This is DAT

IDAT210 - Project Evaluation

2010-04-26T12:57:00.000-07:00

My project the ‘Sound of Social Networking’ has been an interesting exploration into generative sound and communication. The project was originally aimed at meeting five keywords as follows:

• Generative Art

• Digital Performance

• Dadaist poetry

• Social Networking

• Sound/Music Production

In terms of my project and generative art I feel there is a close link as the audio and visuals are generated from the text provided by Facebook users. This therefore also makes the process part of my project quite strong. My project can also be considered a digital performance, as it is live updating and so a performance, and the means by which it is created is all digitally based, particularly in terms of the generative element. I have also managed to meet the social networking and sound production keywords for my project as these are at the centre of how my project works. The link with Dadaist Poetry however is not as strong. The process within my project could be considered part of this, but there are not many instructions or randomised elements to project. The final outcome of my project; the audio in particular, has a Dadaist quality about it due to its rather abstract nature, but this does not necessarily make it Dadaist.

There are a number of elements to my project which could be improved in the future. Firstly the audio produced is very monotonic, notes being the same length and volume as each other. However there is other information that can be gathered by the RSS and so this could be used to improve the musical nature of the project. There is also the element of access, both to data and to the project application itself. The application should be able to access any data regardless of the RSS format so that it can be used for multiple feeds rather than just the one that I have developed. This way it would be more functional and open for interpretation than it is at the moment. It would also be good if the application was adjoined to its data source online so that contributors can see how what they write effects the audio produced.

In terms of meeting the original process of communication that I originally had planned I feel that this project fell a little short. Conversation was not developed or emulated that well in my project, but instead other developments were discovered. My project has the ability to represent instantly the most used length of word at any given time, and displays communication musically, in the form of a type of written score. It also demonstrated an interesting openness of thought and how this can lead to themes, such as emotion in the textual content gained.

Overall I am happy with the project that I produced and have, through development, discovered a number of interesting features and possibilities of my project that I did not originally plan for, but that in my opinion make my project a success.

IDAT210 - Development Possibility: Webpage Music

2010-04-26T11:43:00.000-07:00

After creating my finished piece for my project it occurred to me that there is another step that the project could take which would re-align its general concept but would also be a good and interesting development. This idea is centered around the idea of 'webpage music'. Due to the way that my project works it is easy to use the same system for any RSS feed url, and so it would be easy enough to make the project dynamic so that users could provide a url which is then turned into audio. In this way music could be created for any RSS feed that the user provides. This generalisation to any RSS feed means that the project would be more focused on the concept of any web feed being turned into sound and so the project could be classed as a webpage music generator, developing the sound of the internet, rather than simply a social networking page.
Being that this development should not be too difficult I decided I would try to create this version of my project as shown below:

However upon creating this I did come across a problem with this set up in that the system I was using was looking for the titles of posts rather than the content. This is ok when using the Facebook posts as title and contents of the posts are the same, but in most RSS/ATOM feeds they are different, such as with these blog posts. Therefore when using the system this way users would only get a musical representation of the titles of elements, and not the content. As well as this I also tried the system with a standard RSS feed from Microsoft which did not seem to work as the application is based on using a ATOM format for the data. This meant that for this version of my project to work I would have to incorporate elements which took both forms into account and which was also able to access the main content without any extraneous html data. I therefore decided that although this is a good idea for a development in the future, it would be best to keep my application in its current 'sound of social networking' state.

IDAT210 - The Finished Project

2010-04-26T07:22:00.000-07:00

#bdat Once I had formatted and completed the production of my project application all that was left was to launch the Facebook page to the public and get them to carry out the process for my project of text creation from which my application runs. To do this I added a post to the page explaining the limitations of how the page could be used as mentioned in the Posts and Facebook RSS post. I then invited a number of people to the page and began adding them as admins whenever they joined. To ensure there were no mistakes in terms of the posts made I locked the wall off from open access so that only those who I had added as admin could write on the wall. This ensured that there are not extraneous posts that wont be taken into account.

By getting the public involved in the page this means my project application is now self perpetuating creating audio from other peoples participation in the project rather than mine alone. To find out what the sound of social networking is like at the moment download the zip folder from here:

www.veat.eclipse.co.uk/projects/FBsoundproj.zip

Once the file has finished downloading extract the folder from the zip file and run either the exe file or the app file depending on whether you are using a PC or Mac. Accept the security warnings to run the file and enjoy! If you wish to get involved in the project login to Facebook and search for Uni Project Help group, become a Fan and i'll endeavour to add you as an admin so you can contribute to the wall and see how it changes the sound of social networking.

IDAT210 - Textbox fix

2010-04-25T14:01:00.000-07:00

As mentioned earlier I was not sure how to deal with the text in my application as I was not sure whether it was necessary, and had problems with the amount of text in comparison to the amount of space available. I have now come up with a simple fix to this problem. Firstly I decided it would be a good idea to keep the text in the app as this gives people a chance to make comparisons between the textual data and the sound and visuals that are produced according to this. Therefore I had to solve the problem of space for each of the posts made. I decided the best way to do this is the most obvious way, in that I should add a scroll bar to the text box so that viewers of the application can scroll up and down through the various posts that are being used without having to refer to the Facebook page. I therefore looked into scrolling text boxes and found that I could use a flash UIScrollBar component for the task. This then had to be coded in after the text had been created in the AS3 code to ensure that it was relevant to the length of text. The following is how the application now looks:

Hopefully once I have got the project properly launched on Facebook the amount of text will be much more varied and larger than this and so there will be more use for the scroll bar, as well as a longer and more varied audio and visual piece.

IDAT210 - Public Access

2010-04-25T12:38:00.000-07:00

In order to give my Facebook page members some understanding of what they were contributing I was planning to upload the application to the internet somewhere, either as a Facebook app, or as a page on my website which the members could navigate to. This way after posting, users could see how their contribution was used and how it changed/developed the 'sound of social networking'. However on beginning to try and implement this I came across one major flaw. Flash security settings are awkward in that on a local machine a swf needs specific access from the Flash Player to access any address outside the local machine, and that similarly when posted online the swf simply is unable to achieve any remote access to an address other than that of the server it is currently running from. This meant that to be able to post my project application online so that it would run, I would need to access the remote information somehow else other than through Flash. After doing some research I found one way to do this is to use a small PHP script to pull in the data which can then be accessed by the swf. I therefore went ahead and tried to implement this solution only to find that my web space does not support PHP and so I could not upload it to a space online in which it would work.

This left me with one other option. In terms of the local device security this is true for swf files but not if the application is exported as an exe or mac app file. I therefore went ahead and exported the file in these formats which can then be uploaded to my space and downloaded by others who can then run it locally on their computers. This provides a slightly long winded access for the Facebook page members and others but does allow users to view the project, which therefore meets my ultimate objective, if a little bit awkwardly.

IDAT210 - Posting with Facebook RSS

2010-04-25T12:19:00.000-07:00

Once I had created a fully working model of my project the final stage was to check its compatibility with the Facebook page, in particular looking at fan posts and comments. Therefore to test this I used another account to add posts and comments to the Facebook page that was not an admin of the page, and the ran the application. Unfortunately upon doing this I found that the posts and comments did not show up in the feed, and so did not show up as part of the application either. However if I posted items myself (as the admin of the page)the RSS would pick the changes up. In terms of comments however, even as an admin, they would not show up on the RSS or in the application. This meant there was only one way to get the feed to pick up the necessary data, which was to ensure all users were made as admins, and that they only posted directly onto the wall. This was in all intensive purposes a major set back for the ease with which I could get data added to the Facebook wall for my application, but did have a work around so I decided to stick with what I had created so far and use the work around to make my project work. This would mean inviting people to the page and then also telling them to only post onto the wall and making them all admins. Admittedly this is more information than I ever intended to provide users of the page, but it was necessary for the project to work as a whole.

IDAT210 - Project tweeks

2010-04-25T11:06:00.000-07:00

Once the body of the project had been devised and created the next step was to make sure all eventualities were covered in terms of how the project functions. In particular this covered two likely problems, words longer than 12 characters, and enough posts to run the visualisation over the stage width. To make sure these possibilities were covered I made two simple solutions. In terms of the characters issue I had already decided that only 12 notes were going to be included and so either I ignored words over this length, or continued to represent them visually but miss them in the audio. I therefore decided that the best method was to keep the word in the visuals by representing any word above 12 characters with another circle so that the visuals are as accurate as possible to the data, and so people wont get too confused. This is shown below:

In terms of the other issue regarding more circles than the stage width I decided to keep with the notation theme and simply continue the following visualisation on a new blank page, as if the page has been turned to the next page of the score. This is shown below:

This will ensure that the viewer of the project will be able to see the entire visualisation of the entire audio track rather than just a part, quickly and easily.

Another aspect that I decided to add to my project was small breaks in the audio between comments. Originally my audio was one long continuous string of sound. However being that my project is based around the idea of communication I felt that I should somehow demonstrate this through the audio that is created. I therefore added in breaks between the comments like rests in a piece of music to emphasise the different comments, and also to give a sense of some kind of communication between the different sections of music, almost as if they are responding to each other. This mimics the communication had through the comments themselves and is also a standard concept in music composition so continues the link between the project and music.

IDAT210 - Audio Visualisation

2010-04-25T10:00:00.000-07:00

Being that I have created my audio in Flash I also felt it was important to create a visualisation for the piece as well, as this would provide the viewer of the project with a better understanding of the audio and of the project as a whole. I therefore began by thinking about what kind of visual elements I could use. I decided the best way to visualise the audio would be to have one visual element attached to each note so that when the note plays the element also comes up on screen. I didnt want the visuals to be too confusing either and so started experimenting with circles and lines to see what kind of generated visuals I could create. In the end however I decided that the best method was simply to apply different colour circles to each note and then add these to the screen. By having different colours for each note the circles would be identifiable and also would allow the viewer of the project to get a visual sense of what length words are used most by which colour shows most on screen.
Once these circles had been integrated the next challenge was in how to organise the circles on screen. I began investigating this by placing the circles randomly on stage as shown below:

However I felt this did not provide the viewer with much understanding of the information due to the random nature of this approach, and prevented the viewer from making any differentiation between each of the comments that are represented. I therefore then tried a more structured approach putting the visuals into lines, a new line representing a new post. This is shown below:

These were an improvement on the randomised version as they allowed the viewer to compare the different posts based on their colours and identify which parts of the visualisation apply to which parts of the audio. However I still felt that more could be gained from the visualisation and it could be better fitted within the context of the project. I therefore continued to experiment with the visuals until I discovered the version below:

I like this design as it displays the circles in a very music based way. The format particularly reminds me of guitar tab and how that is laid out, but it is also similar to a standard score. I therefore think this is a good design for the visualisation as it is like providing a notation of the text as well as an audio for the viewer of the project. This is why I chose to add the horizontal lines, both to better separate the individual circles and to create a stronger bond between the project and musical notation. To ensure this theme is followed through the lower notes are placed at the bottom of the visualisation and the higher notes higher up just like a standard score. Also to outline where the different comments start and finish both in the audio and visualisation a vertical line is added, again similar to a standard score, making a strong link between the project and its musical undertones. Being that the different notes are now separated by where they are placed vertically it is questionable as to whether to keep the colours as this is not standard to musical notation. However I have decided it is better to keep the colours in the visualisation for three reasons. Firstly by keeping the colours the viewer can identify a bigger difference between each of the rows and so can identify which notes apply to which colour more easily. As well as this it allows the viewer to better judge which notes are used more often, and so, which length of word is most common. Finally the colours also help the aesthetic of the visualisation and so for these reasons I have chosen to keep them within the project.

The only other element of this design that needs to be considered is the text element showing the posts that the audio and visual is referencing. I have considered including this as it can provide the viewer with something to compare the other elements with to give a better sense of what the project is achieving. However this will very quick get filled up with posts from people placing comments on the Facebook page and so it may be difficult to see and investigate the text in relation to the audio and visuals. This therefore needs to be looked at further before my project can be fully completed.

IDAT210 - Audio and words

2010-04-25T07:03:00.000-07:00

Once I had the basic parsing working for my project I was able to begin coding in the sound elements that would turn the posts into sound. The RSS library that I found alread listed out each individual post on the page so my task was to take these and develop the code that would build my project. The first thing I did was to create the code that would give the length of each word in the post from which the sound would be produced. By using the space character in a string of text I was able to count how many characters had come before that and so calculate how long each word was. Once this was in place I had to have some sounds to apply to the word lengths.

In order for the audio produced from the project to be in some way understandable I felt that the best sounds to use would be notes from a piano, each note resembling a different length of word. I therefore recorded a set of 12 piano notes from F below Middle C to C above Middle C not including any black keys. I chose not to include the black keys as the audio being generated from the text would mean that there may be a lot of clashes between notes, and with black keys this would be especially recognisable. Therefore in order to make the generated audio as musical as possible I left the black keys out, making whatever tune is produced in the key of C. I chose to only record 12 notes in total as I felt that it would be unlikely for most words used to be any longer than this, mainly homing around 4 or 5 characters, especially being that text speak is often used on platforms like Facebook. Therefore any words included in the text above 12 characters long will not be played in the audio.
Once I had my sound files I was able to begin coding in the link between the word lengths and the notes played. Each note is played one after the other, but I have chosen not to include any other transforms so as not to make the audio too complicated.

IDAT210 - Facebook, Flash and RSS

2010-04-25T05:26:00.000-07:00

The first stage in creating my project is to set up the Facebook location from which the textual data will be retrieved. The easiest way to get the information from this location is using RSS which will check the page for updates and then update xml code accordingly to store the information. This may seem like a simple task but it actually took some development to find all the right elements to make this happen. Originally I planned to make a Facebook group which I could invite people to, which they could then add comments to. Once I had created the group however, I found that Facebook does not provide an inbuilt RSS feed for groups. I therefore went searching for ways in which it would be possible to get a feed from the page and came across two different tools, Yahoo Pipes, and page2rss.com.

Yahoo Pipes is a small application builder which allows people to create all sorts of programs quickly and easily. One of the applications that I found here was a tool specifically for making rss feeds from Facebook which took the group id of a Facebook group and then created an rss feed for that page. I therefore endeavoured to make this work, but found that it did not seem to work very well for my group and did not provide me with the feed I wanted. I then continued searching for a solution and found page2rss.com.

Page2rss.com is a service similar to that of the Pipes app I found but that takes any page url and turns it into an rss feed which checks for updates. I therefore put in the url of the Facebook group hoping that this would be ok. However on adding information ot the group wall I found that the page did not seem to be updating enough, and that when it did it provided me with a lot of extraneous information from page2rss. Being that these two methods were unsuccessful for Facebook groups I began to consider other areas of Facebook which I could use for my project. After searching through different sections of Facebook I discovered that Facebook Pages were an area of Facebook that had inbuilt RSS feeds. I therefore created a Facebook page for my project with its own RSS feed and got the url for this feed so that the data could be parsed into my Flash application.
The next hurdle to overcome was getting this feed properly into Flash. To begin with I just tried using a stndard xml parse to get the rss data into th Flash environment as RSS is in the XML format. However this only seemed to partly work as the important information seemed to be missing from the data and so I began researching into getting RSS into Flash with AS3. After looking at a number of bits of code online I discovered that in AS2 it seemed that you could import RSS similarly to XML but that AS3 may be more difficult. I then came across a RSS/ATOM Flash library for parsing RSS to flash called NewsATOM_cs3 from http://lucamezzalira.com/2009/02/07/parsing-rss-10-20-and-atom-feeds-with-actionscript-3-and-flash-cs4/. This libary is an open source library developed from the as3sydicationlib and made compatible for Flash by Luca Mezzalira, and allows users to parse RSS 1.0, 2.0 and ATOM feeds. I therefore downloaded it and started using it for the base of my project to allow RSS parsing for the Facebook page.

IDAT210 - The project

2010-04-24T13:13:00.000-07:00

So after rethinking my strategy for my project I decided that the project would be similar to the original idea, but also more meaningful. The sound that is created through the project should be live updating to demonstrate some kind of performance, and will be generated through comments that people make on a Facebook page. The people who provide the data will not be told specifically what the project is about, or what to write in the hope that they will decide for themselves and create some kind of conversation out of it. By allowing this to happen the project will comment on the ways in which social networking can create good communication out of a lack of communication.
In terms of the audio produced this will be built to provide the 'sound of social networking' based on the length of words written by people. When posts are added the music will be changed accordingly to ensure the updating element. This project will be built using Flash and the information will be retrieved using RSS.

Stonehouse - An Evaluation

2010-04-21T04:57:00.000-07:00

The Transforming Stonehouse project has been a year long investigation into the area of Stonehouse, its character, its people and how it can be improved. Ultimately the work that we have carried out over this year can be broken down into three basic sections. These are The Site, The Hertzian Space, and the Final Arduino Project. Throughout these various section the ideas that my group and I were having regarding the transformation of Stonehouse were investigated and developed, eventually leading us to an implementable project that could potentially transform Stonehouse for the better. Throughout the year our ideas have been continually developed whilst also ensuring that we kept to one particular focus. At the beginning of the year we spent time looking at Stonehouse in relation to light, which we then developed further during our long exposure investigation into the concept of communication using light. This then got transferred to our Arduino project which lead us to developing the project we have created.
In terms of our project I am quite happy with what we have managed to achieve with the Arduino. Although we have been unable to implement it properly as of yet this was to be expected and so achieving a working model as we did was good. There are however a few elements of the final project that could be improved or developed further. Firstly the concept of communication through light was good, but I feel our final project strayed slightly from this as the use of text meant that we were communicating regardless of the use of light. The only part light had to play in our project was the use of the projection and so the involvement of light with communication could have been developed further. As well as this the information we used for the project could have been better researched in terms of people's opinions and words that they felt would be opposite to the feel of Stonehouse. The words we used were chosen based on our group's personal opinion of the area and other opinions we had gathered over the year. Although these opinions seemed to be the general consensus we did not find out the opinions of the general public in the area and so we may have misjudged how people feel about Stonehouse.
In terms of further development, one element that could be added to our projection could be some kind of interactive feature. People like to investigate interactive projections much more that non-interactive ones, where parts of the projection interact with their movements, so to get our information across better, and to transform Stonehouse further our projection could be developed to react to people's movements infront of the projection.
Ultimately our final project gives a clear message and works effectively incorporating Arduino technology and ideas we have developed throughout the year. I am happy with the project we have created and feel it is a sucessful development for our site in Stonehouse.

