attachment
  • very satisfying when pulling
  • bell instrument
  • “Are they sex tool ropes?”
  • pretty on and off switch LED
  • “LED is fun.”
  • Are you a musician?
  • Can you compose song with this?
  • Using headphones for this.
  • Speakers can be located separately for each set.
  • People are afraid they’re going to pull it down; afraid to pull in the beginning

Aftershow Notes

  • too high to adjust, all the wires need to be glued to be stable
  • xbee data sending –> glitch!
  • pulling instrument –> potential, because it’s rare. The only association people have is ringing the bell.
  • people seems more related to recognizable sample sounds
  • pitch changing one needs to be more subtle and gentle
  • Pulling demonstration helps people understand

 

 

Glitchtchtchitch

glitchtchtchitch

Feedback

  • some just pass by
  • some enjoy it, standing for a long time and coming back later
  • people feel more comfortable when I’m not beside the stand
  • watching –> realizing –> smiling –> seeing EyesMouthes –> laughing
  • “Ha. Big brother is watching.”
  • “How do you say this title?”  “I see. Sounds like what they look like.”
  • “Fun” “Very interesting”
  • “Hmm”
  • “What should I do?” “How does it work?”
  • “Can I take picture with it?”
  • “Can I record this?”
  • people wave at the camera
  • “It’d be cool if it can detect me smiling”
  • interested in how it works
  • “I want to take this home and put it in my room.”

Aftershow Notes

  • If it’s workable would be more interesting to open more sketches
  • Ideally two computers with 4 projectors!
  • can add more interaction function e.g. detect smile and laugh
  • more knowledge about surveillance and psychology of people’s react with it