I came across the following video on a post on the Creative Applications blog about the Theo Watson and Emily Gobeille's recent work with OpenFrameworks, Kinect, and an interactive puppet prototoype:
Interactive Puppet Prototype with Xbox Kinect from Theo Watson on Vimeo.
I'm not surprised that Theo Watson and Emily (design.io) decided to experiment with the XBox Kinect. I can't wait to see what they will create for Kinect in the future, based on their previous work -- A couple of years ago I wrote a post about their enchanting interactive installation, "Funky Forest": OpenFrameworks & Interactive Multimedia: Funky Forest Installation for CinKid.
You can see from the video of their Funky Forest installation (2007 CinKid) that they create engaging interactive applications:
Funky Forest - Interactive Ecosystem from Theo Watson on Vimeo.
(Information from Theo Watson's Vimeo site)
"Funky Forest is a wild and crazy ecosystem where children manage the resources to influence the environment around them. By using their bodies or pillow "rocks" and "logs", water flowing from the digital stream on the floor can be dammed and diverted to the forest to make different parts grow. If a tree does not receive enough water it withers away but by pressing their bodies into the forest children create new trees based on their shape and character. As children explore and play they discover that the environment is inhabited by a variety of sonic life forms and creatures who appear and disappear depending on the health of the forest. As the seasons change the creatures also go through a metamorphosis."
Credits:
Theodore Watson
Emily Gobeille
Project Page:
muonics.net/site_docs/work.php?id=41
zanyparade.com/v8/projects.php?id=12
Note: A version of Funky Forest, Moomah Edition, is permanently installed in New York City at the Moomah Children's Cafe. This version includes interactive environments related to the four seasons of the year, including an interactive particle system with falling leaves and snow.
FOR THE TECH-CURIOUS
Libfreenect for OX, by Theodore Watson
XBox Kinect running on OS X ( with source code ) from Theo Watson on Vimeo.
The following information and links were taken from the Vimeo description of the above video:
"This is a port/adaptation of Hector Martin's libfreenect for OS X made by Theodore Watson.
Hector Martin's Libfreenect project page is here: git.marcansoft.com/?p=libfreenect.git
Most of the code is unchanged but there are some changes to libusb which was needed to get it running (and a few extra libusb commands) as well as some tweaking of the transfer sizes.
It should be self contained and you shouldn't need to install libusb (the app links it directly ).
Grab the Source Code:
UPDATE:
(Tested on OS X 10.6.3 - 32bit now and with fixes)
theo.tw/deliver/kinect/001-libfreenect-modded-osx-updated.zip
ofxKinect for OF users - thanks Dan!
openframeworks.cc/forum/viewtopic.php?p=24948#p24948
Tips:
- Try both usb ports.
- Try not to have too many other devices plugged in (or any)."
(Check the Vimeo website to see if there are updates)
OpenFrameworks Forum
http://www.openframeworks.cc/forum/
RELATED
Presentation about Funky Forest (ThisHappened)
Emily Gobeille & Theo Watson talk about Funky Forest from This happened – Utrecht on Vimeo.
Cross-posted on the TechPsych blog.
Nov 20, 2010
Nov 16, 2010
Serious Games in the K-16 Classroom: Google Tech Talks Video, via Jonathan Brill
In the following video, Victoria Van Voorhis discusses educational software and the Serious Games in Education movement:
Thanks to Jonathan Brill for the link!
SOMEWHAT RELATED
Below is a presentation I gave at the 2008 Games for Health conference:
Descriptions, stories, and links related to the screen shots of the first slide of the above presentation: (Some of the links may need to be updated.)