Stonehouse - The projection finalisation demo

2010-04-13T07:59:00.000-07:00

The final stage of our Transforming Stonehouse module was to create a demo of our project idea based on what we had worked on over the year which demonstrated what we would plan to do and how if we were able to properly implement it into our site location.
Our idea for our project was to use arduino connected to a light sensor to provide information as to whether a pedestrian crossing button had been pressed. When a pedestrian presses the button on a crossing a light appears on the console, with either usually a 'WAIT' or pedestrian symbol. By using a light sensor we could tell when this had been switched on and so when the button had been pressed. The data from the light sensor would then both control and trigger a projection. The projection would be run from a Flash app in which the data from the arduino would be sent to the application and then this would be used to modify and control it. If the data said that the light was on a selection of words would be projected linking to our idea of communication through light. The number of words shown would be based on the length of time between the light being switched on. The words shown have been chosen to counter act the current opinions of the Stonehouse area by being more positive, encouraging the viewers to think more positively and so improving how people feel in the Stonehouse area. Below is a video demonstrating how the system works using the arduino with light sensor, a computer and a projector but in a classroom environment as we currently have not be able to implement it due to its requirements:

Transforming Stonehouse Demo from Rebecca Veater on Vimeo.
The plan for the projection would be that only the words would be shown and could be projected either on the nearby wall, or on the floor in front of the pedestrians. As well as making people feel more positive the system is also designed to prevent pedestrians from crossing the road at incorrect times when the traffic has not actually been stopped. Often people press pedestrian crossing buttons but the cross before the traffic has been stopped for them, leaving drivers stopped for no reason. By preventing people from crossing without signal by distracting them with the projection this should help to make the traffic lights and pedestrian crossing more effective and efficient.
To make this working demo we used a open source Arduino - Flash library called Glue. From this (or from the Arduino software) we were able to download the FirmataStandard arduino script onto the board which allowed us to communicate with the arduino directly from Flash making it easier to connect the data to the projection image. The projection was then made in Flash using additional AS3 script and a text file which was parsed into the flash file to provide the list of words. To be able to run the projection we also needed to have the proxy server running that came with the Glue software. This acted as a server between the arduino and the flash from within the computer, allowing for the data to be transferred and the projection to be controlled.

Stonehouse - Projection Content

2010-04-13T07:37:00.000-07:00

The final element that needs to be considered in terms of the finalisation of our project is the content which will be shown through the projection and its relevance to our project. All the way through the project we have been looking at light and then developed this into the concept of communciation through light. We therefore felt that this would be the correct route to follow. There are a range of things that can be communicated, and also a range of ways in which this can be done. The projection aspect of the project covers the concept of light as a means of communication but the content that the light shows can be in different forms such as text, image, shape, line, colour, number etc. The data that this is then connected to can also be various such as facts, values, thoughts, opinions, words. In particular we were interested in making a comment on the opinions of Stonehouse at the current time. Most people seem to feel that Stonehouse is not a very nice location in that it is dark, dank and run down, as well as being an area for crime. We therefore felt it would be a good idea to demonstrate the opposite of these opinions to try and brighten the opinions and feelings towards the Stonehouse area. We decided the way to do this was to display words on our projection opposite to those that might be considered as an opinion of Stonehouse, which viewers would see and read, and so this may give them a more positive outlook to the environment. The number of these words shown will be based on the length of time between a press of the pedestrian button and when the pedestrian light was last lit. The following list is the positive words that we will use for our project:

STONEHOUSE
HAPPY
NICE
BEAUTIFUL
CREATIVE
IMAGINATION
INSPIRATION
COLOURFUL
BRIGHT
LIGHT
GREEN
NEW
CONFIDENT
STRONG
REGENERATION
QUALITY
CALM
GREAT
POWERFUL
DESIRABLE
LUXURY
ATTRACTIVE
LIFE

A random selection of these words will be chosen to be shown on the projection, the number of which will be defined based on the time since the last press of the pedestrian button.

Stonehouse - Our project outline

2010-04-12T15:58:00.000-07:00

Once we had decided on the various elements of our project we then had to outline how it was going to work and then create it. The following is an image showing how our system would be placed in our site area:

There is also the option of choosing to place the projection on the floor in front of any pedestrians at the crossing as this would be more obvious to them and possibly catch their attention more easily although they may find it easier to continue to cross at the wrong time as they would not have to move away from their position at all. Obviously this set up is quite difficult to implement successfully in our current situation and would take a lot more work to integrate permentantly to the setting. However the general idea can be made as a mock up to show the basic physicality of the project, including the working functions of the arduino.

IDAT 204 - AR Evaluation

2010-03-27T16:27:00.000-07:00

Overall I am quite happy with the outcome of my augmented reality project. The project providesthe user with a range of information on the solar system and allows the user to investigate the solar system and its planets using the flexibility provided by augmented reality such as 360 degree rotation. However there are a few problems with the tool, and ways in which it could be improved. Firstly the main solar system section was planned to be animated so that the user could watch the solar system in action. Although the model I made is animated the amount of data the tollkit has to cope with for this seems to be an issue as the animation does not really run. This does not prevent the user from investigating the solar system, but does mean that it provides less information and so does not quite meet the original specification for the tool. Another problem with the tool is the size of the solar system section. In order for it to be usable the system has to be quite small but this makes it difficult to see the various elements of the solar system. This is a bit of a design flaw and would have to take some more consideration into how to design the tool to make this better.
Both of these problems could be improved for the future. There are also other elements that could be improved. The asteroid belt that is also part of the solar system is missing from my model and so if I were to improve the tool I would probably include this. I also intended to create better planet rings for Saturn and Uranus in my model using particles, but in the end decided not to as I could not get the right look for this. I could therefore work on this some more if I was to use improve the tool. As well as this I did not end up recreating the toolkit marker to make it more relevant to my tool so to make my tool a more well rounded product I could also change this.
Apart from these minor changes that could be made however I have managed to design and implement a successful working augmented reality tool for educational uses, and so am happy with what I have produced for this project.

IDAT 204 - AR final product

2010-03-27T15:51:00.000-07:00

I have finally managed to complete my Augmented Reality product for an AR Orrery. For the project I have created a solar system model, and also each individual planet so that learners using the tool could investigate further the separate planets away from the entire solar system. This also makes learning easier as just using the solar system it would have been quite difficult to investigate all the planets. For more on this see the evaluation. The individual planets are accessed through selection buttons on the Flash tool to reduce the amount of markers needed and to make the product a more system based tool. The textures I used for the planets were open source images downloaded from http://planetpixelemporium.com/planets.html.
To have a go at using the AR Orrery please go to http://www.veat.eclipse.co.uk/projects/FlashAR/ARPage.html print off the marker and try it out. Below is also an example of the AR Orrery working:

IDAT210 - A Context?

2010-03-22T16:36:00.000-07:00

Although my project has a basic structure - social networking develops text which becomes sound, this method needs to be set inside some context to make it a viable project. I am finding this context however quite difficult to define as though I know the process would work it is a bit clunky and almost acts a two separate processes strung together which makes it difficult to come up with one underlying context which fits. This post is to investigate the elements of my basic idea and see how I can work it around to make a more solid and whole project idea.
Firstly lets look at the two processes that have manifested in my project. The first of these is the chinese whispers process. This is the most experimental of the two processes and is also the main supporting element of the project. This process was influenced by the Dadaist poetry methods of taking pieces of text and remixing them to produce a whole new piece of text. Rather than doing this physically though my idea was to do this remixing in terms of response in that a person comments on a piece of text and this comment becomes the new piece of text which then gets passed on - alike to chinese whispers. The next question is why am I doing this? Firstly it is bringing the concepts of Dadaist poetry into the modern era through social networking. Also it can be looked at in terms of social networking as an investigation into communication and whether a conversation develops or stays the same. This however does not seem to sit quite right and so maybe I should rethink the process slightly so that the focus becomes more about translating Dadaist poetry techniques into a social networking environment which is reliant on communication.
The second process is the part in which the final piece of text, all the lines from the chinese whispers put together, gets reproduced as a sound. This process seems like a bit of an aside in the whole but was influenced by the idea that there has not been any sound related work for social networks, only visual, and that sound can be performed, linking my project back to digital performance. However it is questionable as to whether a singular piece of sound that would be produced at the end of this project could be considered a performance as it would be quite a static element, even if say a visualisation was put with it. It therefore may pay to consider how the sound element of my project could be redesigned or re-thought to be more performance based.
So the first step is to redefine my underlying process based on my original idea so that it deals more closely with communication and Dadaist poetry in social networking. Firstly I think I need to decide on the reasoning for my process and in this way the process can be developed from its aim. For this I need to consider my keywords again:

Generative Art
Digital Performance
Dadaist poetry
Social Networking
Sound/Music Production

Social networking is a form of communication that is relatively new, and has been critisied for reducing direct communication, even though it could be considered to be enhancing communication in general. Networking obviously is an important part of social networking as it allows users to network their communications easily and efficiently to many people. In order to justify using a social network as part of my process I have to base my reasoning on something that social networking provides exclusively such as these, other than just having access to a large amount of people. The concept of the original process came from the element of comments in social networking such as facebook in which you can see various comments and the tangents of thought that occur from one original post. It was this openness of thought that I was planning to capture through my process, but in a different way to that achieved in a normal 'comment' situation. Normal comments are also in context whereas my original process was planning to remove the context of the comment to provoke a greater reaction in the comments made. However how can social networking comments be seen as different to passing a piece of paper around a room which everyone writes on? I think the answer to this is a number of things. Firstly the main element of social networking, distance between people, is an important area to consider along with the instantaneous nature of social networks. A piece of paper could not be passed from one person in England to another group of people in America without a substantial amount of time being taken in between, if social networking tools are not used. There is also a longevity to social networking as people can go back to their comments or posts at any time and add something to them. Similarly people can use this longevity to look over a period of time at the changes say in a persons status. The openness of the information here is quite important as again, someone could keep a diary which they could look back on, but this would only be available to the individual and anyone else that they showed it to, rather than others choosing whether to look at the information or not. However it is interesting to note that there is a similarlity between comments on social networking and the same process on paper, as comments cannot be edited or changed, only removed or added. Overall however it is the unlimited information sharing capabilities of social networking sites that make them so different to other forms of communication as it is very easy to share and recieve thoughts and opinions to and from many people across a wide range of locations very quickly. With these differences I think it is viable that I can use social networking comments for my project if I wish as it is different to other methods, the question now is precisely how to deal with them to make my project work.
One thing that is obvious in this remodelling of my idea is that the sound produced should be running and updating live off of whatever information it is based on. This is because in order for it to be a digital performance it needs to be performed over a period of time, rather than just played at any point. The only problem with this is that I currently have no idea of how to set up a system which changes and plays the sound live off of the data. In my idea creation though I feel my knowledge in any subject should not cause restrictions and so for now this problem will be ignored.
Another element that I feel is important in this redeveloped idea is that the sound is in some way based on the networks between the people whose comments are used. This is because social networking visualisations are very focused on the networks and communities created and so to create a sound of social networking in response to the number of visualisations I need to include the main content of the image based versions. However I am not sure how this would be achievable at all as the networks between people are not obvious enough for a system to know about them as it creates the sound.
The next question to answer is how is the sound going to be created? The main plan for this was to use the text written by participants but there are other options also. There is the addition of a comment in itself, the participants name, and the time of submission that could be used. However the text written will be the most dynamic and so the most interesting to use. This decision relies on how complex a piece of work I wish to create as the text will make the sound development more complicated whereas something like date and time will be easier to manipulate. The main problem I am struggling with here is that I want to include an organic process as the major section of my piece as this is what makes digital art most different to previous art. If I just use something like the date and time of a post there is no process other than the conversion to sound which is not an artistic process but a technological one. Whereas if I choose to get each participant to carry out a process of sorts with a piece of text for example the process is there and so it will be part of my project. This is what I would prefer to do, but therefore I have to develop a process that has a context for the project and is viable in terms of what I am trying to do.
Dadaist poetry relies on taking a piece of text and randomly re-organising the words to create a new piece of text. One option therefore is to kind of replicate this, for example providing a piece of text and getting one person to change a single word and then pass it on. Another option is to provide a piece of text which the user has to randomly re-order and then passing this on to the next person to re-order again.
I feel that the process I use should somehow comment on the freedom of thought achieved by social networking sites and how this develops communication. Social networking currently is focused on portraying how you are feeling at the current time, and updating this as often as possible to keep the information current, in a way it aims to portray your digital personality and this key feature based on thoughts, emotions and opinions should be somehow considered in my project process. This leads me back to my previous process to some extent as the point of this was that each participant posted their own comment (opinion) on the previous persons comment. The final outcome of this would be an organic development through peoples opinions and thoughts.
There is also the option of not providing the participants with much information at all other than that they should post something as a comment. This is an interesting idea as a lack of communication about what to do will hopefully still provide some form of communication between the participants, demonstrating how social networking aids communication, whilst metaphorically incorporating the concept of the reduction in communication caused by social networks. These communications in terms of text can then be taken and used to manipulate and add to the sound file. This also incorporates some elements of freedom of thought and opinion as it is left open to the participants as to how the content transforms.
I quite like this idea and so after much deliberation through various problems this will now become my re-developed construct for my project. The purpose will be to demonstrate how social networking aids communication. The process will be the organic development of communication achieved purely through the participants own opinions and thoughts on content that has been added previously. The sound will hopefully be transformed as the communication is changed so that there will be a performance element.

IDAT211 - The Game Design

2010-03-21T14:32:00.000-07:00

The game for application will narrative based. The game itself will be set in a environment that is similar to the real world so that the learners are able to relate to the system. As well as this the narrative will allow users to make choices as to the elements they learn and so the path they take through the learning process will be self directed even if the user chooses not to chapter select. This does begin to stray away from behaviourist learning as it is more self driven alike to cognitive learning, but by including certain elements like this it makes the game more interactive and so more engaging to the learner than having the process chosen for them. The following game design is for a section of the game that focuses on the major scales section of learning for grade 1 music theory. This sits in the middle of the learning process for music theory and so would also fit in the middle section of the overall game. Although users will be able to choose certain paths in the game, the game will not be too fluid as otherwise the user may start with something too hard, or come across a subject that is too easy for them at their current stage of learning. All interaction within the game will be controlled through use of the MIDI keyboard alike to that of the general interface. To ensure that the MIDI keyboard controls do not conflict between the game and the interface the interface has a pause/continue function which will lock the other interface areas so that only this button will be important to relocate on the keyboard away from the keyboard keys used in the game. Below is the game flow design, to see any of these images in a larger form simply click on them:

Starting screen

Initial Game Screen

Question 1

Learner answering

Learner answered

Next question

Learner answers wrong

(this would then go back to the screen above this)

Learner then reanswers correctly

After the other scales have been done correctly in the same style as those above the game is completed:

Next section of the environment and narrative

In these designs the character has not been designed as it requires complex imagery, but the basic format of the game is as it would be in the actual application.

IDAT 211 - System Flow and Wireframes

2010-03-17T15:01:00.000-07:00

Below is the beginning of the physical designing process for our elearning tool demonstrating the flow of the system and also the basic wireframes for the screens of the tool. To see a larger version of any of the images below simply select them:

System Flow

Wireframes

Main Menu:

Menu with help etc box:

Game Screen:

Game Screen with help:

Free space screen:

This design for the free space screen is just an idea as we have not fully tied down what will be shown on this screen to make it functional whilst also in a free play situation.

IDAT 211 - Conceptual Development

2010-03-17T14:42:00.000-07:00

The Application
The application will be a music theory application aimed at providing users with a more informed understanding of music and music theory. In order for this to be possible the application will provide learning games by which learners can practice music theory. The application will be MIDI based and will use the MIDI keyboard as the interface to the application, rather than a keyboard or mouse. This will make the application more unique and engaging to the user whilst also promoting and developing the users understanding of music. This will ensure we match with the expectations set out in the needs analysis of the users.

Design and Learning
The main feature for learning will be the games which are played in the application related to each element to learn. The games will follow some form of narrative which allows development through the learning, and this will help to make the games more fun for the learners. The learner will be given a question based on a topic of music theory, for example reading the staff and notes, which they will then have to answer using the MIDI keyboard as their interface. If they get the question right the narrative of the game will progress acting as a positive reinforcement for behaviourist learning, whereas if they get it wrong the narrative will not change (a negative reinforcer) and they will be asked the question again. The use of the MIDI keyboard as the interface for these games means that there will be a greater development in pratical learning as well as theoretical, as the learner will be carrying out both whilst using the program.
By having this interface it also means that the learning tool better caters for the all the main types of learner, visual, auditory and kinesthetic. Visual learners will be able to learn through the on-screen imagery, hints and help given throughout the tool. Auditory learners will be able to hear the note or sound they are trying to learn and compare it through the sound of the MIDI keyboard. Finally the inclusion of the MIDI keyboard will cater for the kinesthetic learners as they will be working practically with the keyboard to use the tool and find the answers. This demonstrates our design to be a well rounded tool in terms of the way people learn, and also shows that it should be easy to use for any type of learner, another expectation outlined in the needs analysis.

Features
Below is a diagram of the features we plan to include in the product covering persitent features, technological features and variable features (features that are not persistent):

Context in which the tool would be used
The most common use for this application is likely to be alongside some form of music tuition be it individual or curriculum based. It will therefore be software or an online tool which will be used by schools in the majority to support musical learning and aid development of understanding. It would be good for the tool to be online based as this is more accessible to any learner whether they are at school or not, but by incorporating the MIDI keyboard element to the software it makes more sense for the application to be software based which can be purchased and installed onto a computer, particularly as part of a school's computing system.
The tool should be used alongside external music tutoring as it can act as supporting material to the external teaching and visa versa. In this situation it would be expected that the tutor would select elements which the learner would have to go through in the application to support the current learning, and the results of this learning would then be given back to the tutor as feedback so that the progress of the learner could be gauged. However it would still be possible for the application to be used in a self-tutoring situation if necessary but progress of learning may be slower.

Feedback
As well as allowing for feedback to be provided to the tutor on a students learning, the learner will also get feedback from the system throughout the tool. In particular a scores section incorporated into the features of the tool will allow the learner to view how successful they have been on each section and so they will be able to gauge where improvements need to be made in their learning.

Look, Feel and Related Work
When first looking at the design of the tool we instantly felt that colour should be incorporated to make the learning of muscic theory more interesting. The first kind of aesthetic we therefore considered was a weather based aesthetic including a rainbow based key colour format. The aesthetic would then develop to look similar to that chosen by Vimeo shown below:

Other cartoonistic approaches similar to this are used for games aimed at the target audience we have chosen such as BBC Bitesize:

and Zoombinis:

Both bitesize and Zoombinis are very successful e-learning tools and so it could be suggested that the similar look and feel of these games played a part in their success. It would therefore be good to design our tool to have a similar look and feel to these. In particular it seems that these tool rely on a character type that can act as the learners guide to the tool. In bitesize the character is the fish, whilst in Zoombinis the character is the Zoombini. It may be particularly important therefore to consider incorporating a guiding character into our tool to make it more consistent and to allow the learners to relate to the tool more easily.

