Sunil's Blog

Welcome to my first blog post, in the post-IMM era! Right after the IMM Open house and volunteering at FITC 2008 Toronto, I parachuted out of Toronto with my girlfriend for a much needed vacation to Paris (France not Ontario). I had a relaxing vacation away from my computer for 8 days.

While I enjoyed the wine, crepes with nutella and croissants, I also stumbled across something neat at the Adidas Store on the Champs-Elysées while I was there. They had what looked like a Gesture Tek installation right in the middle of the store, where you could design your own shoe. These kids ran up to the screen thinking it was a touch screen, a la iphone. They were clearly lacking the appropriate training required to operate such a display! Having come across Gesture Tek displays before in our multimedia pioneering class, I decided to put on a clinic. It was funny seeing people stop in their tracks while I created my own personalized Toronto Raptors sneaker, using a user interface that screamed Minority Report. After you create your shoe, you could save it in a gallery and walk over to a “virtual mirror” and see what it looks like on your foot. Unfortunately, the “virtual mirror” was broken, so I only got to play with the interface. Thank you to my wonderful girlfriend Kerrie who filmed me looking like a dork.

Adidas Paris – Shoe Designer with Gesture Tek Interface from insultcomicdog on Vimeo.

I’m already thinking of ways to port this over to a Papervision 3D project using Dan Zen’s motion cursor classes as a user interface. You have already seen examples of the motion cursor classes used in Rock Revolution a project I built with my classmate Nick Poison. I don’t think motion cursors have been implemented with Papervision 3D yet, so hopefully I’ll come up with something neat.

Today our class went on a field trip to visit GestureTek Technology, located downtown Toronto.

Vincent John Vincent started GestureTek, to support performance art involving virtual instruments. The early iterations of their technology employed an Amiga with 16 colours, laser disks that contained background video and multiple video formats and cables.

GestPoint allows human interaction with electronic devices and machines by allowing intuitive, eyes free interaction with computers and machines using hand gestures.

Their current technology is used in museums, science centres, sports and education. One of the pros of a no-touch interface is that it is less likely to break, because of lack of moving parts.

Some of the exhibits we saw:

Holopoint involves two cameras forming a video matrix. It is a portable system, and is able to accommodate large screens.

Japanese game show where actors are immersed within a virtual environment.

Interactive Table:

This table houses internal cameras beneath the glass. Similar to Microsoft Surface, the table we saw has multi-touch capability and allows up to six users to manipulate virtual objects.

IR Floors:

These floors react to anything that is different from the original animation. A particle engine drives particle interaction, and different applications are run at a time in intervals. Flash games have limitations with respect to particles.

Mobile Devices:

Katamari Damacy Mobile is a video game for the DoCoMo’s 904i series of mobile phones by Mitsubishi developed by Namco Bandai. It is a spin-off of the Katamari Damacy series, the second game on a portable system and the third game produced without the involvement of series creator Keita Takahashi.

This version of the game uses a unique method of control, by making use of a new software technology called GestureTek EyeMobile to make phones capable of detecting tilt and vibration via the built in camera. The player will be able to move the katamari ball forward, backwards, left and right by merely tilting the phone.

Nintendo’s Wii videogames to treat patients who have movement and balance problems. Occupational therapists are guiding patients through golf swings, tennis serves and baseball strikes to help them not only gain lost movement, but to teach their brains to respond quickly to fly balls or swinging fists.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2007/05/11/wii-therapy.html

http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=5ff7f35b-e86b-4264-b3e6-19f6b5075928&k=63173

$2 multitouch – A simple multitouch pad made from a plastic bag, some dyed water, and a camera:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzNh31q61gc

Microsoft Surface prototyping began in 2001. Allows multiple people to work on a project without using a mouse or keyboard. The future the form factor of this computer can be part of a countertop, wall or refrigerator.

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

Touch screen technology is not perfect. One problem that arises is that as you put your fingers on a device you obscure the screen. One company is suggesting that using a device that using a touch interface behind the device allows for more accurate performance without obscuring the screen.

LucidTouch – a see-through mobile device:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aASuL7RHJHM

PlayStation3 – Eye of Judgment

http://kotaku.com/gaming/ps3/eye-of-judgment-online-impressions-302228.php

Playing Knockout on the PlayStation2 with EyeToy:

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=6829556