The science screen is an interactive 'gizmo' from Explore Learning. Something like this could be incorporated into an educational game. http://www.explorelearning.com
I’m pretty sure that the picture of the ancient building was from the VAST project, described in the article 'Reviving the past: Cultural Heritage meets Virtual Reality' by Anthanasios Gaitatzes, Dimitrious Cristopoulos, and Maria Roussou. (2002, ACM) The Foundation of the Hellenic World was involved with this project. http://www.fhw.gr/fhw/
Maria Roussou has been involved with a variety of interesting immersive projects: http://www.makebelieve.gr/mb/www/profile/index.html
The people from the Institute for Advanced Technologies in the Humanities at the University of Virginia are doing similar work through the Rome Reborn project:
http://www.romereborn.virginia.edu/
Note: I thought that it would be cool to have a game for health that integrated with history, so that students could learn about how people from the past handled health and diseases, and learn how scientists from the past came up with solutions that help us today.
The picture of the dragons on the space station was from a game called 'Relax to Win', created by Phil (gary?) McDarby and the MindGames team when he was at MediaLab Europe, which disbanded in 2005. Here is an article about Relax to Win, from 2002:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1972571.stm
McDarby now works as the creative officer of Vyro Games, which focus on stress management.
Rationale: Stress management games are good for health!
McDarby: http://www.vyro-games.com/company/phil_bio.php
Media Lab Europe and MindGames: http://medialabeurope.org/
Vyro Games: http://ww.vyro-games.com/
The cool geometric image was from a project from the Interactive Media Group, Vienna University of Technology: Educating Spatial Intelligence with Augmented Reality http://www.ims.tuwien.ac.at/research/spatial_abilities/
The project targeted high school geometry students, with a goal of increasing spatial ability and improving transfer of learning. The program is consistent with Universal Design for Learning principles.
I think that some of the applications involved in this application could be useful in games designed for cognitive rehabilitation or habilitation. Related to this project: 'An Application and Framework for Using Augmented Reality in Mathematics and Geometry Education': http://www.ims.tuwien.ac.at/research/construct3d/ and Hannes Kaufmann’s Dissertation: Geometry Education with Augmented Reality: http://www.ims.tuwien.ac.at/media/documents/publications/...
The remainder of the pictures:
The Cloud Game: http://intihuatani.usc.edu/cloud/
The picture with the two people is from Kar2ouche, from Immersive Education. Kar2ouche is a creative role-play, picture making, story-boarding and animation software. It is enabled for use on interactive whiteboards: http://www.immersiveeducation.com/kar2ouche/
Hazmat HotZone is a multi-player simulation game used to train first responder teams: http://www.etc.cmu.edu/projects/hazmat_2005/
The underwater scene is from FreeDive, from FreeDive, that is used as a pain distractor. I also think it could be used for stress reduction for children.
http://www.breakawaygames.com/serious-games/solutions/hea...
The game pad is a DanceDance Revolution pad, used as an 'exergame' in many schools to combat the increase in numbers of students who are overweight or obese.
'Dance Dance Revolution: Healthy for Kids'
http://news.digitaltrends.com/news-article/12201/
The classroom scene is is from a virtual reality application:
Rizzo, A., Bowerly, T., Buckwalter, J., Klimchuk, D., Mitura, R., Parsons, T.D. (2006). A Virtual Reality Scenario for All Seasons: The Virtual Classroom. CNS Spectrums, 11, 1, 35-44. http://vrpsych.ict.usc.edu/
Thanks to Jonathan Brill for the link!
SOMEWHAT RELATED
Below is a presentation I gave at the 2008 Games for Health conference:
The science screen is an interactive 'gizmo' from Explore Learning. Something like this could be incorporated into an educational game. http://www.explorelearning.com
I’m pretty sure that the picture of the ancient building was from the VAST project, described in the article 'Reviving the past: Cultural Heritage meets Virtual Reality' by Anthanasios Gaitatzes, Dimitrious Cristopoulos, and Maria Roussou. (2002, ACM) The Foundation of the Hellenic World was involved with this project. http://www.fhw.gr/fhw/
Maria Roussou has been involved with a variety of interesting immersive projects: http://www.makebelieve.gr/mb/www/profile/index.html
The people from the Institute for Advanced Technologies in the Humanities at the University of Virginia are doing similar work through the Rome Reborn project:
http://www.romereborn.virginia.edu/
Note: I thought that it would be cool to have a game for health that integrated with history, so that students could learn about how people from the past handled health and diseases, and learn how scientists from the past came up with solutions that help us today.