In terms of related music theory learning tools there is elearning music theory as described in this post: http://beckyvidat.blogspot.com/2010/02/idat-211-elearning-music-theory.html. There is also a whole range of small applications available online varying in quality. Most however are much more powerpoint based pieces writing out the theory and requiring little or no interaction from the learner let alone making this engaging. For example musictheory.net is quite similar to Elearning Music Theory. It has very basic interactive training tools (shown right) and a lot of reading based learning elements that require no interaction at all. Although this site does provide a large range of different theory based tools and information it has a very poor quality of engagement and has no end target or encouragement. In testing this tool I became instantly bored with it and so this would definitely not be successful for teaching younger audiences. This overview is very much similar for all the other music theory pages I have come across. Athough there are a few music theory games out there to teach music theory in a more fun way these seem quite outdated or are not particularly engaging. For example there are a whole range of music theory games on http://www.musictechteacher.com/ but these are inconsistent in theme and varying in engagement. I therefore feel that there is a definite space for a tool such as ours which takes a new and more dynamic approach to learning music theory.

Related Literature
To come soon...

Stonehouse - Controlling our projection

2010-03-16T16:05:00.000-07:00

Once we had decided that our arduino board was going to control a projection in our Stonehouse location, we then needed to look at what information in particular could be captured from the arduino that could control what the projection looked like. There were a number of options for this as listed below:

microphone info - projection of sounds
time between uses of crossing - track times between light sensor triggers
amount of uses of crossing - track number of times light sensor triggers
motion sensing - number of people passing through

However being that our aim for the projection is to encourage people to use the crossing properly more often we felt that the best way of doing this would be to use the times between the pedestrian light last being switched on. The shorter the time between presses the more the projection would change and therefore this would encourage the pedestrians to press the button more often, and so hopefully use the crossing correctly more often.
This does not mean that the other options for manipulation of the projection could not also be used alongside the time based one but that the time based one would be the main control for the projection and the others would be used to provide extra data to the system to make the projection more versatile.
The next step in implementing our final project is to come up with a working arduino to flash system and then work out what our projection is going to do and how this is linked to our overall idea.

IDAT 204 - AR model development

2010-03-13T11:13:00.000-08:00

Once I had obtained the information that I needed to start building my solar system model I began constructing it in Blender. By building it in Blender it meant I could export it to the correct Collada format for the FLARToolKit. I therefore began working out how I could build the model for it to be proportional in size and distance. I used the Blender grid to work out proportional sizes based on the information facts I had found so that every 10 squares in terms of distance counts as 1000 million km, and every square in terms of size counts as approximately 35000 km. Therefore the ratio of the model is 35000:100000000 km or 35:100000 km. It is a shame that my model cant be completely in proportion so that it represents the solar system precisely, but the enormity of the distances between the planets in comparison to the sizes makes this impractical for the project. This is the second best option and should hopefully still be quite representative.
As well as sorting out the sizes to be proportional I will also have to decide on how I want to represent the speed of the orbits as this will have to be represented in seconds or minutes rather than years. The model therefore currently looks like this:

As well as having to change the size and distance to be at a ratio to each other, I have also had to shrink the Sun so that it is NOT proportional to the size of the other planets, as it is too big up against the rest of the model to be practical if at proportional size. There is still a lot of work to be done on this model including particles, textures and animations and so these are the elements I now have to tackle.

IDAT 204 - FLARToolKit Testing

2010-03-11T12:59:00.000-08:00

#bdat To be able to implement my AR orrery I will need to get my model working as part of a 2D matrix marker based AR tool. In order to do this I can use the FLARToolKit a free Flash based application that uses collada based models and matrix marker recognition to create augmented reality. I therefore have to make sure I am able to use this tool kit and implement my own models to ensure that my project will be successful.

The first step in trying to achieve this was to download the FLARToolKit and look at how the code worked in terms of choosing the model and pattern for the AR to work. This was a basically simple task as the model is selected through a reference to a file path at the beginning of the code. I therefore then went and produced a simple model in Blender which I could export as a Collada file and then apply to the FLARToolkit code. The following was the result I achieved:

The test carried out in the video above also included a small amount of animation although this is not obvious from the video. This animation also worked fine and so the results I have obtained from my FLARtoolkit test are promising for the rest of my project.

IDAT 204 - AR Research into planets

2010-03-11T12:33:00.000-08:00

In order to make an informational and accurate AR orrery I will need to know a whole range of information about the planets that will be included and manipulated. The following is a range of research relating ot this topic:
There are 8 official planets but orreries also often include Pluto as it was classified as the 9th planet until its downgrading in 2006.

(http://www.deepfly.org/TheNeighborhood/SolarTable.gif)

For my model I particularly need to know the information on the planets relating to distance from the sun, size, orbital path, time of single rotation, and time for a single orbit. With this information I should be able to construct a relatively accurate model of the solar system. I am therefore planning to use the majority of the data in this table below found at http://www.klbschool.org.uk/interactive/science/p_table.htm

However if I intend to make the solar system model in proportion to these values I will have to consider carefully how I intend to do this. For example the distance to the Sun is valued in millions of km. I will not be able to simulate this at the same proportion as the diameter which would be in km as I would have to model the planets too far away from each other. I will therefore have to make the distance and diameter separate so that all the sizes are proportional to each other, and all the distances are proportional but the size and distance are not measured in the same proportions.

Now that I have these values I can begin to create the model that I wish to use for my augmented reality solar system.

Stonehouse - Basis of our Arduino Project

2010-03-10T14:07:00.000-08:00

For the final part of the Transforming Stonehouse work that we have been doing we are required to develop and implement an Arduino based project as our final realisation of the ideas we have been investigating throughout the year. Being that our group has based our work on light and communication we therefore need to come up with an idea for our arduino project that implements this idea in some way. We had already looked a lot into what we could project as part of our project and so felt it would be a more consistent idea if we used the arduino in some way to relate to a projection that could be projected in the Stonehouse area. After looking at the various possibilities for arduino boards and relating this to the elements we have in the area of our site we decided that we would use the nearby pedestrian crossing as the main environmental change that would act as the input for our arduino. Basically when a pedestrian presses the button on the pedestrian crossing a light is turned on on the pedestrian console. We therefore felt that we could use a light sensor as part of the arduino to detect this change and trigger a change in the projection.

The basis behind this idea is that this could be used to improve the efficient use of pedestrian crossings and traffic lights as most often people press a pedestrian crossing button but they cross when they decide it is safe. This is quite often not when the traffic lights have stopped the traffic and so traffic gets stopped unnecessarily. By triggering a projection when the pedestrian presses the button they may well be distracted and so will wait for longer at the crossing making it more likely that they will cross at the right time.

The process that our arduino project will go through is as follows:
pedestrian presses button - light turns on - light sensor sees change and change is sent to the arduino - arduino data is sent to flash app - flash interprets data and changes image accordingly.

The next step in this project development is to consider what and how the projection will change.

IDAT 211 - Needs Analysis

2010-03-09T11:53:00.000-08:00

The first stage in designing a learning tool is to define the needs analysis of the learners to identify the knowledge already held and the knowledge to be gained by the tool, as well as defining the specific audience for the tool and how the tool will be approach this audience.

Audience and Skills
The subject for our learning tool is music theory, and in particular the basics of music theory that are learnt at the beginning of any musical learning. By producing a tool for this stage of learning we will be providing a supporting factor to standard music learning that will aim to develop understanding more efficiently. Firstly we must define the target audience of the learning tool based on the type of knowledge we wish to provide. The majority of people who would be learning the basics of music theory are children at school who are either learning an instrument or have music lessons as part of their curriculum. In particular this covers students aged 11-14 especially those in the transition between primary and secondary school in years 6 and 7. In this age range learners should have a basic knowledge of instruments and will also have taken part in musical pieces, often as singers, but will not have looked particularly closely at musical theory. It is also common at this age for students to decide to individually learn a musical instrument and so the tool will act as a support for these students in their first years of learning theory. Therefore most of this audience have very little knowledge of music theory and so this tool will aim to improve this.

Expectations and Goals
In using the tool students will aim to increase their knowledge of music theory beyond that which they already have. In completing the learning provided by the tool the students should have achieved a complete understanding of grade 1-2 music theory and should be able to apply this to various problems. In participating in the use of this tool users will have a number of expectations for the product which are listed below:

Easy to use
Engaging
Explain a range of theory
Be useful
Be fun
To improve their knowledge

As well as the users themselves there is also the question of the expectations of the possible tutors who will be involved in getting the students to use the software, such as setting particular tasks and applying relevant supporting material. The expectations of these users are below:

Improve students knowledge
Give some method of rating understanding
Support current practical work
Provide challenges
Provide help
Engage the student in the learning

Our tool therefore has to match all of these expectations for it to be a success.

Need and Demand
In order to do a needs analysis you also have to look at the need and demand of a product. Our tool does not have a particularly high need value, but in providing a tool such as this it allows for a better balance in knowledge throughout students of a certain age. This makes the level of understanding more measurable and so the development of this knowledge later on is likely to be more fair and successful for all students. In terms of demand this is likely to be quite high if accepted as a viable learning tool as most schools teach music and musical tuition is also very common.

Delivery Format
Being that this is a e-learning design project the method for which the tool must be delivered needs to initially be digital in some form. However there are still a number of options as to how the material is presented digitally. These include virtual reality, augmented reality, screen based, projected and dome projected. We feel that out of these delivery formats the most appropriate for the tool is screen based i.e via a computer monitor. This is because the tasks and learning will be based on the individual and so this method is the most accessible and usable for this. Although VR or AR could be used individually we felt that these would be too complicated for learners to get involved with and would also be less accessible. In particular learning could begin much more quickly with a recognised and familiar environment i.e a screen based interface, and so the tool would be more efficient.

To summarise our tool will be a screen-based music theory learning tool which targets students between the ages of 8 and 14 who are studying music. The aim of the tool is to increase the learners understanding of music theory up to grade 1-2 standard and should meet all the expectations both of the learners and the music tutors involved. Ultimately the tool should be able to allow for a more standardised understand of music theory throughout students making further development of this easier and more efficient for all concerned.

IDAT 211 - Types of learning

2010-03-08T16:03:00.000-08:00

In order to design a successful learning tool we must understand what kind of learning technique we wish to use. In the last lecture we had for this module the three main concepts of pscyhology for learning were covered. These were:

Behaviourist Theory
Cognitivist Theory
Constructivist Theory

In order to follow the brief and make a successful design that would be effective in teaching a student, we must decide on a specific one of these theories to draw upon when designing the teaching method we intend to use.

Firstly there is behaviourism which is based on a structured reinforced learning method involving both positive and sometimes negative reinforcement of behaviour. Experiments into behaviourism were initially conducted by psychologists such as Pavlov and Skinner who experimented with conditioning animals to behave in particular ways using reinforcement. In terms of designing a learning tool which adhere to behaviourist methods the tool must also be well structured and monitored involving drill procedures that teaches the student a topic by rewarding for correct answers and continually working at the topic until the students behaviour i.e their answers are continuously correct.
The behaviourist method very much fits the topic of music theory as along with practical music learning it is a very drill based topic that requires repeated practice before the knowledge is permanantly stored. Similarly it is unlikely that someone would choose to be learning music theory without having some other monitoring by a tutor, although this could be possible if attempting self tuition. Music theory is also a very structured practice as it has been taught for many years and can become complicated. By structuring the theory carefully from start to finish this ensures the learner has the necessary understanding for the next section and so the structured approach of behaviourism is also suited to music theory.

The second type of learning is cognitive. Cognitivist theory is based on the idea that we hold a model of the world inside our heads and use this to understand the world around us, classified as symbolic processing. The theory focuses around cognitive processes such as memory and the way in which we structure the information in our heads through classification and modelling to gain an understanding. Therefore a design for learning based on the cognitive model would need to be based on classifications, and also focus on getting the user to know what they have learnt and how to use it (metaknowledge).
This method of design for learning may partially fit the topic of music theory as uses should be able to apply the knowledge they have gained to various situations. However the content of music theory is not very heirarchical and so would not fit the classification structure. Music theory is also not bery comparable to anything else and so the use of comparison in cognitive learning would not be of any use.

The final type of learning is constructivist. Constructivism suggests that learning is a building process based on interpretation and in which the teaching is indirect. People learn through interaction with the world picking up knowledge as they go, and is a learner led method of learning. To design for constructivist principles a tool would have to be very interactive based on the interpretations made by a user. Examples of constructivist tools include interactive videos and role play which are user-centric allowing the learner to guide their own learning through the tool.
Constructivism may be suited to the topic of music theory as long as the learning was interactive and developed according to the learners choices. However this is not how music theory is best structured as it is a complex subject and needs to be carefully laid out so that the user has the knowledge required to move to the next step. Also music theory is most likely supported by an external tutor and so the constructivist focus on indirect teaching does not fit all that well.

Ultimately our tool for music theory ought to use the behavioural model of learning as it is the learning method that is most expected by the users, mainly because it is the most effective method according to the type of information that needs to be transferred to the learner.

IDAT 210 - Project Proposal

2010-02-22T02:45:00.000-08:00

Overview
For this project we are required to:

‘Set a critical inquiry and to provide critically informed, culturally aware and creative response in the form of a practical interactive media project'

The focus of this project is around digital art, looking at its history and influences and how it can be developed for the future. My area of study in relation to this specifically is digital performance and how this can be considered 'new' in terms of its techniques and ideals. It is important that digital art has definition from other art forms, and this is shown by Christiane Paul in Digital Art:

‘One of the basic but crucial distinctions made here is between art that uses digital technologies as a tool for the creation of traditional art objects ... and art that employs these technologies as its very own medium, being produced, stored, and presented exclusively in the digital format.’ (2003:8)
This draws a close link to a major focus in digital art of process over product. Digital art produces a process as the art rather than a final outcome, and so this is a particularly important area to consider in the creation of my project. This can also have a large effect on the roles of the artist and audience, and these have also become elements to work with in digital art production. My project should take this and other knowledge I have on digital art and performance into account in order to produce a critical piece of work in the field.

Overall for this project I aim to produce a generative sound piece that builds upon the here-say process and transformation of communication provided by social networking, and demonstrates the sound of social networking in response to the many visual representations that have been produced previously.

Keywords
For more information on how I chose these keywords go to my Project Keywords post. From this five keywords/terms can be deduced for my project, which are listed below:
Final Keywords List:

Generative art
Digital performance
Sound/Music production
Dadaist poetry
Social Networking

Context (Research)
As previously mentioned process is vitally important in digital art. This can be seen in many generative art works, as it is the process through which the art is generated that is most important rather than the final result. The concept of process as art however does have links back to previous art forms such as art through instruction. Dadaist poetry such as that by Tristan Tzara is a good example of this as poems were made by following a set of instructions such as cutting up a newspaper and then piecing the words back together. More contemporary works such as those of Stelarc's Ping Body(1996) continue to link back to this idea, in which the body is manipulated using data from the internet. The data is basically instructing the movements and so shows that digital art and instruction have strong bonds.

Sound based work has also often been produced as digital art, or as part of a digital performance. Dance performances in particular have used this in a cyclic way, such as taking a dancer’s movements, converting it to music and then instructing the dancers to interpret the music for their dance. As well as this Golan Levin's Telesymphony(2001) used the audiences mobile ring tones to create a live musical ring tone symphony. This demonstrates that sound as much as visuals is important in digital art and performance.

Finally there is also an important point to make in terms of 'intermedia', a concept created by Dick Higgins, a Fluxus artist. Higgins wrote in his 'Statement of Intermedia' that:

‘in saying that such-and-such a work is basically musical, but also poetry. This is the intermedial approach to emphasize the dialectic between the media.’

This statement is closely linked to my ideas and outlines a key element of digital art about combining various mediums together, like a montage, which will also be an important element to my project.

Field leaders (Inspiration)
For information on the field leaders and inspiration I have found relating to sound, generative art and poetry go to my Related Research post. As well as these projects there are also social networking based projects like social network visualisations such as that below:

(http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~jheer/socialnet/) This was constructed by Jeffrey Heer, a leading social network visualisation artist, which demonstrates the artist’s friendster network covering him, his friends, his friend’s friends and their friends – 3 hops out from himself. Jeffrey has also worked with Danah Boyd on Vizter, a study of visualising online networks. This has included more detailed work into social research that allowed the exploration of gender, community and connections.

(http://hci.stanford.edu/jheer/projects/vizster/) These provide a new perception of social networks that can reveal new and interesting information. However these are all image based and so the aim of my project is to extend this investigation through use of sound. These visualisations are also quite focused on elements within social networking such as friend lists, but my project plans to be more focused on the processes that social networking can provide.

Implementation (Platform e.g. video, installation etc)
For the implementation of my project I intend to look at a way of making a sound piece based on social networking. It occurred to me that we have many visualisations of social networks, but no sound has been created. I therefore intend to create 'the sound of social networking'. Ultimately it will be the process of making this however that will be important as I aim to use social networking to develop the process through until the final result. For example I may be able to write a comment on someone’s wall that they can then reply to. This reply them becomes the next comment on another persons wall, and so the text develops through social networking. These could then be put together as a poem and the poem converted to sound, providing me with both a textual and audio end to my project. The focus of my project will be on the transformations in communication. This ensures there is a continuous connection throughout my project as both text and sound are forms of communication as well as the process being centred on communication through social networking. Therefore the content of the process i.e. the text produced by this will also be related to communication. These ideas are only in their initial stages and so I aim to think about them further before fully implementing the project. However my final implementation will be some form of audio, possibly embedded in a video or stand-alone.

IDAT 211 - Types of Theory

2010-02-17T14:59:00.000-08:00

In order to create a functional elearning tool we need to narrow the type of theory we wish to teach down to a small amount so that it can be focussed on in good detail. The most obvious option for this is to choose a grade to focus on and cover all the necessary sections within the one grade. If we were to do this it would probably be best to focus on grade 1 as this would associate well with a students initial learning of an instrument which we could use to our advantage. However there are also other options, such as focusing on musical foreign terms, and covering all the terms available separated into the seperate grades and difficulties. This is a nice idea as it is quite different to other music theory elearning tools, but may not be as useful as the whole grade tool, as what would be taught is not as necessary when learning music as understanding time and notations. The same approach could be taken however with these kind of topics, focusing on a single section of theory rather than a single grade and covering a number of grades of that topic. The following is a list of areas that could be dealt with in a focused way:

grade 1
foreign terms
scales/key signatures
time signatures
intervals
chords

I will need to discuss these with Karla and see what content we are thinking of so we can then start looking at how we intend to design the implementation of the elearning tool

Stonehouse - Arduino Boards

2010-02-17T13:56:00.000-08:00

For the final part and realisation of the Transforming Stonehouse project we are now investigating the uses of Arduino boards and how we can implement them. Arduino boards are small circuit boards that can be connected to various inputs and outputs and programmed through a USB connection using Arduino and linked up to other software such as Processing and Flash. Inputs can include a range of sensors including light sensors, motion sensors, mircophones and magnetic sensors, as well as ethernet data through a computer, while outputs can include motors, sounds, and LEDs. The flexibility of Arduino boards allows for a massive range of possibilities for projects. A few examples of uses for arduino boards is shown below:

These are onlyvery basic projects and arduino has the capability for much more. Me and my group now need to work out how we plan to use arduino boards to realise a project for this module based on the work we have done over the year so far.

