Fluid Blobs v2 from Jason McDermott on Vimeo.

OpenCV blob tracking – calibrated from Jason McDermott on Vimeo.

The second example is a first attempt at combining the live blob tracking with the wonderfully funky and playful MSA Fluid library also for processing.  This lib is geared towards touch screen interfaces and screen based mouse interactivity – but I immediately thought it would be the perfect partner for my webcam based projects (or even accelerometer/phidget/slider/midi sensor data).  It wasn’t very difficult to swap out the mousex/pmousex variables for centroid x/y data, so the first test has been deemed a success.  I showed this yesterday to Frank/Ale/Amy/george/anyone who would stop for more than 2 minutes in the interactivation studio and it was a big hit

OpenCV + MSA Fluid (Processing) from Jason McDermott on Vimeo.

The third example is significant for a couple of reasons – it is another combination this time using recorded video of an actual installation space (filtration fields / DAB courtyard) thus requiring another version of the calibration – but also my first experiments in putting together an arrayed interface between the blobs and the fluid.To explain further; Firstly it’s easy to switch out the mouse for ‘something else’ and inferring movement velocity for a single object/blob is simple.  Secondly I wasn’t so sure about the way to apply this singular blob mousex/pmousex-esque technique to many objects at once.  Thirdly I wasn’t sure if it would all explode in one big fluorescent, particle mess!

OpenCV + MSA Fluid (processing) test 3 from Jason McDermott on Vimeo.

[Update]< <note, v3 will be embedded when vimeo uploads my video. since when does a new video have to wait in a queue for 30 minutes??>>In the end I’d say it’s mission accomplished, certainly with calibration tweaks to occur before I’m happy to unleash this on an unsuspecting public.  I’d be interested to see how this could influence peoples’ behaviour in the space – whether or not we would see people dancing/swimming/painting the space of the courtyard.  I’m curious also to see how this kind of new interaction with the space of the DAB could filter into a new perception of the building as not merely a space to move through but one which is open to new forms of physical conversation.

void setup() {size(593,225); // this is for image size considerations, nothing else!smooth();}void draw() {background(255);// set moderectMode(CENTER);ellipseMode(CENTER);// Body// rect(x1,y1,width,height);stroke(0);fill(135,181,209);rect(100,100,20,100);// Head// ellipse(x1,y1,width,height);fill(255);ellipse(100,70,60,60);// Eyesstroke(0);fill(0);ellipse(85,70,10,20);ellipse(115,70,10,20);// Legs// line(x1,y1,x2,y2);line(90, 150, 80, 160);line(110, 150, 120, 160);// Armsline(90, 110, 70, 120);line(110, 110, 130, 120);}

I’m looking to take Processing as far as possible, whilst being fully aware of it’s live performance abilities.  So far Max/MSP owns the live performance aspects of my work, but I’d like to take things a little bit further and combine realtime interaction with some more considered string/array logging/analysing capabilities.  I’ll be posting future updates on my baby steps into Processing, so watch this space.

November has been a busy month! Along with Anthony Burke, Dan Hill and Mitchell Whitelaw, I’ve been running an intensive masterclass studio in the Master of Digital Architecture program at UTS.  The masterclass is based on one of Dan’s earlier posts called The Street as Platform, in which the notion of the static street in contemporary urban planning and architecture is discussed as an anachronistic idea and one in dire need of reform.  The street as platform talks about the dynamically linked nature of the modern street, where mobile communication, ubiquitous computing and traditional number crunching merge as a new kind of informational street ecology that exists just outside of our normal consciousness.As students and teachers of architecture, it could well be said that the dynamism of the street in it’s inhabitation and occupation is implicitly known and explored, but never clearly articulated as a driver – in it’s own right – of architectural decision making regarding form/content.

With this in mind, we set out to investigate the lived inhabitation of the street in an attempt to visualise and understand the hidden seams of activity, an attempt to make the invisible visible.Along with Dan, Anthony and Mitchell, we had a selection of super keen students and a handful of sensor equipment with we set about taming the data beast of Harris St.  Our aim was to produce some meaningful information, based on corellated data sets gleaned and generated from our surrounds.  The students searched for data on Harris st from a number of sources relative to Harris St (google, flickr, youtube, newsrolls, blogs) and then used processing to scrape, munge and visualise the data.  Also included into the mix were a number of sensors we wired up to collect site specific data such as light/temperature/humidity/rainfall levels over the last week, Bluetooth devices in the vicinity, webcam images from the street as well as audio readings and a magnetic sensor.

All up the live data feeds were a bit of a mixed bag with plenty of teething problems, but over the next fortnight these issues will look to be sorted.The students presented their work on Friday to an invited panel including marcus trimble, andrew vande moere and kirsty beilharz, one of our new professors in Design at UTS.  The presentations went very well, showcasing some very good work and sparking much discussion amongst the invited guests.The students have diligently been updating a blog with images of the process workand sketch ideas throughout the last two weeks, which can be found at http://streetasplatform.wordpress.com.  The studio will be exhibiting some of the work at the upcoming UTS Architecture exhbition on the 4th December, so come see some of the live feeds being visualised on the night.

See also; http://offshorestudio.net/ http://cityofsound.com/ http://theteemingvoid.com/

Thanks to the DAB Lab opening night schedule (which happily coincides with the weekly experimentation playtime in the interactivation studio), I’ve had the opportunity to demo the project to a widely varying audience.  Last week at the Convergence exhibition opening I was able to test the project with none other than Charles Rice, Desley Luscumbe, Adrian Lahoud and Sam Spurr as my hapless guinea pigs.  Many others were also subjected to my user testing and the feedback was generally positive.  I’m excited to see that a project in such baby steps can take on a life such as this, allowing fantastic possibilities such as collaboration and further refinement.I’ve been posting videos of the project in action to vimeo, but in case you’re in lock-down mode, I’ll be looking to embed content directly into my posts rather than linking to 3rd party software.  We’ll see how things go, watch this space.pixeltag 081106 ft. Tony Curran from Jason McDermott on Vimeo.