The picture of the dragons on the space station was from a game called 'Relax to Win', created by Phil (gary?) McDarby and the MindGames team when he was at MediaLab Europe, which disbanded in 2005. Here is an article about Relax to Win, from 2002:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1972571.stm
McDarby now works as the creative officer of Vyro Games, which focus on stress management.
Rationale: Stress management games are good for health!
McDarby: http://www.vyro-games.com/company/phil_bio.php
Media Lab Europe and MindGames: http://medialabeurope.org/
Vyro Games: http://ww.vyro-games.com/
The cool geometric image was from a project from the Interactive Media Group, Vienna University of Technology: Educating Spatial Intelligence with Augmented Reality http://www.ims.tuwien.ac.at/research/spatial_abilities/
The project targeted high school geometry students, with a goal of increasing spatial ability and improving transfer of learning. The program is consistent with Universal Design for Learning principles.
I think that some of the applications involved in this application could be useful in games designed for cognitive rehabilitation or habilitation. Related to this project: 'An Application and Framework for Using Augmented Reality in Mathematics and Geometry Education': http://www.ims.tuwien.ac.at/research/construct3d/ and Hannes Kaufmann’s Dissertation: Geometry Education with Augmented Reality: http://www.ims.tuwien.ac.at/media/documents/publications/...
The remainder of the pictures:
The Cloud Game: http://intihuatani.usc.edu/cloud/
The picture with the two people is from Kar2ouche, from Immersive Education. Kar2ouche is a creative role-play, picture making, story-boarding and animation software. It is enabled for use on interactive whiteboards: http://www.immersiveeducation.com/kar2ouche/
Hazmat HotZone is a multi-player simulation game used to train first responder teams: http://www.etc.cmu.edu/projects/hazmat_2005/
The underwater scene is from FreeDive, from FreeDive, that is used as a pain distractor. I also think it could be used for stress reduction for children.
http://www.breakawaygames.com/serious-games/solutions/hea...
The game pad is a DanceDance Revolution pad, used as an 'exergame' in many schools to combat the increase in numbers of students who are overweight or obese.
'Dance Dance Revolution: Healthy for Kids'
http://news.digitaltrends.com/news-article/12201/
The classroom scene is is from a virtual reality application:
Rizzo, A., Bowerly, T., Buckwalter, J., Klimchuk, D., Mitura, R., Parsons, T.D. (2006). A Virtual Reality Scenario for All Seasons: The Virtual Classroom. CNS Spectrums, 11, 1, 35-44. http://vrpsych.ict.usc.edu/
Nov 15, 2010
Human-Machine-Music Interaction: KarmetiK Machine Orchestra (Video, links)
Here is an example of innovative interaction between humans, machines, and music:
KarmetiK Machine Orchestra - Live at REDCAT Walt Disney Hall - Los Angeles - Jan 27, 2010 from KarmetiK on Vimeo.
Information from the KarmetiK Machine Orchestra Vimeo page:
"On January 27th, 2010, KarmetiK and California Institute of the Arts brought together a group of interdisciplinary artists to perform in a revolutionary production. During this performance, The Machine Orchestra, a collective of musicians, engineers, dancers, and theatre designers, gave an audience at the Walt Disney Concert Hall's REDCAT performance space a glimpse of the future: one in which computers, robots, and humans join forces to make music.Featuring a cast of musicians, new musical interfaces, and musical robotics, The Machine Orchestra fused a wide array of musical styles ranging from free electronic improvisation to world dance music.This DVD features uninterrupted footage of The Machine Orchestra's debut concert, a performance exploring human interaction with KarmetiK's collection of musical robots: MahaDeviBot, GanaPatiBot, Tammy, Raina, and ReyongBot. Directed by Ajay Kapur and Michael Darling."