Stonehouse - Swarming

2010-02-17T13:08:00.000-08:00

#bdat An interesting element related to hertzian space and also social implications is swarming. Swarming in technological terms is related to emergent behaviour that can be created and recognised due to the extension in communication and community acheived by technologies such as social networks, bluetooth and wifi. This is explained by Brymer: "The comparison of swarm behaviour to human interaction has become increasingly relevant. Digital technology has made it possible for human communities to behave like swarms of our own."(2008)
Swarming can be experimented with in many ways using current technology. An example of this is Comfort of Strangers. Comfort of Strangers is a street game that uses iPaq PDAs and Bluetooth in which a player has to find people in the same group as themselves using information provided through their headphones, even though the people they are looking for are complete strangers. Each player has an amount of lives, and if you get too close to strangers who are on the other team you loose lives. The following is a video example of Comfort of Strangers:

The Comfort of Strangers from Simon Evans on Vimeo.
For more information on this game go to http://www.swarmtoolkit.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18&Itemid=49. Swarming can be considered the next step in social technology, extending from the single 1 to 1 relationship provided by current mobile devices to a much more fluid, dynamic and social relationship.

IDAT 211 - Elearning Music Theory

2010-02-16T09:30:00.000-08:00

The topic that me and Karla have decided on for our elearning application is music theory. This is because we are both quite musical and both agree that music theory could be made more interesting through an elearning application, as it tends to be quite a dry and uninspiring topic that is difficult to learn because it is not engaging. Previous methods for learning music theory tend to be book based with support from music teachers, and can include a lot of text and technical diagrams that is difficult to understand. The purpose of our application therefore is to change this through using modern day technology.

Although music theory has been tackled by elearning facilities before, they are most often still quite a formal tool, which can make the process of learning less engaging. An example of this is emusictheory, an online and software based tool that requires payment for full access. (http://www.emusictheory.com/) EMusicTheory provides an entire range of theory drills that cover the majority of theory grades. It also provides access to both students and teachers to enable teacher support and acts as an assignment tool, where teachers can set students particular drills to do and then find out their marks once completed. The drills involved in this elearning tool however are still quite plain and are just more interactive versions of the original book format of learning used in most cases. This tool is also purely screen and application based and does not use other more dynamic technologies to run the program.

In order for our elearning tool to be successful it would be better to narrow the type of music theory we plan to teach down to a minimum so that the functionality can be more focused and effective. We must therefore decide what part of music theory we wish to cover in our elearning idea. Also it would be good to include ways in which we could overcome the problems had by such applications as EMusicTheory as we are not limited in our brief as it is only a design and so can easily incorporate many different technologies and elements if they are deemed useful.

IDAT 210 - Related Research

2010-02-15T15:43:00.000-08:00

There are a number of projects that are linked to the keywords I have chosen that demonstrate possible ways of developing and investigating digital art, and could provide inspiration for my project. Below are a few of these related projects:

lewis laCooks flash poetry generator 3.0
laCooks flash poetry generator allows users to input their own choice of nouns and verbs which then generates a poem. This ties in with generative art and dadaist poetry as it is constructs the poem via a process. This is quite a basic project but does demonstrate a technilogical development of the original dadaist poetry. http://rhizome.org/artbase/11499/pogen3.html

Steven Read Internet Noise 1
Internet noise 1 and other pieces produced by Steven Read are based on the collation of found sounds that are then generated into a musical piece using software. Internet Noise 1 is based on a collation of found internet sounds that are then randomly strung together using software. This closely links to generative art as the music is being generated using code. Also this is closely linked to process as art as these projects are much more based on the creative process than the final product. This is interesting as in some ways the results can make a comment on the content and diversity of the internet. http://www.stevenread.com/music

Jason Freeman Piano Etudes

Piano Etudes is a collection of musical pieces that are created using small fragments of music pieced together alike to a flow diagram, in which the performer of the etude can choose the route trhough the fragments they wish to take according to the diagram. The etudes are also available to the public to create their own version of an etude for others. This is a very process based piece of work focusing on the ways in which the music is created rather than the end product that is produced. This is an interesting project as it is a very dynamic way of producing a piece of music and has many different possibilities.

http://turbulence.org/spotlight/pianoetudes/net.jasonfreeman.pianoetudes.PianoEtudes/wordpress/

Boris Muller Poetry on the Road entry 2006

In 2006 Boris Muller created an information visualisation for the Poetry on the Rad festival based on the transformation of a piece of poetry from text to image. This is created by calculating a value for each word, representing it by a position of a circle, and then drawing lines to connect the words together realtive to the poem. This is generative art as it uses software to generate something from an input of data. This is interesting as it provides an abstracted view point of an item of text, in which text is re-represented by an image.

http://www.generatorx.no/20061015/poetry-on-the-road/

IDAT 211 - Elearning Brainstorm

2010-02-10T10:30:00.000-08:00

In order to start thinking about an elearning application I need to define different aspects of elearning and look through various topics that could be learnt. I decided the best way to do this is to create a brainstorm of important information that is relevant to elearning. The brainstorm I created is shown below, to see a bigger version simply click on the image:

Having this laid out makes it easier to consider all the options there are for this project as well as helping to develop ideas. Once I had created this brainstorm it occurred to me that it would be good to choose a topic that was relevant to me and Karla and that we both had previous knowledge of. I therefore suggested that we work on a music based project which we both agreed on and then started to work on the details.

IDAT 210 - Project Keywords

2010-02-09T02:58:00.000-08:00

In order for me to properly research for my practical project I need to come up with a set of 5 or 6 keywords that can drive the development and investigation of the project, as well as helping to define more precisely what my project is about. So far I have managed to focus on sound/music and digital performance, but this is not very specific and provides little chance for idea development. These therefore need to be more focused as part of my keywords and also need to be developed to create the list of words that I need.
Sound and digital performance have always been closely linked as music is performed and performance uses sounds. Sound performances related to digital art are also often developed in a generative fashion, based on software and other inputs that generate the sound. Generative art is also an area that I am quite interested in as it is based on process, a key point outlined in my essay, and is also coding based, another element that I enjoy working with. Generative art has strong bonds with Dadaist ideals relating to process and instruction as art, such as Dadaist poetry. I find this concept of art through instruction quite interesting, and also enjoy writing and reading poetry so would also like to investigate this area for my project.

Final Keywords List:

Generative art
Digital performance
Sound/Music production
Dadaist poetry
Social Networking

IDAT 210 - The project

2010-02-09T02:33:00.000-08:00

For the second part of our IDAT210 module we are required to:

'set a critical inquiry and to provide critically informed, culturally aware and creative response in the form of a practical interactive media project'

In the first term we investigated aspects of digital art and its history, and were asked to write an essay on a topic of digital art of our choosing. The aim of this project therefore is to take the knowledge we have gained whilst writing and researching for our essay and turn this into a practical project piece. This project must also be well researched and have a critical context from which it is derived. The project does not have to be specifically linked to the content of our essays but does need to be an exploration into an aspect of digital art.
For my essay I wrote about digital performance and whether it can be considered as new in terms of its ideas and concepts. I chose digital performance as I am interested in and enjoy performance work and so this was the most suitable topic for me. I would therefore also like to look into some part of this for my practical project, but would also like to work with something sound or music orientated as I am also very interested in and enjoy working with music. I myself am a piano player and singer and so have knowledge that may help be to develop a project in this area. This provides a starting base from which I should now begin my investigation, to help me develop my ideas and design my project.

IDAT 204 - Augmented Reality Proposal

2010-02-08T16:57:00.000-08:00

After much deliberation for my AR project I have decided to design and create and augmented reality orrery. This orrery will display our solar system in as much detail as possible virtually using a matrix marker and webcam system for delivery. The aim of this project is to provide a unique learning tool that takes all the advantages of the concept of augmented reality and applies them to create a functional and interesting augemented reality project. Below is a image representation of how the AR Orrery may look:

For my project I would also like to include further information for the users and more functionality by enabling the learner to use the AR interface (i.e the flash interface built to show the AR) to enable them to select a specific planet and find out or investigate it more. This depends on how adjustable the technology is and how well I get on in developing the initial idea, but it would be a good added functionality to include.
This project proposal fits with all the main concepts I felt I wished to include in my Augmented Reality product, particularly in terms of learning and functionality. This idea has also not been looked at much before as an AR experiment unlike a number of other ideas that I looked at and so is also better for being more unique.
By using AR for this kind of tool it enables better accessibility and ease of use in terms of a spatially based orrary. It is also better as it provides users with a more investgative approach to the tool as they can manipulate and move it physically to suit their needs unlike that achieved by other computing virtual orraries. This more direct contact should make the tool more engaging and may therefore lead to a more positive learning experience through the use of AR.

IDAT 204 - AR Research into orreries

2010-02-08T15:10:00.000-08:00

Being that I intend to make my AR tool as a learning tool to enable the investigation of the solar system I need to do some research into information about orreries (physical structural solar system representations) and the planets and solar system themselves.
Firstly my project wil mainly be based on the orrery concept, allowing users of the AR tool to get a visual demonstration of the solar system in progress, hopefully accurate to that studied by science. This will ensure that the tool can be used for learning purposes as it will provide accurate information for the learner. An orrery is a physical mechanical structure that proportionally and accurately represents the solar system according to science. It includes the Sun and the surrounding 9 planets as well as their moons in a moving heliocentric format designed to show relative distance and speed of planets in the solar system. An orrery most commonly looks like this:

Orreries are not very accessible these days and are not used very often in the teaching of the universe as they have been replaced by more accessible methods of teaching such as descriptions in books and simulation on computers. The AR orrery is therefore good as its use of technology makes an orrery accessible to anyone who may want to investigate one and get a better understanding of their solar system. An AR orrery can also provide more information to the user than an original orrery would therefore increasing its functionality and usability.

This project to create an AR orrery is also interesting in terms of its cultural aspects. When looking at the history of orreries their construction and use has a long history possibly dating back to the 100s BC. The construction of modern day orreries however began in the 1700s AD and has continued until this day. Orreries have now in the modern day been taken into the virtual environment through use of computers where a variety of software and online applications have been written to emulate the orrery concept in the virtual environment.

The new element that I am proposing with this orrery project is that the orrery is taken a step further into technological advancement by being as a virtual augmented object in a real space, rather than a flat image on a screen. This way the users can get the observation capabilities of the orrery that were originally part of its design, which has not been possible in the computer environment before. Admittedly the orrery itself will still be viewed on a computer screen as this is the display for the final composition, but the user will be able to move themselves around the orrery, or the orrery around them in a way that was previously not accouted for in virtual orreries.

To be able to create a successful orrery the information about the planets must also be considered including thier orbits, speeds, size etc. This information will be looked at in the next post.

IDAT 204 - Brainstorming for AR ideas

2010-02-08T14:01:00.000-08:00

In order for me to develop my ideas and place all my knowledge of augmented reality into one place, I decided to create a mind map of everything I could think of in relation to the topic. The aim of this was to help me explore the various elements of AR that I found interesting including its main functions, uses and content topics. Below is an image of the mind map I created, you will need to click on this image to be able to explore the mind map properly:

From this exploration of augmented reality I came up with a number of key elements that I felt more focused on and then developed these into a few possible ideas to choose from. My main focuses were learning, use of rotation, matrix markers, and functionality. These along with the knowledge I had logged were then used to create a few ideas which are listed in the map and include:

caring for a plant: could be used in schools to teach care and organic science. This however has been done a few times before.
investigating planets: the rotation could enable a better look at the planets structures up close, and the AR could help to demonstrate the solar system as a whole
The AR cube based game: as orginally concieved the game would have a 3D cube as the AR object which would need to be rotated in order to solve a puzzle.
Maternity AR: To help mothers-to-be to get a better impression of their babies growth etc when in the womb.
AR notepad: important reminders could be placed in locations where they originated using GPS and an interface so that they are more accessible and viewable (if using AR glasses) to all concerned e.g family notices etc

Out of all of these concepts however I decided the planet based concept would be the most successful, as it can be used for teaching purposes therefore giving it fuctionality and a learning basis, will be able to be created using the matrix markers, and matrix marker rotation can be used for better investigation. This project will also take advantage of other key elements that are important to the successful use of AR such as:

use of space - AR can be used in almost any space as it is virtual and so space is not needed for any real physical objects, apart from the matrix marker, and can be removed easily and quickly at any time
3D modelling - provides the user with a virtual 3D object to manipulate - 2D AR does not add to the users experience as it is just like seeing something on a computer screen
Visualising the unaccessible - It is not possible for people to see the solar system so this use of AR provides them with that possibility. A range of AR is used for this purpose such as AR hairstyles and AR for architecture.

I will now investigate into my planet exploration concept to develop a specific design for the project.

IDAT211 - E-Learning

2010-02-03T08:38:00.000-08:00

For our next project for the IDAT211 module we are required to design an E-Learning application to teach a skill of our choice. We do no have to create a final version of the product, but instead have to produce an in depth design of what we could create with the correct resources and abilities. We have chosen to work in a group of two for this project and so I am working with Karla Anker. In order for us to begin thinking about what to create for this project we must first understand what is meant by e-learning.
E-Learning is basically learning through the use of technology, such as relying on software to provide instruction rather than an actual person. There are many examples of e-learning, and can be presented through a number of means. Firstly there is software e-learning in which installed software is used to provide an interface for learners to educate themselves in various disciplines such as touch typing and second languages. There is also the use of online elearning facilities such as You tube videos and online education companies such as the Open University. Other examples of this include many school orientated websites such as GCSE Bitesize and textual tutorials.

The challenge with e-learning is how to create an e-learning application that successfully teaches the student without having an understanding of the users learning methods, abilities, or their responses to the teaching provided. For example in a real teacher/student environment the teacher is able to watch and listen to a student to see if they are understanding what they are being taught, or in the case of physical learning, are able to see whether the actions carried out by the student are correct. However a computer and the technology involved in elearning is not able to physically read a students responses to what they are being taught. Therefore the elearning tool has to use different methods such as testing and questioning more often in order to get a better impression of the current status of the students learning.
This means that designers of elearning tools have to think this over carefully when creating their products.

IDAT 204 - My AR Ideas so far

2010-02-03T05:30:00.000-08:00

Now that I have identified some key areas of AR that I would like to exploit for my project, I now need to think of a few ideas that can use these techniques to create a new AR product. The two areas that I most want to exploit are the practical uses of AR as shown by the Priority Mail AR Simulator and also the 360 degree rotation possibilities provided by the use of AR on a horizontal plane. From these I currently have two possible ideas.
The first idea is of an AR gallery. The user could use the tool to browse through a number of different artworks, particuarly sculptures, which the user could rotate using the matrix marker, to get a better view of the entire work. This could be used in an educational format for art students to get a good look at important pieces of art without having to go directly to a gallery. This idea however does not have much scope as it does not provide the user with much of an extension of the real world if at a small size, and would also have a negative effect on real world galleries. However this may be a more viable project if the art was to be introduced to the environment at its real life size, so that users could turn their rooms into an art gallery. This would be better done if using AR glasses rather than a webcam as users would have more mobility to interact with the artworks.
The second idea is a game based on a 3D object produced in AR which requires the user to be able to rotate the shape 360 degrees in order to solve a puzzle or problem. This would be more viable as it would rely on the 360 degree rotation capability of AR but is not very practical as it would only be used for entertainment purposes.
One example like this but much more in depth is the game LevelHeads shown in the video below:

This game is really well thought out but uses a slightly different technique to my idea in that it uses a cube of matrix markers rather than just one.
Either of these ideas therefore need to be developed further for them to be viable for this project. I think the next step in sorting out my idea for this project is to do a full brainstorm of possibilities to try and find elements that could be interesting and useful for my project which I can build an idea from.

Stonehouse - GPS Journey Visualisation

2010-02-02T09:27:00.000-08:00

Mapping out our GPS track from above is one way of visualising the data that provides a new perception of what was created. However this is not always the most interesting way as there are many other ways of visualising data. For example a time based representation of information is interesting as it reflects occurences along a journey. My visualisation of the GPS data below therefore uses this time based element and represents the changes in vertical and horizontal coordinates along the journey:

This visualisation provides an abstract representation of the journey by looking at it in a different way. The image provides information on the amount of change between x and y coordinates through the journey as well as showing the various times at which data was taken by the device which is demonstrated by the coordinates placed on the image in relation to the timeline. This is quite a mathematical and graphical representation of the data, but is different to the standard way of outlining GPS tracking and provides further information that could not be discovered through a basic GPS trace image.

IDAT 204 - Real AR Testing

2010-01-25T14:02:00.000-08:00

In order for me to develop an augmented reality project I felt that first I had to investigate how AR works and feels myself. I therefore set about finding a source on the web with which I could test the capabilities of AR. The first I cam across was the Smart Grid AR designed by Ecomagination (http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/#/augmented_reality). The following are a couple of videos of me looking at these AR projects designed by Ecomagination:

These AR visualisations required the user to hold the paper up vertically infront of the camera. After testing this method I feel that this is not the best way of dealing with AR as it is not that flexible and can be awkward. Also it limits the users view of the AR as there is not a 360 degree rotation on the most sensible axis and so users only get a 180 degree view of the model from that angle. I therefore think an AR project should be something that can be located on a table top or somewhere flat to ensure that the users get the easiest manipulation of the object.

AS well as experimenting with these I decided that I should also look at the AR project which I most like, the packaging AR shown in the previous post. However I was unable to launch the software for this and so could not test it. However I feel that the way that this visualisation uses AR is better as it allows you to place the AR flat and so there is the 360 degree manipulation. This simulation is also clever in that you can relate it to objects of the real world which you may wish to package. The simulator incorporates an opacity setting which allows users to increase or decrease the opacity of the AR box so they can work out whether their object will fit inside. This demonstrates a real practical use of AR and is the kind of simulation I would like to be able to achieve in my project.

