Category Archives: Augmented & Virtual Reality

Amon Tobin: V Squared Labs and TouchDesigner

Gizmodo called it “The Concert of the Future, Today” and CHARTattack said that “it was a live show one might have said could only be created and performed by a cybernetic organism.” where “groundbreaking modeling and mapping techniques were used to take the audience at the Metropolis on a trip to dozens of worlds. … it felt like one was transported into deep space or, alternately, inside the Tron grid, a game of Tetris, an M.C. Escher painting, the fiery pits of Mordor, an acid-coloured kaleidoscope, a Splinter Cell video game…” Wired got straight to the point: “ISAM’s live show looks like a mindfuck of the highest order” with “little in the way of precedent.”

via derivative.ca

The Argusâ„¢ II Artificial Retina

The Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System (“Argus II”) is designed to bypass damaged photoreceptors in certain blind patients. A miniature video camera housed in the patient’s glasses captures a scene. The video is sent to a small patient-worn computer (i.e., the video processing unit — VPU) where it is processed and transformed into instructions that are sent back to the glasses via a cable. These instructions are transmitted wirelessly to a receiver in the implant.

via Second Sight

The Creators Project – Intel & Vice at Coachella 2011

The Orchestrion – UVA’s standalone light and sound sculpture with experimental music provided by fellow Creator Mira Calix.

via thecreatorsproject.com

Summer Into Dust by Arcade Fire (Dir. Chris Milk) – during Arcade Fires last song “Wake Up,” cascades of beachballs were released into the crowd. With the help of ESKI and Moment Factory, Milk was able to control the LEDs and IR transmitters, embedded in each ball (provided by Tangible Interaction), to light paint kaleidoscopic patterns all over the unsuspecting audience.

via thecreatorsproject.com

Unlogo – The Corporate Identity Media Filter

Unlogo is a web service that eliminates logos and other corporate signage from videos. On a practical level, it takes back your personal media from the corporations and advertisers. On a technical level, it is a really cool combination of some brand new OpenCV and FFMPEG functionality. On a poetic level, it is a tool for focusing on what is important in the record of your life rather than the ubiquitous messages that advertisers want you to focus on.

In short, Unlogo gives people the opportunity to opt out of having corporate messages permanently imprinted into the photographic record of their lives.

unlogo via VJ Loops Blog

YesYesNo – Night Lights

In this installation YesYesNo teamed up with The Church, Inside Out Productions and Electric Canvas to turn the Auckland Ferry Building into an interactive playground. The job was to create an installation that would go beyond merely projection on buildings and allow viewers to become performers, by taking their body movements and amplifying them 5 stories tall. We used 3 different types of interaction – body interaction on the two stages, hand interaction above a light table, and phone interaction with the tracking of waving phones. There were 6 scenes, cycled every hour for the public.
via yesyesno.com and hellicarandlewis.com

ScribbleBots Digital Drawing Tool

Created for those who crave to draw neatly, but just don’t have the in-built talent for it. The device can be fed with a preconceived drawing paths downloaded off the internet, to maneuver your hand and pen in way that results in some awesome sketching.

via yankodesign.com and coroflot.com

The EyeWriter Initiative

Tony Quan a.k.a. Tempt One (graffiti writer, publisher, and activist) was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrigs disease) in 2003, and is now almost completely paralyzed, despite having full mental faculties. Enter the Not Impossible Foundation and their new Eyewriter project. They programmed custom, open-source freeware that can track eye movements, allowing Quan and others to write and even draw using only an eye, a computer, free software, and about $50 in parts (including a modified PlayStation Eye).

via eyewriter.org

Inside the Iron Man HUD

On set Q&A; with Kent Seki, Visualization and HUD Supervisor on the movie Iron Man.

“Think about how graphics 10-20 years were green monographs because of the monochromatic monitors. Today in movies, monitors are all pretty much cyan. Whats it going to be tomorrow? White, clean white with color accents for attention.”

via blogspot.com and vice.com and inventinginteractive.com

Mark Coleran, Fantasy UI Designer

Mark Coleran is a visual designer who has worked in a wide range of design disciplines from print graphics to motion design and visual effects. His work in motion graphics has included television show titles and branding through to his specialist area; the design, creation and animation of fantasy user interfaces for film. Over the years this work has seen him create interfaces for such films as The Bourne Ultimatum, Tomb Raider, Mission Impossible 3, The Island and Mr and Mrs Smith.

via coleran.com

Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality was not meant to hit the iPhone 3GS until at least the release of iPhone OS 3.1. Download the new Yelp app. Shake your iPhone 3 times. That activates a feature called Monocle. A blue box will come up saying “the Monocle has been activated.” It will create a button in the top right corner. Now you should be able to look at the bars, restaurants, etc. Only works on iPhone 3GS.

This one not about location, but about people. This app uses the Flickr facial recognition technology of Polar Rose to identify a persons face and pull up info like their online profile and contact info. Both creepy and amazing at the same time.

Not only is this augmented reality app cool, but its useful as well! This iPhone app will help you find the nearest subway station. No need to ask for directions, and you will never get lost.

Blinkenlights

On September 11th, 2001 the famous “Haus des Lehrers” building at Berlin Alexanderplatz was enhanced to become world’s biggest interactive computer display: Blinkenlights. The upper eight floors of the building were transformed in to a huge display by arranging 144 lamps behind the building’s front windows. A computer controlled each of the lamps independently to produce a monochrome matrix of 18 times 8 pixels. During the night, a constantly growing number of animations could be seen. But there was an interactive component as well: you were able to play the old arcade classic Pong on the building using your mobile phone and you could place your own love letters on the screen as well.

via blinkenlights.net

Design and the Elastic Mind (MoMA)

The landmark exhibition Design and the Elastic Mind explores the reciprocal relationship between science and design in the contemporary world by bringing together design objects and concepts that marry the most advanced scientific research with attentive consideration of human limitations, habits, and aspirations. The exhibition highlights designers ability to grasp momentous changes in technology, science, and historychanges that demand or reflect major adjustments in human behaviorand translate them into objects that people can actually understand and use. This Web site presents over three hundred of these works, including fifty projects that are not featured in the gallery exhibition.

via moma.org