Music Director, Co-Creator: Ajay Kapur
Production Director, Co-Creator: Michael Darling
Guest Electronic Artists: Curtis Bahn & Perry Cook
World Music Performers: Ustad Aashish Khan, Pak Djoko Walujo, & I Nyoman Wenten
Multimedia Performer-Composers: Charlie Burgin, Dimitri Diakopoulos, Jordan Hochenbaum, Jim Murphy, Owen Vallis, Meason Wiley, and Tyler Yamin
Visual Design: Jeremiah Thies
Dance: Raakhi Sinha & Kieran Heralall
Lighting Design: Tiffany Williams
Sound Design: John Baffa
Production: Lauren Pratt
Editing: Meason Wiley
Filming: Benny Schuetze
machineorchestra.com
Follow KarmetiK on Facebook and Twitter:
facebook.com/karmetik
twitter.com/karmetik
Detailed information about this performance and Machine Orchestra:
MACHINE ORCHESTRA
KarmetiK Machine Orchestra
RELATED
Building a Hybrid Man/Machine Orchestra, Pt 1
Jordan Hochenbaum, Create Digital Music 1/25/10
Direct links to the publications listed below, and more, on the Publications: Refereed Journals and Conference Papers page of the Karmetik website.
Kapur, A. & M. Darling A Pedagogical Paradigm for Musical Robotics, Proceedings of the
International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, Sydney, Australia, June 2010.
Hochenbaum, J., Kapur, A., & M. Wright, Multimodal Musician Recognition, Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, Sydney, Australia, June 2010
Vallis, O., Hochenbaum, J,, & A. Kapur, A Shift Towards Iterative and Open-Source Design for Musical Interfaces, Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, Sydney, Australia, June 2010
Hochenbaum, J., Vallis, O., Diakopoulos, D., Murphy, J. & A. Kapur, On Designing Expressive Musical Interfaces for TableTop Surfaces , Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, Sydney, Australia, June 2010
Murphy, J., Kapur, A., & C. Burgin, The Helio: A Study of Membrane Potentiometers and Long Force Sensing Resistors for Musical Interfaces, Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, Sydney, Australia, June 2010
KarmetiK Machine Orchestra - Live at REDCAT Walt Disney Hall - Los Angeles - Jan 27, 2010 from KarmetiK on Vimeo.
Information from the KarmetiK Machine Orchestra Vimeo page:
"On January 27th, 2010, KarmetiK and California Institute of the Arts brought together a group of interdisciplinary artists to perform in a revolutionary production. During this performance, The Machine Orchestra, a collective of musicians, engineers, dancers, and theatre designers, gave an audience at the Walt Disney Concert Hall's REDCAT performance space a glimpse of the future: one in which computers, robots, and humans join forces to make music.Featuring a cast of musicians, new musical interfaces, and musical robotics, The Machine Orchestra fused a wide array of musical styles ranging from free electronic improvisation to world dance music.This DVD features uninterrupted footage of The Machine Orchestra's debut concert, a performance exploring human interaction with KarmetiK's collection of musical robots: MahaDeviBot, GanaPatiBot, Tammy, Raina, and ReyongBot. Directed by Ajay Kapur and Michael Darling."
Music Director, Co-Creator: Ajay Kapur
Production Director, Co-Creator: Michael Darling
Guest Electronic Artists: Curtis Bahn & Perry Cook
World Music Performers: Ustad Aashish Khan, Pak Djoko Walujo, & I Nyoman Wenten
Multimedia Performer-Composers: Charlie Burgin, Dimitri Diakopoulos, Jordan Hochenbaum, Jim Murphy, Owen Vallis, Meason Wiley, and Tyler Yamin
Visual Design: Jeremiah Thies
Dance: Raakhi Sinha & Kieran Heralall
Lighting Design: Tiffany Williams
Sound Design: John Baffa
Production: Lauren Pratt
Editing: Meason Wiley
Filming: Benny Schuetze
machineorchestra.com
Follow KarmetiK on Facebook and Twitter:
facebook.com/karmetik
twitter.com/karmetik
Detailed information about this performance and Machine Orchestra:
Lisa Zyga, Physorg.com
KarmetiK Machine Orchestra
RELATED
Building a Hybrid Man/Machine Orchestra, Pt 1
Jordan Hochenbaum, Create Digital Music 1/25/10
Jordan Hochenbaum, Create Digital Music 4/22/10
Direct links to the publications listed below, and more, on the Publications: Refereed Journals and Conference Papers page of the Karmetik website.