IDAT 204 - Further investigation into AR

2010-01-25T12:42:00.000-08:00

For our brief we have been given two options:
- To investigates either (option 1) the ways in which the real world can be augmented with different forms of digital information or (option 2) the ways in which an interactive sound environment can be designed, constricted and implemented.
Therefore I have done some research into both sections in order to decide which brief I would rather take on. Firstly there is the AR brief as previously explained. After my previous post I decided I needed to find out what AR has been used for previously and so did some research. In general I found that the most popular uses of AR are in branding and commercial areas in which it can be used to advertise products and engage potential customers. For example AR has been used quite often in recent years to allow consumers to investigate a new brand of car up close without the need for the physical car to be there. This is demonstrated in the video below:

This is a very useful concept as the use of AR extends the information the user can obtain about the car in terms of shape and look due to its use of 3D and the ability to manipulate the model. Also AR has quite a strong relationship with gaming such as through AR trading cards, and AR game components. It is often used to make games more interactive as players are required to use and move the AR picture boards to play the game.
My favourite use of AR that I have found so far though is that of the USPS Priority Mail Simulator. This AR tool allows users to work out what size of box is required for any package they are trying to send. They are able to use the AR to compare the package simply and easily with the size of the box which makes this use of AR very functional. It is this functionality and purpose, along with the uniqueness of the concept, that makes me particularly interested in this AR tool. The video below is a demonstration of this tool:

As well as AR there is also the interactive sound environment brief. This is a much less explored area than that of AR but there are also a number of interesting examples that have been carried out in relation to this topic. The first of these that interested me was the Map1 sound installation by Garth Paine. This environment allows people to walk around a space in which the sound is relevant to them and their position within the space. Sensors are used to get values such as weight and direction which is then converted into sound. As well as this the location of the source of the sound is manipulated to match with the users location within the installation. (http://www.activatedspace.com/Installations/Map1/map1.html) Similarly the work of David Strang who we will be working with on this project is based around interactive sound installation. His work includes sonic representations such as Resonate Space Q121 and structural recording installations such as Building Systems.(http://www.davidstrang.co.uk/buildingsystems.html)

Another version of interactive sound installation is that similar to the work of Goudeseune and Kaczmarski. This work involves the use of GPS to locate a sound at a particular location which then can be found using the right hardware and software. The sound can only be heard if at the correct location meaning that you can provide the user with aural information very specific to the location they are at. Such experimentations with sound also include sound mapping and sound walks that use sound to provide a representation of the environment and the changes within it. (http://zx81.isl.uiuc.edu/camilleg/icmc01.pdf)

Both of these areas would be interesting to explore. The knowledge I currently have would be more applicable to creating an AR project, but the sound installation is a lot more explorative and with the help of David Strang it would be possible to expand my knowledge to suit this brief also. I feel that I would enjoy working with augmented reality more and so will follow this brief for my project.

IDAT 204 - Augmented Reality

2010-01-23T14:04:00.000-08:00

#bdat The final project for the IDAT204 module is based on Augmented Reality. Augmented Reality or AR refers to the combination of the real world and computer generated objects or information. There are a number different ways that AR can be achieved. The most common of these is via recent mobile phones that are able to use software and inbuilt cameras to show the user an augmented environment. This is shown in the image below:

There is also the use of Head Mounted Displays to which act like virtual reality glasses through which the user can see the augmentation. In either of these examples the video image of the current location is input via a camera into a computer which then takes the information and layers the augmentation onto it. This composite image is then shown on the display.

Augmented reality can be used for a variety of things. The following is a list of uses for Augmented Reality:

Entertainment - games, characters,
E-Learning - books, pictures, 3d representations
Medical - pre-op, teaching
Consumer Design - clothes, hair, rooms?
Aesthetic - objects, pictures
Information - location, height, time, memos, interest,
Geographic - direction, location

The aim of any of these is to improve the users perception and understanding of the world around them.

Stonehouse - GPS Drawing

2010-01-21T14:49:00.000-08:00

Following on from our initial investigations into the hertzian space of Stonehouse this week we experimented with some GPS drawing similar to last years work (see beckyvidat106.blogspot.com). This time however we were asked to use a set of rules to trace our drawing rather than planning the image before hand. We used the centre of town for our location rather than the campus as this provided more opportunity for experimentation with this idea. Our group initially began by trying to find a way of using light sources for our rules so that we could relate our findings to our general project of light and communication. However we could not come up with any worthwhile rules that would have a very good effect for the drawing and so after some discussion deciced to use tall poles such as those of street lights, as well as using surveillance cameras as our way-points. We therefore produced the following GPS drawing with the results of these rules:

Although the rules we used did not link with our overall project, the concept of surveillance is quite interesting as it enables you to think about the spaces that are controlled and monitored and how this links to the concept of a digitally enhanced area.

Stonehouse - Hertzian Space

2010-01-20T04:39:00.000-08:00

For the Transforming Stonehouse project we are now looking at how we can investigate the herztian space in our area to inform our final project. This was an area that we covered last year for IDAT106 and now we are reviving it for this project so that we can look at it in a more cultural and social sense. The use of Wifi and Bluetooth signals among others is ever increasing in the digital age, and this therefore is likely to lead to a change in society and the way we use the space around us. For a detailed overview of Hertzian Space go here:

http://beckyvidat106.blogspot.com/2009/03/field-beginning.html

The hertzian space and its uses also has an effect on us. We use some element of the hertzian space such as wifi, mobile, and Bluetooth frequencies everyday to reach out beyond our physical location. This extends our physical space and presence making contact easier and freer. For example when we turn the Bluetooth on on our phones, we are enlarging our personal space in one aspect to the radius of the Bluetooth signal. Others can converse and connect with us from a distance, including those who we may not know, as long as they are within the extended radius created by the hertzian signal.

To find out more about our location in relation to Hertzian space we went down to Union street and logged the Bluetooth signals that we received. The following is a visual mapping of this information with a list of the signals we found:

This map shows the hertzian space of the area in terms of the signals that we found. However this information is not particularly accurate of the area in general as the signals we found were mainly those of other people in our group who were also looking for bluetooth signals in the area. This therefore is not a good representation of the hertzian space that would usually exist in the area. It occurred to me during this task however that our location is quite well chosen as it is right next to a bus stop which means there is more likely hood of receiving signals such as Bluetooth at our location.

One idea I had in terms of implementing hertzian space into our project is to use the Bluetooth signals found for our projection. Alike to the long exposure projection I suggested in a previous post, the words drawn on the floor could be those of the Bluetooth names in the area, rather than the word cloud concept. Either that or messages could be sent to any Bluetooth signals in the area asking for a single word response to a question, for example. These responses would then be drawn on the floor, demonstrating the feelings of the people in the area. In either of these examples the hertzian space would be used to provide the data for the projection which would ensure it was incorporated into the project.

IDAT 211 - Fluidic Forms

2010-01-17T10:21:00.000-08:00

My final perception video is called Fluidic Forms. This is because it uses fluid to create forms that enable the viewer to discover an object before it is actually visible. The final video is shown below but is in the dome corrected format so will look slightly warped unless viewed using a fish eye projector. The sound for this video is also in 5.1 surround sound. Again this will only be properly noticable if played in a 5.1 surround sound format.

IDAT 211 - References of Resources

2010-01-17T10:00:00.000-08:00

Although the references for my resources I have used to make the video are included in the video I thought I should also put them here on the blog so that they are easy to access and view. The following is a list of all the websites I have obtained resources from and the details for my video:

http://e2-productions.com/repository/index.php - umbrella
http://www.diatonis.com/ - ambient background music
http://feeblemind.tuxfamily.org/dotclear/index.php/2004/12/24/4-blender-faire-pleuvoir---making-rain - rain particles
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=137038 - rubber ducky
http://www.pacdv.com/sounds/index.html - rain sound, water running sound,
http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/soundfx/watersounds.shtml - splash sound
http://www.blender.org/ - software + Python

In terms of software I also used Adobe After Effects for video composition and Adobe Premiere Pro for the 5.1 sound arrangement and final composition.

IDAT 211 - A change to the plot

2010-01-17T09:19:00.000-08:00

Due to the length of the other scenes in my video and also the lack of success in creating an effective look to the scene I have decided to remove the middle scene of my storyboard from the video. This includes the rising water section and the floating object section. I tried to create these scenes a number of different times but the results I obtained were not very effective. I did not like the aesthetic of the rising water scene shown in the test renders below, due to the way it was created, and attempts at the floating object scene did not work like I had hoped when using the dome camera to make the dome correction. The other scenes in my video also took more video time than first anticipated so that they were more coherent and cohesive. I therefore removed the middle scene to ensure that the video worked well and fitted with the specification.
This change should not have too much of an effect on the overall effectiveness of the video, and although it limits the amount of scenes included that were intended to relate to perception, hopefully the other two main scenes will get the concept across appropriately. The storyboard for my video in writing therefore now looks like this:

Title
Raining scene
Rubber duck scene
Credits

This may seem like quite a short video, but being that this is in the space of a minute, I think it will work quite well. The title and credits are also related to my concept, particularly the credits, so these will hopefully add to the overall perceptive content of the video.

IDAT 211 - Test Renders

2010-01-14T09:50:00.000-08:00

Below are some test renders of each of the scenes I have done for my video. These will be tested and changed if necessary before being render at 100% and put together into my final dome video. The videos show below have been dome corrected and so they will look warped due to the fish eye lense unless viewed through a fish eye projector.

IDAT 211 - Concept overview

2010-01-14T06:35:00.000-08:00

For this perception video project we were asked to create a video for the IVT that explores an aspect of perception and representation. The concept I have chosen for my video as shown in my storyboarding below is related to the idea that our perception is based on our experiences and knowledge of things and that we apply this to what we see in order to find some kind of meaning. I therefore decided to explore this by providing the viewer of my video with a chance to test how much information is needed to trigger their recognition of objects. It occurred to me that fluids such as water, due to their fluidic properties, can mould around objects and give an idea of the shape underneath, without the shape necessarily being visible. My concept therefore relies on a hidden-revealed narrative where shapes are originally only visible in how the water reacts. This allows viewers to see if their perception can find meaning in the scene before the reveal. The object is then revealed to the viewer either confirming or falsifying their perception.

My video uses this as its main concept, focusing on water and how it can be used to provide a suggestion of a shape. The environments in which I set my scenes are also important for the viewers perception. Although the main environment of the scene is basic, the events and objects in the scene link with each other to enable the viewer to more easily gain recognition of what they are seeing before the object itself is revealed. This is as follows:

The invisible umbrella is located in a scene where it is raining. Umbrellas are closely linked with rain due to their usage and so the rain should narrow the viewers perception to a limited set of possible objects to find the meaning of the scene.
The invisible rubber ducky is placed under an inflow system like a tap. Rubber ducks are used in baths - baths use running taps to fill them, and so again the type of water situation used helps to narrow the viewers perception and hopefully make the object easier to recognise.

As well as making the visual scene more representative of the object the sound I have chosen for the scenes helps to support the different environments I am trying to portray. This gives a more realistic feeling to the scenes making it easier to find meaning.

IDAT211 - Storyboarding

2009-12-22T09:46:00.000-08:00

In order to come up with some kind of context for my perception based video using fluids I decided that I should create a storyboard of how the video would run in the 60 seconds available. I therefore used my ideas for fluid perception and tried to piece them together in a logical way. I decided the main context of my video would be that it is hosted in a world of water. This would fit with the concept that water is the only method of perception. From this idea of a world of water, along with the ideas I had had previously I produced the following storyboard pages. To see them in more detail click on them:

A number of the objects I chose to use for this storyboard I chose because they were somehow related to the medium of water. I decided to do this as it would make the relationship between the object and environment stronger, and also help the viewer to better perceive the objects due to this relationship. I then decided to create an animatic of these scenes to better understand whether I would be able to fit it into the 60 seconds available to me. This is shown below:

However even though this animatic does fit into the 60 seconds I feel it is probably a bit rushed and will still find that I may need to edit out some element of the storyboard when making my video in order for it to flow more freely and easily.

IDAT211 - Point of Perception

2009-12-22T09:33:00.000-08:00

For my dome video I intend to investigate the leading element of perception, the point at which our knowledge and understanding enables us to find meaning in what we see. I initially intended to do this through the morphing of objects from one shape to another so that the point of realisation for each object could be discovered. This would demonstrate what we look for in the object to define it as something specific.
However I did not know where to take this and after working with fluids in Blender decided that I would try to use water to shape an object and develop this idea in a different way. For example when water is run over an object the shape of the object is made with the water and so even without the object, you can to a point, work out what object it is disturbing the water. After thinking about this for a while I found a number of different ways this could be done. Firstly the objects that are perceived need to be invisible in order for the viewer to only base their perception of the shape made by the water and not the object that is already there. The object can be immersed in water, have water poured over it or can be filled with water to demonstrate the shape of the object. I therefore decided to test these ideas with fluids in Blender.

Some of these attempts worked better than others, but the liquid mainly has the desired effect. Once I had proved that this concept worked I then had to develop this into a more contextual video.

Stonehouse - Word Clouds

2009-12-22T08:47:00.000-08:00

#bdat When thinking about how the concept described below could be developed, it occurred to me that word or tag clouds method could be used as the basis for the data for the projection. Word or tag clouds are used to monitor the words that are used the most on a webpage or website, showing the main topic of conversation for that group of people at a glance. The word cloud displays these most commonly used words or terms in an image away from the context in which they were found. An example of this is shown below:

Word clouds provide a surprisingly effective depiction of the most topical element in a piece of text or on a website. This concept could be used in some way to produce the data for the projection as the most current and topical information in Stonehouse could be discovered using a site with a word cloud. The words picked out by the cloud could then be used in the projection, making the projection a real time demonstration of the most popular topics of discussion/interest in Stonehouse.

IDAT 204 - Conclusion

2009-12-15T05:27:00.000-08:00

All in all our event turned out well. We managed to create almost all of the media we used for it by ourselves, without any cost, as we chose to use a Sandbox for our location. However there a number of problems we did have in setting up the event. These are as follows:

We had to set up the objects every time we wanted to use them because of the Sandbox returning them. Some parts of the Sandbox terrain were also unlevel so the objects had to be modified accordingly
Sharing the Sandbox meant there were sometimes clashes with other people and so we had to try to work around this
Although we made a list of how to set up the event we still forgot a number of objects when setting up the environment
When recording the scene we used screen capturing software and a remote camera which meant that the cameraman had to stand by the light sources in order for the lighting to work. This meant the shots were restricted to a certain point, and the camera man could not move whilst recording.
High latency on the server meant that recording the event and carrying out the event were sometimes disrupted by warping, meaning that it took us longer to complete
We had to group objects to be able to put the objects easily into the Sandbox and there was a limit so we could not group everything together. This was also true for lighting. The objects then had to be ungrouped for the event which resulted in accidental modification of the environment.
To be able to group all the objects together we had to give the ownership to a single user which meant they alone had to set up the scene. This could have been avoided by creating a group but this would have required a cost and left us in the red.

However there a a whole load of positive points to our event. These are listed below:

The editing tool on Second Life is quick to learn and easy to use so we were able to create almost all of the objects for our event. This made it a very personalised event to us and ensured we achieved everything that we wanted to achieve
We overcame all of the problems we had with Second Life and still managed to produce a good event.
We achieved a good level of realism in the event as we designed the environment to be as realistic to the scenario as possible using various objects such as candles to create an aesthetically pleasing scene. As well as this we had spotaneous conversations alike to those we would have in reality to make it as real as possible.
The video we created was effective even though we had trouble with the speed of Second Life when we had our Christmas party
The character animations used added an extra level of realism to our avatars and event.
The scripting language was easy to obtain and modify to suit our needs for the event.
All the textures we used were all ready available and easy to implement with our geometry
By using the Google Wave application it allowed us to plan and collaborate our ideas together easily and quickly and show our development process.

Overall the project was a great success, we all had a great Christmas party, it was a realistic social experience in a virtual world, and we are all pleased with what we achieved.

Programs used:

Second Life
Google Wave
Camtasia

IDAT 204 - Project completion

2009-12-15T04:36:00.000-08:00

Today we carried out a run of our event and videoed it so that we had a playable record of the event happening. In order to run the event we had to set up all the items for the event, make sure they worked and also plan how were were going to play out and film it. The following is a screenshot of our end Google Wave to show the notes we made for some of this following on from the ones previously:

These parts of the Wave outline the plan for how Cookie was going to shoot the scenes with his screen capture software, and also the performance plan for the event, outlining what we had to do in it. This ensured that the event ran more smoothly as we were able to keep track of what there was to do in sequence. This also shows the Placement guide which allowed Gavin who stored all our objects for placement to know where to put objects and how.

Below is an image of the scene just prior to its completion:

The following are screenshots of the event as it was carried out showing all our avatars taking part in the Christmas party:

IDAT 204 - Our creations

2009-12-13T16:41:00.000-08:00

For our event we have had to create a multitude of different items in order to set the scene and make the event viable. Below are images of the things we have created for the project as well as small descriptions of them. To see a larger version of any picture simply select it. These image were taken during the construction of the event and so also demonstrate this process as well as the objects we have created:

This is an image of the inside of the log cabin we are going to use for our event. Here you can see some of the things items for our event as well as 3 of our avatars, me, gavin and cookie.

This is an image of the turkey for the Christmas meal that will be laid out on a table for the Christmas event. This is a main symbol of Christmas and so we choose to include it to convey the Christmas theme of the event.

This is the table and chairs for the Christmas meal which have been installed into the log cabin for the event.

This is the fireplace which we have included to give a warmer feel to the environment of our event. This is another common idea linked with Christmas and so we chose to include it in our event. The fireplace is pre-made content that we chose to use for its suitability

These are a set of candles on a shelf made by Gavin to add to the objects in our log cabin. These are relevant as candles are often associated with Christmas, including calender candles to count down the days until Christmas.

This is a set of Christmas presents for the event. When opened these will give the user an item. The items inside the presents have also been made for the event including a bracelet and slippers among others.

This is an image of the Christmas tree for the event. This is a tradition for Christmas and was one of the first things that was created. The tree is decorated with tinsel, baubles and also a star on the top. The presents will be located around the tree.

This is an image of the Jukebox and Cookie who created it. The plan was to have music streamed from the Jukebox but this may be difficult as the music will need to be streamed from a computer, but the music will not be on the computer we want to hold the event on.

This is the cutlery and plate set that I created for the Christmas meal. This will allow us to lay the table properly to create the right feel to the event. This set includes a knife, fork and empty plate.

This is a bowl of potatoes for the Christmas dinner table. We decided to include some other things as well as the turkey as this would simulate he real world more closely.

This is a Christmas pudding made by Paul. Again this is a traditional element of the Christmas dinner and so we felt we should include it to give a more realistic environment.

This picture shows the development of the table during the construction of the event. Here you can see that a the turkey and pudding as well as the cutlery have been added as well as a tabe runner to make the table look more well set for a Christmas meal.

This image shows the room as it is being set up for the event and the location of all the items within the cabin.

This is a wine glass for the event. It has been coded to include drinking behaviour when worn by an avatar.

This is an image of the outside of the log cabin that has been created by Gavin for the event. This is the location for our event, although the land location is a Sandbox. We chose a log cabin look as this relates to more wintery environments and hence, Christmas.

This shows an almost completed version of the dinner table after it has been set up for the event. It includes plates of food, cutlery, potatoes, turkey and the Christmas pudding.

This is a set of mince pies made by Paul. Mince pies are another traditional food for Christmas and so we chose to include them in our event.

