Interface and motion design idea for future interactive installation using motion detection.

Words are chosen at random from a random pool of Flickr tags. The words are then broken down into individual characters. These characters are then animated based on the location of user interaction.

Picture this large. Now take that image and double it’s size. Picture it large enough to where you’d have to jump to reach different ‘doors’. That’s how I envision it.

Try it for yourself : Interactive Motion Detection Installation [webcam es necessitous]

Permalink: http://www.christeso.com/index.php/lab/interactive-motion-detection-installation/

In continuing exploration into motion tracking using flash and a webcam I’ve created an application that enables you to track multiple objects based on color. The holy grail of the application is of course to track multiple objects without specifying color. However, this is a good step forward and actually opens up many other avenues for use. Color, after all, is ubiquitous.

The truly useful part of the code is getColorBoundsRect. If you’re unfamiliar with this function, it determines a rectangular region that either fully encloses all the pixels of a specified color within a BitmapData object, or fully encloses all pixels that do not include the color. The function returns a rectangle around the color area. You can then reference this rectangles x and y respectively.

var areaColor:Rectangle = SomeBitmapData.getColorBoundsRect( 0xFFFFFFFF, _colorArray[i].color, true );

The function is rather finicky about the depth of where the object is. Since it’s only searching for a certain RGB value it tends to lose it if the lighting or the object gets too small in the camera’s depth of field. To overcome this you could search for similar colors. Soulwire has written a sweet Color utility class that can aid you in this endeavor. However, searching for a range of colors will also come with it’s challenges, as the more range of color you search on the tougher it will be to pinpoint the exact object you want to track.

Check out the demo here: Tracking Multiple Objects Using a Webcam [webcam obv required]

Music: My Morning Jacket – I’m Amazed

Permalink: http://www.christeso.com/index.php/lab/tracking-multiple-objects-using-a-webcam/

You have to admire a job that allows you to make a bumble-bee/owl (a bumblowl?) fly around a mural merely by waving your finger… all while drinking beer.

This is an elaboration on my actionscript webcam motion detection experiments, built as an installation for the Inverge party hosted by North. The idea was to take motion detection and combine it with art in the form of digital drawing and 2d space in the form of a wall mural. The concept is to allow human interaction to affect physical space, freeing oneself from all traditional user interface. The application works by constantly monitoring a webcam, taking snapshots of each frame every millisecond. The pixels in the current frame are compared to pixels in the previous. The difference in brightness within each section determines whether or not motion had occurred in this area of the screen. If motion is detected the coordinates of a rectangular grid around said motion is recorded and the owl is ordered to go to that point. The line drawings begin and follow the owl recording a ‘flight path’. A mask is drawn to prevent the owl and its drawing trail from going in front of some of the trees giving the mural a sense of dimension.

Thanks to the great Eric Natzke for the drawing inspiration and open source, and NORTH for being forward thinking enough to encourage digital experimentation.

Permalink: http://www.christeso.com/index.php/lab/as3-motion-detection-drawing-installation/

Expanding on my Actionscript Webcam Motion Detection experiments, I’ve built a rudimentary ‘Minority Report’-inspired interface.

The concept is to create a new type of user interface rebuking the typical peripherals of the keyboard and mouse. Instead, a user would merely stand in front of a wall and control the interface with their movements. I’ve seen other attempts at doing this. See Microsoft Surface, iphone, this thing et. al. All cool for sure, but all done using touch screens. Touch screens are so 2006. Even Tom Cruise used gloves. Pfft. The idea is to free oneself from all physical interface. To use human gestures.

I haven’t tried it properly installed and projected on a wall yet.

You can try it here: actionscript webcam minority report interface (webcam required obv)

Like everything that exists, this is a work in progress.

Permalink: http://www.christeso.com/index.php/lab/minority-report-actionscript-webcam-interface/