Kapur, A. & M. Darling A Pedagogical Paradigm for Musical Robotics, Proceedings of the
International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, Sydney, Australia, June 2010.
Hochenbaum, J., Kapur, A., & M. Wright, Multimodal Musician Recognition, Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, Sydney, Australia, June 2010
Vallis, O., Hochenbaum, J,, & A. Kapur, A Shift Towards Iterative and Open-Source Design for Musical Interfaces, Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, Sydney, Australia, June 2010
Hochenbaum, J., Vallis, O., Diakopoulos, D., Murphy, J. & A. Kapur, On Designing Expressive Musical Interfaces for TableTop Surfaces , Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, Sydney, Australia, June 2010
Murphy, J., Kapur, A., & C. Burgin, The Helio: A Study of Membrane Potentiometers and Long Force Sensing Resistors for Musical Interfaces, Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, Sydney, Australia, June 2010
Labels:
Ajay Kapur,
HCI,
Jordan HochenbaumMachine Orchestra,
KarmetiK,
Michael Darling,
NUI,
robot,
TUI,
video
1 comment:
1 comment:
Juggling and Music: JAM meets the ReacTable
Enjoy!
Juggling and Music Meets the ReacTable, With Carles Lopez
I could play around with a ReacTable all day long!
RELATED
Need an 8 and 1/2 minute dance/exercise break? Get up out of your chair and dance to this video of the Brainwater ReacTable Live Performance 1
Juggling and Music Meets the ReacTable, With Carles Lopez
I could play around with a ReacTable all day long!
RELATED
Need an 8 and 1/2 minute dance/exercise break? Get up out of your chair and dance to this video of the Brainwater ReacTable Live Performance 1
Nov 13, 2010
HACKED KINECT MULTITOUCH using libFreenect and libTISCH (via Florian Echtler)
MULTI-TOUCH WITH HACKED KINECT
Here is NUI-Group member Florian Echtler's proof-of-concept HD video of using a hacked Kinect camera for multitouch-like interaction. The application was built on Ubuntu Linux written using libfreenect, by marcan42 and Florian's creation, libTISCH.
Florian decided to use picture-browsing interaction to demonstrate proof-of concept, so "everybody can focus on more interesting things :-)"
(I have SO many ideas for this! I'll throw a few out there in an upcoming post....maybe someone can run with them!)
RELATED
Hacked Kinect taught to work as multitouch interface
Paul Miller, engadget, 11/11/10
FOR THE TECH-CURIOUS:
TISCH stands for Tangible Interactive Surfaces for Collaboration between Humans, and is a cross-platform, cross device multi-touch development framework. You can download the source package for Windows, MacOS X, and Linux from the TISCH Sourceforge website. The Ubantu Lucid/Karmac version has "superquick installation via PPA" - the instructions can be found on the TISCH Sourceforge website.
LibFreenect- Open Source PC Drivers for Kinect
Xan Tium, XBLOG 360 11/10/10
Marcan is Hector Martin Cantero, the author of the Abort, Retry, Hack? blog.
For your convenience, I've reposted something I wrote about libTISCH back in 2009:
Here is NUI-Group member Florian Echtler's proof-of-concept HD video of using a hacked Kinect camera for multitouch-like interaction. The application was built on Ubuntu Linux written using libfreenect, by marcan42 and Florian's creation, libTISCH.
Florian decided to use picture-browsing interaction to demonstrate proof-of concept, so "everybody can focus on more interesting things :-)"
(I have SO many ideas for this! I'll throw a few out there in an upcoming post....maybe someone can run with them!)
RELATED
Hacked Kinect taught to work as multitouch interface
Paul Miller, engadget, 11/11/10
FOR THE TECH-CURIOUS:
TISCH stands for Tangible Interactive Surfaces for Collaboration between Humans, and is a cross-platform, cross device multi-touch development framework. You can download the source package for Windows, MacOS X, and Linux from the TISCH Sourceforge website. The Ubantu Lucid/Karmac version has "superquick installation via PPA" - the instructions can be found on the TISCH Sourceforge website.