These are a set of Christmas lights made to make the log cabin more festive. They will be strung around the building alike to the holiday banner showed in the log cabin picture above.

Below are a few more images of the log cabin to give a more general understanding of the layout for the event and to show the construction of it:

Below are some screenshots of the construction of some of the objects listed above:

Stonehouse - The depths of light communication

2009-12-12T13:35:00.000-08:00

There are many elements to light communication from Morse Code to fibre optics. Light has been thought of as a way to communicate in many ways and this post will outline the variety of ways that light has been used for communication as well as how I think this could be developed for our project. The following is a list of different ways light has been used over the years for communication:

Ancient Greeks used torches over long distances
Morse code and coded messages from ship to ship
Lighthouses transmit light to warn ships

( http://ejecant.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/lighthouse.jpg)

Alexander Bell invented a photophone to transmit speech using light
moving LEDs fast enough to make a light trace communicating something

Fibre Optics are the new development of light communication and and allows for communication in a much larger way as it can transmit all types of data rather than just words or meanings like the others

This list demonstrates the extensive use of light in communication and the leaps and bounds it has taken over the years to be developed into an advanced form of communication. My first idea for this project would act as an extension of light communication beyond these previously done.

Stonehouse - Communication through light

2009-12-12T10:57:00.000-08:00

As a group we have decided that we are going to follow the communication through light theme that I mentioned in a previous post after creating the long exposure pictures on Union Street. I developed this idea as the exposure pictures we took created very loopy lines of light due to the movement of the car that looked like writing. This made me think of the concept of communication through light which can be dealt with in a number of different ways in terms of this project. Firstly it links with the projection as the projection itself will be made of light and is also a way of communicating information. There are also a number of ways this concept has been dealt with previously such as with Morse code which uses light to communicate through sequences such as those below:

I then thought of how light could be used in our projection to communicate something further. It then occurred to me that perhaps we could do some kind of projection that when captured in long exposure would communicate something to the viewer, but without the long exposure would continue to keep its message hidden, alike to that of other long exposure images shown previously. The following is an after effects mock up of something like this showing the two states of the projection, with and without long exposure:

This mock up was influenced by Sam's attempt at showing how a projection may work for our ideas (http://thebillatron.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/stonehouse-floor-ideas/) and demonstrates that this method would work quite well, even without the long exposure as the activity on the floor made by the projection is dynamic and engaging and would likely have an effect on the people who use this part of the pavement.
However there are bound to be other ways to look at communication through light and so I will continue to investigate this in my next posts.

Stonehouse - Journey Video

2009-12-12T07:31:00.000-08:00

As well as doing long exposure photos on our drive around Stonehouse, our group also took video footage of the journey from two positions in the car, so that we could edit the video in a number of different ways. This would then add to our understanding of the environment, demonstrate the area over a period of time, and also possibly provide us with more ideas we can use for the project.
The following is a youtube video that acted as an influence for our video. There are many different time lapse road videos on the internet, and these demonstrate both the area in relation to time, as well as showing elements of light tracing.

However our video was not done quite right for time lapse as it was done with cameras. The following is a sped up version of the video from the front of the car done my Sam in my group:

In terms of using this video I was thinking of editing it alongside the other video we took so they are syncronised providing a wider viewpoint in the video for those watching. As well as this I was thinking of doing some kind of overlay using the photos we took at the points in the video when we took them. This wold mean the pictures would have more context in terms of what they refer to in the environment as the viewer would be able to see the normal and timelapsed versions of the environment at the same time. However currently the copies of the video I have I cannot use as they seem to have been corrupted and so I need to get a successful version of the videos to be able to work with them in this way which I intend to do as soon as possible.

Stonehouse - 3D time based model

2009-12-09T16:06:00.000-08:00

After finding the interesting work of Mr Mann, listed in one of my posts below, it was suggested that as an aside to working on the project ideas, I could also have a go at doing this kind of time based sculture myself using one of the photos we had taken and some 3D modelling software. This could of course also act as some kind of inspiration for our idea for the project. I therefore took an Illustrator trace of the light captured in this image:

and then turned this into a 3D object using 3D Studio Max. The object I created was only basic and could be developed further later on, but demonstrates how this technique can be used for our work in some ways as well as the work that Mr Mann does:

These are very basic attempts and my skills at this kind of work are not ver well honed, so the scultpures were not that well formed, and broken in some places. For example you can see the plane missing on the end of the sculpture in the second image. However this does demonstrate a different way of looking and tracing the light, in a more 3 dimensional way, rather than on a basic 2 dimension surface such as a photograph like those in the previous post. This develops the concept of light traces as objects in the environment, and gives a more physical form to the idea.

IDAT204 - Project Planning

2009-12-09T09:43:00.000-08:00

In order to create our christmas event for the Second Life project we needed some kind of plan as to what to make in terms of objects, clothing, building location and a number of other elements. In order to do this we set up a Google wave on the new Google Wave application. We made a list of all the different elements we already had in our inventories that we could use, as well as all the things that we felt we needed to create using the build function in order to create the event (http://paulbird-idat204.blogspot.com/2009/11/project-2-social-vr-environments.html) and then put this onto a Google Wave. The following is a snapshot of this list just after we had started on the project, dated 1st Dec:

From this list we were able to work out what things needed to be done, and so we were able to delegate these throughout the team so that project was completed efficiently. The current state of this list is as follows:

As you can see this shows the project has developed a lot and is near completion ready for the deadline on Tuesday. Some elements have also been added to extend the amount of functionality the event will have, such as the addition of other present objects and a bar. The main thing now is to get all of the objects together and create a performance plan for the event to work out what we will do whilst at the event.

Stonehouse - Time-based study

2009-12-09T05:31:00.000-08:00

Relating to different elements of light art and movement, our group decided to get together and go on a car journey around Stonehouse to video and photograph the location, making our studies of the area more time based. In particular the pictures we intended to take were long exposure images as this would capture the light in the area over a length of time, matching with our focus on light and the hidden structures made by it when captured over time. The following are some of the images we took showing the hidden light paths of the environment.

These images unveil a hidden layer of our environment, a trail of the passing light that cannot be seen by our own eyes due to the speed of light. However these images are not completely representative of the paths that really occur in the environment as the images were distorted quite a lot by the movement of the car when the image was taken, leading to the shaking unsteady nature of the lines. This does however produce and interesting result as the light traces made on a number of these images almost look as if they make words, due to the scrawling nature of the image. This unveils an interesting concept of communication through light which is in some ways what we intend to achieve in our projection at the end of this project.

Stonehouse - A Light Perspective

2009-12-06T13:44:00.000-08:00

It occurred to me that as well as taking images simply to document the area around where the projection might take place, these images could be formatted to provide us with further information. I therefore took the selection of images shown in one of the previous posts and editted it in Photoshop to try to obtain a stricter understanding of the environment, beyond what we are able to comprehend on the surface. The following are the two images I created that may be able to help further in deciphering the site:

This image is simply the pictures taken and given a glowing edge effect in photoshop. This is a very basic transformation but provides a new perspective of each image, almost drawing the image with light, similar to that of light art described in my previous posts.

This second image is the pictures manipulated using the threshold feature, and breaking the pictures down to a binary black and white format. This again gives another perspective and demonstrates in some ways the levels of light in the area, a concept which could be important in following our theme of light later on in the project.

As well as these images I also created a collage of the people that were around at the time the photos were taken. This is because the photos were part taken to document the possible audience available to us when the projection is carried out. The collage created shows all the people that were found in the images layed onto the same plane in their relative locations that they were in in their original image. The collage created is shown below:

This image therefore documents the people in the area over a period of time, incorporating a time based element as well as showing what type of people are in the area.

The next element me and my group plan to deal with is a more dynamic documentation of the area by videoing the area, and taking long exposure photography. This will further incorporate the element of time with our investigations and allow us to have much more scope in how we deal with the information we are gathering.

Stonehouse - Floor Space

2009-11-28T13:19:00.000-08:00

After visiting Union Street a few times me and my group have decided that we would like to use the floor space on Union Street for our projection although the specific location is yet to be defined. This is because as well as it being a more unique approach to the project, by using the floor it will be able to have a more direct effect on the people who view it. The floor space is a very dynamic space in the environment where there is a lot of interaction between people and the ground. The floor space and its inhabitants define the routes that people take across the surface, and so this could be manipulated, and the consistent contact between people and the ground make the floor a more interactive surface to use. Also this constant relationship means that any addition to the floor surface can be subtle enough that it requires a greater exploration of the environment to be noticed, therefore enhancing a persons understanding of their environment. An example of how floor projections can be effective is shown in certain sections of the video below:

By investigating this space there is also a lot of other elements that can be investigated and dealt with. One main interesting element is that of puddles. By using the floor space, it may be likely that the environment chosen for the projection will include puddles, and so projecting onto these may be something to consider. This however could be used to our advantage as the projection could be designed to relate and use this element. Water itself is a very flexible and dynamic substance and so properties like these could be used to influence the projection effectiveness.

Stonehouse - Temporal Sculpture

2009-11-27T14:01:00.000-08:00

#bdat Another practice similar to that of light art is carried out by a man named Geoffrey Mann. Mr Mann monitors and tracks the movement of different animals and objects and turns this information into sculptures. The sculptures made demonstrate the movement of the item over a period of time, capturing a trace of the movement that is invisible when viewed normally. This has a similar aim to that of light art, in that it helps to unveil an occurrence in our environment that we do not account for in normal life. The interesting element of this art work is that the sculpture created produces a whole new perspective whilst also demonstrating the original and recongnisable shape of the object that was traced. Below are a couple of examples of his work to demonstrate this:

This sculpture traces the flight of a moth as it is attracted to a light. As this shows Mr Mann's work creates a 3D physical sculpture that on the surface seems just like an abstract shape. However by knowing the basis of the sculpture a lot more understanding is revealed. The sculpture itself also holds this key due to the cross sections at the ends of the sculpture. By looking at these cross sections of the sculpture the viewer is able to discover the object that was mapped and so decifer the sculpture. Below is a better example of this:

This sculture is the trace of a bird landing. As you can see the cross section on the end of this sculpture can easily be defined as a bird, and so the viewer is able to then discover what the sculpture is without any explanation. (http://www.mrmann.co.uk/)

The main cause for my interest in this practice in terms of this project is the element of tracing through time to produce a perception that would not be visible. This concept could be used in some way as part of the feed that will run the projection and so having these different interpretations of this concept will help to develop how I want to use this.

Stonehouse - Light Art

2009-11-27T09:10:00.000-08:00

ight is an important part of my Stonehouse project in many ways, and when thinking about this the production of light art occurred to me to fit well inside the main elements of this project. Not only this but I have always found light art interesting, as it can produce some beautiful images, and is based on capturing an image over time. This temporal element is particularly interesting as light art enables a person to see the trace of light that would not be visible to the naked eye, unveiling a hidden or invisible layer of information. Light art can be produce images using uncontrolled light from the rest of the environment or the image can be painted in light to a set design by the artist. Below are a couple of examples of this:

This is an image by Michael Bosanko, a light artist in South Wales who works with light art and light graffiti which is hand made to his own artistic specifications.

This is a simple long exposure image demonstrating the light art that can be produced just by environmental light sources such as passing cars.(https://www.newt.com/wohler/events/2008/hawaii/volcanoes-np/light-art-2-big.jpg)

Light art is mainly produced using long exposure cameras, in which the length of the exposure can be increased or decreased to collect more or less light information. However it is also possible to achieve a very limited form of light art using a standard camera, as if a camera is moving at the time it takes the image, the changes in the image during the capture time will also be in the picture. Below is an image I took down at Stonehouse which has managed to capture an unintentional light art effect due to the movement of the camera:

However this unintentional form of light art does mean that the rest of the area is also blurry as it is captured the same way as the light. I find this image I took most interesting as the light trace it has captured is oddly like the shape of a person, leaving an almost ghostly image, which there is very little obvious explanation to as the source is not visible. The real source was however likely to be a car headlight in the distance which was blurred this way due to the capture.

This concept of the light traces left behind in the environment is one that could be used in some way for the data or the projection itself. If the projection could in some way draw the light traces that occurred in the environment previously or are occurring at the point in time of the projection it would provide the viewer with some kind of hidden history of the location. In escence the projection would be able to unveil a hidden layer of the environment around the viewer. Being that the trace could not be placed exactly onto the surface where it occurred, but only on a 2D based projection, however it may be quite hard to get the meaning of the projection across to the viewer.

IDAT204 - Location Scouting

2009-11-24T04:37:00.000-08:00

Landscape
Land is usually bought on an auction basis when it comes to singular plots, or there is always the possibility of renting. Islands however are bought straight from the secondlife site. Below are prices of available land:

Water Plot:
Wood Blewit (224,126) Mature 6400m
Current bid: £ 50.22 GBP

Land with Riverbank Plot:
Carlovitz (176,98) Mature 4608m
Current bid: £ 33.89 GBP

Snow Plot
Star Scythe (160,48) PG 7536m
Current bid: £ 52.05 GBP

Private Island

Full Region

Full regions provide the highest level of performance. They allow up to 15,000 prims and as many as 100 avatars at a time.

Set Up Fee: £ 605.265 GBP
Monthly Maintenance: £ 178.548 GBP
Maximum Prims: 15,000
*All values can be subject to additional VAT.

Cost

Example:
Land with Riverbank Plot:
Carlovitz (176,98) Mature 4608m
Current bid: £ 33.89
Monthly usage fees: £ 24.21
Premium Membership (Monthy): £ 6.93
Total Base Cost: £ 31.14 per month
£ 33.89 one off payment for land.
£ 65.03 First month. Excluding cost of textures and objects.

The option we decided to go with was to use an area called sandbox, it enables you to create and edit objects for no cost. So we will be able to have our event with all the objects and create within our building without paying excessive fees.
Building

IDAT204 - SL Proposed Idea

2009-11-24T03:55:00.000-08:00

For our proposed idea we are going to be using the idea of creating an event based around “Christmas”. The usual idea of Christmas is to have a gathering of people in the same room socialising and opening presents, maybe have a few mince pies on the side.

With this event we will need a few things linked to our account on Second Life. These include things such as a plot of land, a log cabin, and various other objects to decorate our scene; to create the Christmassy feel. Within these objects not only will we require physical objects to place around, textures will be required for these objects, and even to texture the ground we are standing on.
Objects can be created for free, providing you already have the textures to apply to the model. On Second Life there are plenty of free textures and objects available, but not every object we will need will be easy to find. A few objects we could design ourselves are:

• Christmas Tree
• Baubles
• Tinsel
• Generic Decorations
• Fireplace
• Mince Pies
• Reindeer
• Presents (containing items)
• Angel
• Wine Glasses
• Christmas Dinner

From walking around Second Life we have come across several free textures to use on our objects. Spread over our accounts we have textures such as snow, wood, tiles, fur and various other miscellaneous textures.

IDAT 204 - Second Life Ideas

2009-11-24T03:52:00.000-08:00

There are a number of possible events we could carry out in the Second Life environment. Our ideas are listed below:

'Welcome To Earth': This idea was based on having an opening of a night club or iDAT party. People (us) would dress up in space outfits (e.g. spaceman etc). There would be dancing, drinking, DJ etc going on.
Game show: e.g. Deal or no Deal, Im a Celebrity...(or student) Get Me Out of Here, X Factor etc. Recreating these games with prizes, tasks, games, etc.
Bowling: Recreating a bowling alley and just having bowling games, drinking etc
SU: Having a student party in the SU. So again recreating the SU, dancing, drinking, a social iDAT party!
Gig: Having a pub, a band playing and a stage. Maybe have different bands playing.
Christmas: Log cabin, recreating christmas tree, presents, fire place etc, maybe dressing as different characters from christmas.

Out of these ideas we decided that the Christmas event was the best idea, as it was relevant to the time we will be presenting, and will also be quite different to other peoples ideas.

IDAT 204 - Second Life

2009-11-24T03:39:00.000-08:00

#bdat For the next project of our IDAT204 module we have to work in groups to create an event on Second Life. Second Life is a virtual reality environment in which you create an avatar to resemble your self, and use to explore the virtual environment. Second Life is built to resemble as best as possible real life, and so also includes elements such as real life companies, money and events. The currency of Linden dollars can be converted from and to different real life currencies, allowing for successful businesses to be created on Second Life without any basis in reality. Users have the ability to customise almost any element of their appearence as well as creating their own clothes and objects, allowing more freedom in how they look and act than they may have in real life. Second Life is also used a lot for social purposes as you are able to meet new people and talk freely, as well as connecting with friends you already know. A recent development in Second Life is also the ability to chat using microphones and so connects people more closely.

Land ownership is also similar to real life, as plots are bought using auctions and Linden dollars, and then built on by the owners to produce specific locations. Some build houses to store stuff that they have bought or found, whilst others build business or event locations. The Sandbox can be used to test and create objects such as buildings and building contents, as well as allowing users to code the objects they create to trigger particular actions and results. For example if an avatar touches an object it may well make a sound, or if an object is opened the avatar may recieve clothing or another object.
The challenge for us is to create some kind of event on Second Life by building our own objects and locations and then incorporating our avatars into the location to make the event happen. The event will be run on the day of our presentation of the project by the groups avatars. This therefore requests some research into Second Life events.
Different events occur continuously in Second Life and due to the flexibility of the program, are very varied. Events already hosted on Second Life range from gigs to mass suicides, meetings and parties as well as many more. Therefore it is unlikely that whatever event we choose will be unique, but in order to make the event as interesting as possible it would be better to stay away from the most common event types such as parties and sales.

Stonehouse - the site revisited

2009-11-18T14:49:00.000-08:00

After todays session I decided I needed to go back to the area in Union Street we have been looking at to better document what is there. By doing this it will mean we have some information to go by when going down to the area to look at the audiences available. Our task now is to document the movement and type of people in the area to discover what kind of audience we are able to target with the projection. This will then help us to define the location of the projection more closely with the audience we choose to target. The projection will be carried out between the hours of 4 and 6 using a van containing a generator and also the projector and so I also considered these conditions today by going to the site between these hours. This allowed me to find out how effective the projection would be in terms of how dark the area was. The following are the images that I took today of the area demonstrate a number of different things I observed:

Firstly my observations raised the issue of what kind of access the van will need to be able to do the projection. This is because it occurred to me that Union Street has very few areas where vehicles are allowed to stop and so his may have a big restriction on whether the projection can be done in this area or not. I also observed that there are a few locations where the van could stop alongside areas where people may cluster as there are a few bus stops in the Union Street location. The area that we have chosen is lit by a number of street lights, but the projection should still be strong enough to be seen over these.
Whilst down at the site I also observed how many people and what types of people there were around at the time I was there. Although the area was not hugely busy, there was however a relatively consistent flow of people along that stretch of Union Street. The people I passed were most commonly shoppers of some sort, either who had been into the centre of Plymouth or to the supermarket on the edge of the site. A lot of the people were family groups which was quite interesting as I did not expect this area to have this type of population. There were also a number of individual pedestrians such as business men.
My observations also demonstrated that there are a number of possible areas that can be easily projected on, although this is dependent on the freedom of the van that the projection will be done from. The movement of people around the area now needs to be more closely monitored to discover what specific audiences are available and what locations will be best suited to target these people with the projection.