LibFreenect- Open Source PC Drivers for Kinect
Xan Tium, XBLOG 360 11/10/10
Marcan is Hector Martin Cantero, the author of the Abort, Retry, Hack? blog.
For your convenience, I've reposted something I wrote about libTISCH back in 2009:
For techies (and the tech-curious) who like technologies that support collaboration and multi-touch interaction, this is great news!
Florian Echtler announced the first stable releas of libTISCH, a multi-touch development framwork, which can be found on Sourceforge. TISCH stands for Tangible Interaction Surfaces for Collaboration between Humans. libTISCH, a C++ software framework, is included in this project. It provides a means for creating GUIs based on multi-touch and/or tangible input devices.
Here is how it works:
Here is information from libTISCH announcement:
Highlights of this release are, among others, the following features:
- ready-to-use multitouch widgets based on OpenGL
- reconfigurable, hardware-independent gesture recognition engine
- support for widely used (move, scale, rotate..), pre-defined gestures
as well as custom-defined gestures
- hardware drivers for FTIR, DI, Wiimote, DiamondTouch..
- TUIO converters: source and sink
- cross-platform: Linux, MacOS X, Windows (32 and 64 bit)
- cross-language: C++ with bindings for C#, Java, Python
libTISCH has a lot to offer for the multitouch developer. For example,
- ready-to-use multitouch widgets based on OpenGL
- reconfigurable, hardware-independent gesture recognition engine
- support for widely used (move, scale, rotate..), pre-defined gestures
as well as custom-defined gestures
- hardware drivers for FTIR, DI, Wiimote, DiamondTouch..
- TUIO converters: source and sink
- cross-platform: Linux, MacOS X, Windows (32 and 64 bit)
- cross-language: C++ with bindings for C#, Java, Python
libTISCH has a lot to offer for the multitouch developer. For example,
the textured widgets enable rapid development of applications for many
kinds of multi-touch or tangible interfaces. The separate gesture
recognition engine allows the translation of a wide range of highly
configurable gestures into pre-defined or custom events which are then
acted on by the widgets. While the lower layers of libTISCH provide
functionality similar to tbeta, touche etc. (you can interface existing
TUIO-based software with libTISCH in both directions), it goes far
beyond.
More information about the library and underlying architecture can be found on http://tisch.sf.net/ and in the Sourceforge wiki at
http://sourceforge.net/apps/
kinds of multi-touch or tangible interfaces. The separate gesture
recognition engine allows the translation of a wide range of highly
configurable gestures into pre-defined or custom events which are then
acted on by the widgets. While the lower layers of libTISCH provide
functionality similar to tbeta, touche etc. (you can interface existing
TUIO-based software with libTISCH in both directions), it goes far
beyond.
More information about the library and underlying architecture can be found on http://tisch.sf.net/ and in the Sourceforge wiki at
http://sourceforge.net/apps/
Note:
Dr. Florian Echtler is on the scientific staff at the Technisch Universitat Munchen in Germany. Be sure to check out his webpage.
I especially like the concept of the MeTaTop: "A Multi-Sensory Table Top System for Medical Procedures" that is linked from Florian's website.
Labels:
florian echtler,
kinect,
libfreenect,
libtisch,
mac,
mac os x,
MacOsX,
microsoft,
microsoft kinect,
MicrosoftKinect,
multitouch,
NUI hack,
port,
theo watson,
TheoWatson,
tisch,
UI,
video
2 comments:
2 comments:
Nov 11, 2010
NY Times article and Video: iPad Opens World to a Disabled Boy
I meant to post a link to this article a while ago:
iPad Opens World to a Disabled Boy
Emily B. Hager, New York Times, 10/12/10
Cross-posted on the TechPsych blog
iPad Opens World to a Disabled Boy
Emily B. Hager, New York Times, 10/12/10
Cross-posted on the TechPsych blog
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