Stonehouse - Projection location ideas

2009-11-18T05:15:00.000-08:00

The next step for this project is to research into possible locations for the projection by finding a suitable surface based on the events and potential audience surrounding it. A location needs to be discovered that will not be dramatically obstructed by anything or anyone, but does need to be in a location that will reach its specific target audience. This will therefore narrow the location down again from what I have currently to a very specific point in space. The space I have focused on so far is on Union Street between the Palace Theatre (Dance Academy) and the roundabout. This is the most undeveloped area of Union Street and also the area that seems the darkest because of this so is a good location for the projection. However there are street lights and a lot of traffic through the area so this may have an adverse effect on where the projection can be located. When we first went down to Union Street I took some pictures especially to document areas that could be used for improvement, including areas now outside of the focus area. These areas are the kind of areas that could be used for the projection and so are shown below:

These areas need to be considered in terms of their size, shape, accessibility for projection and also the kind of audience the area gets at particular times of day. For example if the area is near a bus stop it will have a larger audience and also a static audience which would make the projection more effective as people would be able to watch the projection for a period of time. However at night this would be less likely and the audience would more likely be passers by going out to a club or pub, and drivers. Therefore it may well be better to choose a location that could be viewed by people going to clubs in the area but will not be obstructed by them. I will therefore need to go down to the area and more closely document the possible locations based on these observations.

IDAT211 - Perception project

2009-11-12T14:13:00.000-08:00

For this first term we have to create a 60 second film demonstrating a small area of our perception in the Immersive Vision Theatre(IVT), a dome projection building in the university that enables better immersion. Today we looked at a range of different videos that have been created for the dome to gain some idea of the different possibilities that can be used in the dome. In particular I found vection quite interesting, where the viewer percieves themselves, or the area they are in, to be moving when actually they are not. The immersive quality of the dome allows for vection to occur very easily, and it is in many ways the most unusual potential the dome has to offer. The concept of vection does not occur very often in normal perception although it does happen, and very rarely on any other visual viewing platform e.g cinema, TV etc. which means this project would be a great opportunity to work with a element of perception that is rarely dealt with. However working with vection does require some control as too much can have adverse effects on the viewers e.g dizziness and sickness. However as long as vection is used wisely within the dome in a balanced way, it is definitely key to using the domes full potential. Vection is in itself an optical illusion and I intend to use it as best as possible to enhance my project.
In terms of the rest of the content there are a number of things I would like to consider. Perception is a very wide topic and has many different elements that could be encorporated into the video, as well as being misrepresented to create illusions. The perception of size, alongside depth, for example is commonly used to form visual illusions. The Persil advert below shows a great demonstration of this:

This advert uses size and distance perception to create an illusion which symbolises the main point of the advert enhancing the viewers understanding and the effectiveness of the imagery. This also shows there are a lot of different possibilities in using these particular elements of perception, although this will not necessarily work all that well with vection.
Perception is based on the way in which we obtain meaning from the images we recieve around us. A lot of this is therefore knowledge based and so would be quite easy to include. For example I could use morphing elements to change between shapes in a way that emphasises the points at which a person's perception of an object becomes clear, and therefore would demonstrate what characteristics the perception is based upon.

Stonehouse - Which model?

2009-11-11T06:54:00.000-08:00

For this project we have now been given two different end models which we have to chose between to transform Stonehouse with. The first model is a projection model where a 3D simulation of a specific surface is used to project a form of animation onto the surface correctly. Below is an example of such projections from AntiVJ as shown below:

The other option is to create an installation using LEDs and arduino boards and programming them to change in some way according to a feed. Both of these options are to use feeds to produce the visual result and both also require some sort of website to power this.
Being that the focus of my project is on light and shadow, and more generally being able to see things, both of these options appeal to me. They also both have their positive and negative points that require some consideration before deciding which option I intend to go down. The following are some of the things that I have been thinking about in terms of this:

implementation
size
effectiveness/impact
target audience
data type
location
invasiveness
integration with other projects
time

All of these elements must be considered to some extent when designing the model and also when selecting which of the models to use. Both of the models are relevant to dealing with light/shadow as they both use a light source to create a visual effect. Both models can be implemented into the area, but the size is limited for the LED model as the materials will have to be obtained, which would also have an effect on the way the LED model is implemented to have the most effect. The size of the projection is within reason unbound, as the image can be projected onto buildings as shown above, as well as on smaller spaces. Both of these models will have an impact on the environment, and the location and size are more likely to determine how much this is. In terms of the target audience for this project there are a wide range of possibilities, which in some ways is determined by the location and size also. The LED model is probably more focused towards a pavement orientated audience, such as people at bus stops and people going to night clubs. The projection model on the other hand can be orientated to almost any audience depending on its size and location. Drivers would be able to view it if it was on a large visible wall, but would not be able to see it if it was a smaller installation. A smaller projection, alike to the LED's would be more focused on a pedestrian audience. This therefore leaves the question of who precisely do I want to target and why are they the ones who most need to see my project?

In terms of data type, this is not specifically orientated to one model or another, but would be useable for either. It is more about what kind of data I want my model to portray. There are many different possibilities including emotions, news, environment data (PSQ like last year), opinions, global events etc. For example the D-Tower as shown below is similar to this and uses the areas emotions to colour the tower:

The website which should be included with the project is one of the ways in which to obtain the data necessary to work the model.

The location for the model is extremely important in having as effective a project as possible. In generalised terms the location for either model will have to be a very specific and well measured location in the Union Street area. In terms of Model 1 the possibilities include walls, floors, and ultimately entire buildings, whereas the LED model can be more closely intergrated with its surroundings such as in shop windows, on a bus stop, sign or lamppost, as well as the walls and floors. In terms of invasiveness it has to be agreed that the projection model could potentially be a lot more invasive than the LED model due to the possibilities in size. However if installed sensitively and subtly this can be prevented. The LEDs could also be invasive if there were too many, and if they were too distracting or obvious. Any installation into the area may be deemed by some as invasive as it is an addition to the environment that was not there before. The key to this is to ensure that the installation is careful enough that it does not have any negative effect, but instead improves the area to some degree.

Being that we are working in groups but are each doing our individual models, it may well be possible to integrate our models together to have a more effective result. This will be easier to achieve using Model 1 as the products will be quite different and may lead on from one to another quite easily. For example I was considering how do you get a viewers attention onto a small projection which they may well miss, say on the bottom corner of a building. However if integrated with another project, say on the floor next to the small projection, the viewers eye could be drawn from one element to the other, therefore solving the problem.

Finally time of day is important for both models, as both rely quite heavily on night viewing when it is darker and the light can be seen more clearly. This is generally true for all projects like this as shown in the two examples above. However being that my focus is on shadows as well as light I may be able to develop some way of getting around the problem in relation to my project.

After considering these elements I feel that I would like to choose the projection model as my preference as it seems to hold the most flexibility and potential for a project out of the two. I am quite interested in perhaps projecting onto the floor rather than a wall as this is a different perspective to take and aligns with the concept of shadow. However I am also interested in doing a wall projection, but one that is quite small, enabling a more subtle development of the environment, that will encourage people to improve their understanding and interaction with the environment in order to get the most from it.

Stonehouse - An Overview so far

2009-11-10T14:50:00.000-08:00

By this point in Transforming Stonehouse there are five elements that should have been produced. These elements are demonstrated below. For more information on each select the relevant link:
Stonehouse - without experience:

Stonehouse with experience:

Group map - Original, Re-keyed:

Area chosen for improvement: Union Street

Postcard of Stonehouse in the future:

After completeing these five tasks for the Transforming Stonehouse project the focus of my project is more towards light and shadow, both metaphorically and literally. My task now is to take this into greater depth and investigate how I can use this to further my project, and ultimately improve Stonehouse.

Stonehouse - A map with experience

2009-11-10T13:46:00.000-08:00

Although I have previously create a perceptual map of Stonehouse this map was created based on my ideas of the area without experiencing it. However it was also required that we produce a map once we had had experience of the area. By the time we chose to visit the area a number of weeks ago me and my group had already decided that we should focus on Union Street as our key area, being that this was one of the areas that stood out on our original perceptual maps. This 'with experience' map is therefore based purely on Union Street and the information we gathered when we visited it. The following is the map that I produced after our visit to the area:

To see a larger version click on the image. This image, as well as outlining the light, views, and organic areas of the street also highlights possible areas that could be used for the improvement and the main area that needs improvement. This image is still quite similar to that produced prior to having experience of the site for the purpose of this project. This is mainly likely to be because I have had previous experience of the area before having been in Plymouth University for a year, and so this was likely to influence my representation of the area, making the first map similar to the second. The light is however different as this concept of light and shadowed areas was not included previously on the map. This is because I am now heading more towards the concept of light and shadow in the project and so I felt it a good idea to include it. This demonstrates that the middle area, around the palace theatre, is the darkest area and most undeveloped. The darkness is likely to be in some way influenced by the development status of the area, as areas that look newer give of a cleaner brighter look than areas that are older.

Stonehouse - the postcard completed

2009-11-04T08:53:00.000-08:00

To create my final postcard design I decided to focus on three key aspects of the Union Street area. These were the redevelopment of the street, the relationship between a space and its past, and the boundaries of the street. I chose to include redevelopment as a element in my postcard as this is an almost inevitable future for the area. The Stonehouse region has been the focus of the Plymouth council development plans for a few years, and although very few changes have occurred as of yet, it is still likely that over a longer period of time these improvements will be made to modernise and empower the area.
In terms of the relationship between a space and its past, this was influenced by the realisation in my previous post that 'the future always holds shadows of the past'. I find this temporal element interesting as it shows that there is actually a visual history of the area which most are unlikely to notice. Being that the postcard is aimed at a time in the future, I felt it would be good to include elements of Stonehouse now as it is, to demonstrate the underlying information of the past that is embedded into the future.
#bdat Finally the concept of boundaries around Stonehouse and Union Street are interesting to me as alike to many telecommunications, physical boundaries are invisible and in some ways undefined. The public knowledge of boundaries of an area such as Stonehouse is limited, and so this could be a focus for improvement. Boundaries are also flexible and dynamic which can allow for more opportunities for development.
My postcard based on these concepts is shown below:

To see a larger version click on the image. The top half of the postcard resembles the future Stonehouse with improved buildings that are modernised and fully developed as well as the Palace Theatre which would be renovated as it is a listed building. This in itself therefore is one of the shadows of the past in the area even now and in the future.
The bottom half of the image is the collage made previously of Stonehouse as it is now. This has been incorporated as a shadow of the 'future' Stonehouse following with the past-future relationship.
Finally the yellow clouds through the middle and edges of the space resemble the concept of flexible boundaries. This is because the road itself is a boundary in many ways, which develops and changes over time. For example the road is a boundary between the two sides Union Street. It prevents people from accessing the other side instantly, to the point where pathways have been included in the infrastructure to allow access i.e pedestrian crossings. However it is a flexible boundary as this prevention of access only occurs when the road is relatively busy. If there is no traffic the boundary is removed and people have access much more directly to whichever part of the area they choose: their freedom is increased. The concept of boundaries can also be used more literally in terms of the entrances and exits to Union Street. This is why the areas where there are roads away from the street are also yellow.
Finally there is the textual element of this postcard which reads "Stonehouse shadowed by the past, surrounded by the future". I created this phrase for the postcard to sum up the main focus of what the postcard resembles, and also to give a positive impression of Stonehouse unlike to what is currently felt in the area. The aim of this is also to make the reader think about this and improve their knowledge of the concept.

IDAT204 - Evaluation

2009-11-03T05:52:00.000-08:00

The completed version of the Org-ant digital organism has both successes but also failures. Org-ant has met most of the initial elements of the proposal. There are four possible interactions, the wall, apple, microphone, and the money. The ants in the environment react as intended in most cases with these elements. The money idea however did have to be changed as there was limitations in the knowledge of how to code the original idea. Instead the plan was developed so that rather than swarming towards the money as was first suggested, the ants would act as a team to gather up the money and store it at the bottom of the ant farm.
The main functionality of Org-ant has in some ways gone beyond what was expected, as the user is able to put multiple objects into the environment at the same time. These do have to all be of a different type of object, apart from the money, which once stored can be added again. This is better as it allows for more functionality and will hold the users interest more easily.
In terms of the microphone input that we were considering to include, this has not as of yet been incorporated. This functionality was built into the product but was not completed and so this has been left out and could be incorporated as a future improvement to the project. Another possible future improvement that has not been included in Org-ant currently is the reaction to the time of day. This is because it would only be a very minor change and would only be worth including in a more advanced and refined version of Org-ant.
Another development for the future could be that the ants have an ability to provide for themselves rather than relying on the user interaction. Currently nothing happens with the ants or in the environment unless users interact with it. It would be more like an organism if the ants could look after themselves and each other. Similarly the ants do not have any reproductive ability and do not die so do not always respond alike to an organism.
Overall I am happy with the final outcome of the Org-ant project as it encompasses most of the elements originally defined in the proposal. The digital organism is functional and interesting and acts mainly as expected when we first envisaged the project. There have been very little changes throughout the project but there are also a lot of possible improvements if we were to develop the project to a higher level in the future.

IDAT204 - 3D images

2009-11-03T05:24:00.000-08:00

For our Org-ant project we are going to use 3D built objects to highlight the link between reality and the virtual environment of the project. These are images of the apple, wall, money and microphone. The images we have produced are shown below:

These images will be used on the interface section of the project and also the objects that will be created via this.

Stonehouse - The beginnings of a Postcard

2009-10-28T04:58:00.000-07:00

After creating the Union Street panorama collage shown in one of the posts below, I decided to develop it further. Firstly I thought about the way in which the two sides of the road are quite different to each other as described previously. I therefore decided to try and represent this spearation somehow. The following is the first of the images I created to try and show this:

The overlay over the top of the image is the outline of the road map of Union Street and the surrounding area. I thought this would be a good element to add as it demonstrates the areas beyond the image as well as what can already be seen. By doing this it occurred to me that the image I produced looked as if the bottom images were reflections in the top as if Union Street is actually a river reflecting its surounding environment. This kind of overlay however could also be read as some kind of fog or mist over the road or area. To begin with I felt I should follow the reflective route of this image and so continued to develop the collage to look more like a river reflection. This is shown below:

In this image the line of the road is better formed to follow the image, better highlighting the road running through the image. Although this image is better than the previous image, it also looks more like a cloudy substance which links back to the fog idea mentioned earlier. This links with the pollution possibility for the Stonehouse future postcard and so this could well be developed as part of this.

Whilst thinking about reflections and the structure of the images I have created it occurred to me that as well as looking reflective, the greyed out areas also look like shadows of the images above. This made me realise that the future always holds 'shadows' of the past. For example there are often old walls left where new buildings have been built to provide 'character' or because it did not make sense to remove it. This wall however may have been there for hundreds of years and so has a lot of history in conflict with the area around it. This also applies to many other structures such as paving and protected buildings, as well as history being retained in the ground itself. I find this a very interesting concept that actually in 100 years time, it may still be possible to see some parts of the current Stonehouse still hidden amongst a newly regenerated Stonehouse.

Stonehouse - 100 Years in the Future

2009-10-28T04:27:00.000-07:00

The next task in Transforming Stonehouse is to create a postcard for the area resembling what the area would be like in 100 years time, or at least some time in the future. In order to be able to do this I felt I had to consider the possible ways in which an area changes over a long period of time, and in particular the possible dramatic changes that occur in the next 100 years linked to possibilities of global warming and other current issues. The following is a list of these possibilities:

Flooding - rising sea level
Drought - both hot(arid) or cold(ice) possibilities
Technological dependance - The world becomes completely digital
Loss of light
Loss of air
Atmospherical pollution - smog, no oxygen, clouded cities, leads to loss of vision
Radioactivity - wars or attempt at alternative energy
Too much waste
Ecofriendly civilisation - everything becomes 'green' e.g. travel, energy etc
Technological advancement - scifi elements e.g. defying gravity, ALife, technology becomes organic

Being that the annotations my group made of the area are based on views, light, green/organic, and traffic the concept for the future should be based on a development of one or some of these, but possibly also on the development of better technologies as this is likely to be inevitable.

Stonehouse - boundary separation

2009-10-23T07:33:00.000-07:00

Another aspect of both Stonehouse and Union Street that I find interesting is the lack of knowledge about the boundaries of the area. Many people who travel down Union Street are unlikely to acknowledge the fact that they are travelling right through the heart of the Stonehouse region. The joining of Stonehouse, Derriford and Plymouth into a single city i.e Plymouth, meant that the boundaries between the areas have become much more blurred. Therefore those who travel down or up Union Street are more likely to understand the area to be Plymouth than Stonehouse, apart from perhaps those who live locally and have built up a history of the area via this. Stonehouse being such an important area historically, and still an interesting and dyanamic location to this day should probably have more acknowledgement as a location than it is currently recieving. This interests me in terms of improvements to the area, as it would be good to bring a stronger identity back to the area. Below is a picture of a sculpture in California that acts as a signifier of the boundary between Beverly Hills and West Hollywood:

This sculpture, as well as being used to identify the boundary is also engaging as it draws the viewers eye upwards as you walk below it, and in doing so, allows for an optical illusion to occur in which the colour of the sky is altered at certain times of day. Labelled the Empyrean Passage, Dan Corson the creator said:

"Empyrean Passage is reminiscent of both a theoretical black hole and portal into the celestial worlds ... The form is constructed like a giant hoop skirt and gracefully moves in the wind, creating a gossamer lighting effect overhead. While this project is an oculus to the heavens, more focus is usually paid to more terrestrial stars in this neighbourhood. "

The sculpture looks and acts almost like a pillar between the two locations and creates an "entrance gateway" that pedestrians are able to travel underneath, almost transporting them between the two worlds.

(http://www.dezeen.com/2008/02/05/empyrean-passage-by-dan-corson/)

This sculpture is interesting as it is interactive as well as symbolic, and also very environmentally friendly. Although most interesting at night, the Empyrean Passage also is functional in the day due to the added illusive effect on the inner edges of the rings. This therefore allows for a very functional, engaging and effective addition to the environment whilst giving an invisible, yet important boundary, a physical representation.

Stonehouse - Union Street Photos

2009-10-22T17:57:00.000-07:00

As a group we decided that our focus area will be around Union Street, the main road that cuts through the middle of the Stonehouse region. We therefore went to Union Street and took photos of the area to better document what the location is like. Below is a straight forward collage of the photos I took in the order that they were taken from top left (first photo) to bottom right (last photo). To see a larger version of this image just click on it:

The aim of the photos was to document not only the area in general but also the areas which could be used as the improvement location as well as elements that characterised the area, such as graffiti and the Dance Academy building. By putting these images in a temporal format like this it shows how the area changes as you travel through over a period time. It also shows images that link together easily, such as those of the Dance Academy in the middle of the image. This is to be expected being that one was taken not long after the other, but it did give me an idea to take the photos and collage them together to make an image of the entire road from start to finish, alike to a really long panorama of the area. In this way the focus of the collage would be the focus of the project, and the result may bring a better understanding of the area to the viewer than the one shown above. The following is this collage:

To see a larger image click on the picture. This image allows for the enitre length of Union Street to be in one image. This also shows the difference between the two sides of the road as the near side has many different aspects to it while the far side of the road has very little. Also the near side of the road is quite variable in the amount of regeneration. Some sections had relatively new housing and flats while there is also a lot of buildings which are run down and dilapidated. This demonstrates theres is quite a lot of regenerative conflict still in this area. It is also interesting that most of the housing, not only on Union Street, but throughout Stonehouse, is on the near side of this image in the North section of Stonehouse. Union street in some ways seems to cut the area in two, between residential and more commercial areas.

IDAT 211 - Visual Perception

2009-10-22T07:54:00.000-07:00

Visual perception outlines the ways in which we use visual cues to create meaning in the world. These include paralax, focus, binocular, and monocular cues. However our perception can easily be tricked, by subverting the normal rules assoctiated with how we percieve our world. It is this, the amount of different ways in which we have challenged our visual perception that intrigues me most. Usually refered to as optical illusions, these exceptions to the rules of perception occur both intentionally and unintentionally, either by means of creation for entertainment, or by conicidence. For example many people use their artistic talents and also computing to create a wide range of optical illusions, which can require the viewer to either be active or passive in changing their perception. This is intentional subversion. However things such as the Charlie Chaplin mask experiment mentioned in the previous post, although set up for the video, may still occur with a mask in every day life. This is therefore (mainly) an unintentional subversion. Intentional subversion of our perception is much more common, due to the continuous creation of illusions for entertainment. Below are a few examples of different types of illusion, both passive and active:

Julian Beever street art shown from the correct and incorrect viewpoints (passive perception as long as you are in the right place)(http://blog.brains4all.com/brainblog/archives/globe.jpg)

(http://snapshotsofgod.com/images/magiceye.gif)A magic eye picture in which the viewer has to physically change the angle of their eyes to a parallel position in order to view the image (active). This is both related to perception and to the way in which we physically see. Click on the image for a larger version, can you see the heart?

Traditional optical illusion the composition of the image causes your eyes to see black dots where the white gaps are (passive)

(http://www.collegeboredom.com/images/opticalillusions/opticalillusions01_img_1.gif)

Young woman - old man optical illusion. This requires the viewer to actually turn the image upside down to see the illusion occur (active) (http://www.yugzone.ru/optical_illusions/img/catPics_perevert.gif)

This therefore demonstrates the wide range of different illusions that exist and how they can be passive or active depending on their content. All of these images work in some way due to the ways in which our perception functions along a set of rules which we have learnt from birth. By knowing these rules and developing things that go against them we are able to test our own perception and find out more about the way we find meaning in objects.

Stonehouse - The map reformed

2009-10-21T06:08:00.000-07:00

As well as having the annotated map in its orginal state, with its original meaning, it can also be rekeyed and edited to create a completely different approach to the content. The following is my interpretation of the map beyond its original meaning:
The orange circles could represent areas that need improvement in cleanliness. The larger circles could resemble places where there is a lot of rubbish, while smaller circles resemble less. In terms of the purple lines, these annotations could resemble movement. The closer the lines are together the more movement there is, the darker lines resembling motored movement, while the lighter purple resembles organic movement. For the green lines I would suggest that the darker more solid lines represent some kind of wind flow such as areas that are more windy. Finally the black lines could resemble, pollution rather than traffic flow, as this is a byproduct of the traffic on the roads.
The images below are of the map after being redrawn to represent the information more directly. This has also been influenced by some of the other interpretations I made above. The first image shows the notations with the original base map of the area, while the second is without this to remove the traditional reference points, and demonstrate the patterns and properties of the annotations. To see larger versions of these images click on them:

In terms of the key for this map the elements work as follows:

The green lines have stayed the same as the viewpoints and organic areas around the Stonehouse region as described in previous posts. The purple swirls resemble the natural light, and were drawn like this to resemble that light has a wave length and can be mapped in waves. The dots of purple resemble the street lighting as these will create round circles of light at night and so it seemed fitting to resemble the artifical light spots using circles. The orange scribbles resemble green areas. These were mapped as spiky areas as this resembles the look of grass which is linked to the concept of green areas. Finally the black swirls are a new way of representing the traffic areas. This annotation was made to also connotate the pollution aspects due to traffic congested areas.

This therefore demonstrates the careful consideration of how the map should be redesigned to better connotate the elements it represents, as well as improving the general look of the image.

Stonehouse - Group Map

2009-10-16T13:04:00.000-07:00

Below is the group map produced to map out different elements of the Stonehouse area. The frist map shows the original Stonehouse road map, while the second shows the annotations without this input. By removing the stereotypical map image it enables the annotations to become a map in themselves demonstrating a completely new representation of the area.

This map represents the following things:

The orange circles are green spaces, the light purple lines are natural light and the darker purple lines are street lights, the black lines represent traffic flow, and the green lines represent long distance views and organic areas.
Although each annotation has its own individual meaning, the map as a whole can be studied and interpreted also. There are a number of things to note about this mapping of Stonehouse. Firstly there are a number of locations which have fallen as the focus of the annotations. These areas are around Victoria Park, the coastal areas around the Royal Williams Yard, and Union Street. It is interesting that these areas specifically stand out as this suggests that there is a hidden potential in these areas that has not yet been uncovered. Union street is particularly interesting in this way, as rather than being a empty green space alike to the other two, it is actually the most commercial and populated section of Stonehouse. This is because the area acts as a highway through Stonehouse into the centre of Plymouth, and so is constantly used by drivers and pedestrians alike. Although it is no surprise that Union Street been highlighted in this way, it is interesting that it comes up against two spaces that are very different to itself.
Another interesting aspect of this map is that the areas that are the focus of the mapping are also areas of historical interest. Union Street has always been a major road in the area, and used to be the centre of nightlife both for military and civilian locals, as well as an area that has a history of problems with drugs and violence. The area around the Royal Williams Yard has gone through a number of different transformations. This includes the major Navy usage in previous years including during the World Wars, and the regeneration in current years into apartment and business space. Finally the Victoria Park area has an interesting history as its topography has been changed over time due to human intervention. It was originally a lake like area linked to Stonehouse Creek which ran between the Stonehouse and Devonport regions. When the lake, known as Deadlake, became stagnant and a health risk in 1887 action was begun to fill in the area, and this was completed in 1898. (http://www.plymouthdata.info/Parks,%20Victoria.htm). This is particularly interesting as a changing topographical history in such a small period of time is quite a unique aspect.
Overall therefore this map allows for some interesting discoveries about the Stonehouse region that looks beyond the normal interpretations to the more hidden aspects of the environment.

Stonehouse - My Mapping

2009-10-13T13:22:00.000-07:00

After considering all the different possibilites of what to map in Stonehouse and how to map it I chose to map both the viewpoints, and the organic areas within Stonehouse. In terms of viewpoints my map focuses on my interpretation of the areas that have a view that continues for a distance, rather than being interupted by buildings or the topography. The organic areas refers to any area with some organic matter such as trees, grass, a field etc. The map that I have created uses two different drawing methods each with their own brush. The viewpoints are represented by diagonal lines in a fan shape and the organic areas are respresented by wavy lines. My map is also in green as me and my group agreed that we should all use a different colour to enable a kind of separation between th drawings. My map is as below:

Tomorrow this map will be taken along with the maps made by the rest of the people in my group around Stonehouse and annotated on there also. The map we will take will have all of the mapping done my the group on it so that there is a mix of all different peoples interpretations of the area. This map will also be posted onto this blog once I have all the different maps together from each of my group.

Stonehouse - Map Possibilities

2009-10-12T14:42:00.000-07:00

Now that I have investigated a range of different ways in which other people have mapped areas I need to use this information and my own understanding of the project to both decide on one or more elements to map, and also the method by which I intend to map them. Below is a list of all the different possibilities I can think of in terms of what can be mapped in the Stonehouse area:

Population - can be separated into specific types e.g men, women, animals, plants etc
Height - topography according to my own interpretation
Light levels - daylight and shadow, artificial lighting
Traffic - people traffic, popular routes, how busy areas are
Hard/soft - material mapping of the area
Organic/man-made - how much of the area is one or the other - relating to human impact on environment
Sound levels - noisiness of a location
Regeneration - level of rate of change in the area, has it been changed lots, or very little (temporal - over time), is it changing now?
Economy - level of wealth throughout the area based on the people who live there
Historical - importance of areas in terms of their historical context
Litter - levels of cleanliness in the area
Wind - wind flow strength throughout the area
Heat levels - are there areas that are cooler or hotter?
Hertzian space elements - levels of technology used in the area e.g. Bluetooth (will focus on later on in the year so currently not that viable)
Commercialisation - Amount the area is used by businesses
Surface quality - linked to regeneration and area usage, how used and worn are the surfaces?
Age - linked to regeneration and history, how old does an area look in comparison to its surroundings?
Views - what are the good viewpoints in the area? places that have a distant horizon, and places where the horizon is intercepted by other objects, houses etc.
Built up areas - areas of space that are overcrowded and full in comparison to areas that are left open.
Communication and power - Main routes for overhead power and phone lines
Use of energy - areas and routes where energy is used most e.g. houses, cars, businesses

There are also many different brush types available to me that I can use to create my map. These are shown in the images above in line form, and in the shape of a circle (to view a larger version simply click on the image you wish to view). These images may also be useful in inspiring me as to how I intend to map any given element in terms of shape and line properties. This is because I may wish to use more than one type of vector shape in my mapping and so I use the different brush possibilities to explore that. I now need to use this information to decide upon what my map is going to be.

Stonehouse - Ideas on mapping

2009-10-12T13:08:00.000-07:00

Today was the first workshop session on this Transforming Stonehouse module. The first task for this project is to create individual maps of certain elements of the area, without visiting it, so that we can compare our own presumptions with what actually exists. In order to create some mapping for the area I intend to investigate different drawings that have been done by others to create similar effects. Below are some of the things that I have found:

This is an image of different peoples perception of where downtown is in Santa Barbara. This is an interesting map of the area and applies to this project as it strays away from the factual boundaries of the area, and instead focuses on personal opinion. To see a larger version of any of the images in this post just click on the picture.

(http://www.girardin.org/fabien/presentations/girardin_momo_bcn_lbs.pdf)

Another way of mapping a city is through looking at populated areas. A Blackberry and iPhone application, CitySense does just that. This uses GPS data to show the busiest places in a particular area and represents this using heat spot imagery, demonstrating the existence of a large number of people as shown in the image on the right. (http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/22286/?a=f) This allows users to find out the most popular places to go in their area. Although this software continues to use an average road map of an area, it is also mapping population on top of this, a mapping system that could be used in this project.

The usage of space in Stonehouse is important in undertanding all the factors that make up the character of Stonehouse today. The way in which spaces are used can explain whether the area is rich, poor, greenbelt, brownfield, or redevelopment sites. Mapping this could therefore be beneficial in understanding the Stonehouse area and choosing a specific area to focus on. By mapping these things the tradtional road map imagery is taken away and the focus falls on more dynamic elements. This is demonstrated in the image on the left (http://nexthotmarket.com/library/mapping.jpg). In this map of a location the focus is on the usage of the area, and the roads, although included are less obvious to the reader. This therefore creates a completely different perspective of the area.

There are many other ways of mapping a city and many other elements that can be mapped. http://www.intelligentagent.com/archive/Vol6_No2_interactive_city_sant.htm shows a number of different and interesting ways of mapping the environment, which both follow conventional and non-conventiona lines, the main aim being to step away from the necessity of using a traditional grid/road map, and discover other more specific and dynamic ways of mapping the area.

IDAT 204 - The Proposal

2009-10-11T12:35:00.000-07:00

Org-ant

Org-ant is a digital organism project that focuses on the relationship between humans and ants, and also highlights the existence of social organisms over that of physical organisms. The term organism is often considered as refering to physical beings, such as germs and animals, where a living system made out of cells works as an independant being. However organisms can also be viewed in a social sense, such as that of the government, in which a group take on individual roles whilst working together, alike to cells, to keep an organisation running. Ants alike to humans work as a team to reach particular goals, and so in doing so, act much like a social organism, whilst being organisms themselves. Ants are therefore a good design on which to base a digital social organism.

The design of the Org-ant project environment will be influenced both by the habitat of ants and the habitat of humans. Ant farms demonstrate the tunnelling system used by ants, as shown above. These are an ants travel routes, alike to that of our roads, and so the design of the project will be a cross between and ant farm, and a road system. This is demonstrated on the left. The background colour is blue, as an influence from the ant farms, and because this will be a functional colour in terms of multi-platform use such as mobiles.

In terms of the ants themselves, in order to keep the ant-human relationship strong, the ants will be drawn in 1D as dots. This allows the user to have their own interpretation of the species of the Org-ant, rather than a pre-designed image. To give an impression of what this will be like below is a prototype animation:

In terms of interactivity there are four concepts that we intend to encorporate. These are listed below:

Food - The user will be able to put an apple within the highways, which the ants will eat their way through when they come across it. This resembles the need for food that all organisms share including humans and ants.
Money - In order to reinforce the human-ant relationship the user will be able to place money onto the highways which will cause the ants to swarm towards it. This is because human society relies on money and stores it, in the same way ants store the food they find.

Walls - The user will be able to place walls onto the highways to re-direct the ants. This will demonstrate the intelligent behaviour of the ants and ant activity.
Microphone - The user will be able to place an image of a microphone into the environment which, when in contact with the microphone, will cause the ant to say something to the user. This will heighten interactivity as the program will be interacting with the user, as well as the user interacting with the program. This demonstrates the need for communication in human society, and the two way interaction emphasises the link between humans and ants.

The interface for this organism will be the main screen area as shown above plus a bar at the bottom of the program which contains the four elements listed. The user will be able to click and drag each item from the bar to the highways, enabling them to place the objects anywhere within the highways. The user will only be able to put one of each item into the environment at one time to ensure good functionality. Once any of the items has been used it will disappear and the user can put another of that item into the environment. This is demonstrated in the video below:

The images used for the interactive elements of the interface are going to be 3D. This is so that there is a feeling of putting something real into something digital, almost as if it is being passed through the screen into the environment.
The product itself will be programmed in Flash using Actionscript 3 and the images will be created using 3D Studio Max for the 3D images and Illustrator for the 2D images.
This concludes the Org-ant Proposal. The next stage is to begin production of the digital organism for presentation on the 3rd Nov.

IDAT211 - Channel 4, an example

2009-10-02T11:47:00.000-07:00

#bdat Whilst considering the concept of perception and cognition and the way in which our perception can be utilised, I began to try and think of examples that demonstrated these concepts other than those shown to us in the lecture. It occured to me that the Channel 4 idents are very much relevant to this as they are designed to utilise our perception in order to give the channel an identity. An example of the idents is shown below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGsKP7lJUdQ

This is similar to the Charlie Chaplin mask optical illusion shown here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbKw0_v2clo

At a very specific point in time the 4 is seen in the image and then instantly disappears because of the angle that viewer sees the image from. This demonstrates the discovery and loss of meaning in the image. This and the other channel 4 adverts have been built specifically to have this effect in which the ident is not understood until a certain point and then the meaning is lost again. By doing this the ident keeps the viewers attention and ensures other information such as that of the voiceover is also recieved.

IDAT 211 - Cognition and Perception

2009-10-02T11:12:00.000-07:00

The first project that we have to do as part of our IDAT211 module is all to do with cognition and perception. The brief is to create a 60 second video that deals in some way with this topic. The video will be screened in the Immersive Theatre in Plymouth University, a dome like building that uses a fish eye lens to create an immersive experience for its viewers. This section of my IDAT blog will act as my workbook for this module encorporating different designs, ideas and theory that will be part of creating the final film.
Perception and cognition are very important to us as human beings as it allows us to understand the world around us. However not all parts of this are perfect and this allows for our perception in a number of cases to be tricked into seeing something beyond what is really there. These optical illusions come in a range of different forms and play a major part in a project such as this, in which perception is explored. This ability to see beyond images and objects and define meaning fom them can be utilised to our own advantage, and this is where most optical illusions originate; they are created to utilise this ability. Being able to utilise it in this way will also be vital in creating an effective video for this module.

IDAT 204 - Concept Ideas

2009-10-02T10:18:00.000-07:00

After deciding on a general idea of the Org-ant for our project, yesterday Sara and I got together to try to get some more detailed ideas of what our project aimed to do. We knew that we wanted to design a product that would show a group of ants working as an organism rather than just a single creature. In researching this concept I found a number of examples that have previously been made relating to this concept of a virtual ant farm. Two examples are listed below:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-9913568-1.html

http://www.geocities.com/chamonate/hormigas/antfarm/ (zip file needs to be downloaded)

I was not surprised at this result as the ant concept is used a lot in computing, such as in Langton's ant. This therefore meant we needed to find a way of producing an ant farm that would be individual and have more depth than those previously designed. After researching into ants Sara found the video below:

This gave us an idea as we could use the product to cross over the lives of human and ants, therefore creating an ant-human interactive environment that had not been looked at before. This meant we could encorporate elements of human lives into an ant built environment such as an ant farm. The following was a page of ideas we drew up yesterday including GUI design and functionality:

(to see a larger version click on the image)

From these designs we decided on a few key points that we wanted to encorporate. The main elements that we have currently settled on are listed below:

Underground ant environment
Interactive element - placement of walls: this will prevent the ants from using a tunnel and so they will have to build/change to a different tunnel. This is key to demonstrating the intelligent behaviour required as part of this project
Interactive element - Placement of a microphone(image) into the environment: This will cause one of the ants to interact back to the user with an item of speech, demonstrating commuication. This is an interesting element as the interactivity then works both ways
Interactive element - food: Placement of food such as an apple into the area will attract ants and the food will then be eaten, unblocking the path and demonstrating the need for food that all organisms share
Interactive element - Placement of money: Money is very important to human society so money objects will be included and will cause the ants to swarm towards it.
3D objects in a 2D/1D environment - the interactive elements will look 3D to make it seem like elements from reality are being placed into the virtual ant farm environment
The ants will either be 1D dots or simplistic 2D elements that detract away from the specific imagery of ants, allowing the human-ant connection to be more easily recognised

These elements we hope to be able to encorporate into the final product. We now need to refine our designs and settle on a final proposal, after which we will start building the product.