CCS Collective Voice » ccs-blog http://www.creativityandcognition.com/blogs/rss/ CCS Collective Voice » ccs-blog Gregarius 0.5.2 en Viveka: Ad-hoc workspace sharing prototype http://xn--rls.viveka.id.au/augmenting-ikea/ Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:55:04 +1000 http://xn--rls.viveka.id.au/augmenting-ikea/ I’ve been IKEA-hacking. There’s a great community that does this for real – do you think mine counts? I’ll explain first.

I recently posted an idea for ad-hoc workspace sharing for under $US 500/person. The idea is simple: get one of the new LED-based micro projectors, tape it to a webcam and point them at a surface. Then everything the camera sees can be projected back onto the same surface, or more interestingly to a remote setup along the same lines. Now two people at different locations can share a workspace.

When figuring out how to prototype this, I then thought of the ubiquitous angle-poise task lamp. Apparently Anglepoise is actually a brand, which I did not know – it’s the true original, designed by George Carwardine in the UK in 1934. It’s this lamp that Jac Jacobsen found in a shipment of sewing machines, licensed and redesigned in 1937, resulting in the classic Luxo L-1 luminaire. Some version of this architects’ lamp then inspired John Lasseter to animate Luxo Jr., the short film that became the spirit of Pixar.

Now, I’m going for low-cost, ad-hoc and ubiquitous. I’m not going to use a $200 Luxo L-1 or Anglepoise Original 1227. Not unless I find a new source of funding, anyway ;) In any case, it’s more appropriate for me to use the most low-cost, ubiquitous version of this superbly functional modern design: IKEA’s TERTIAL. $18.95 from my local IKEA in Sydney, $8.99 in the US.

The height is perfect to throw a 30cm/12″ diagonal display from the 3M MPRO110 Micro Projector, and if you remove the lamp assembly the projector fits beautifully in its place, with room to spare for a webcam. Here’s my blueprint and a shot of the design in situ. If you make one too, we can try them out.
TERTIAL blueprint Tertial Augmented Workspace

Next is to design and implement some user interaction methods. One quite nice thing is that the field of view of the camera is wider than the lightfield of the projector. This means that we can use the projected area for direct manipulation of things in the mediaspace, and use the area around it as a gestural interaction zone for anything that effects the mediaspace as a whole. Some sketches:

rosegarden1.jpgRose garden interaction sketch 2

]]> Viveka: Eight slides http://xn--rls.viveka.id.au/2009/03/20/eight-slides/ Fri, 20 Mar 2009 23:34:19 +1100 http://xn--rls.viveka.id.au/2009/03/20/eight-slides/ These slides are what I’m using to summarise my project these days. I’m not much of a one for bullet points though, so if you’d like the text you’ll need to come along next time I do a presentation. Or, you could start with the about page.

]]> Viveka: Eight slides http://xn--rls.viveka.id.au/eight-slides/ Fri, 20 Mar 2009 23:34:19 +1100 http://xn--rls.viveka.id.au/eight-slides/ These slides are what I’m using to summarise my project these days. I’m not much of a one for bullet points though, so if you’d like the text you’ll need to come along next time I do a presentation. Or, you could start with the about page.

]]> Viveka: OZCHI 2008 http://xn--rls.viveka.id.au/2008/12/24/ozchi-2008/ Wed, 24 Dec 2008 22:23:59 +1100 http://xn--rls.viveka.id.au/2008/12/24/ozchi-2008/ Quite a cohort from CCS went to OZCHI this year. It was my first, and I got a pretty good overview; I presented a paper, attended a workshop and participated in the Doctoral Consortium. That last was particularly excellent. Paul Dourish, Margot Brereton and Wally Smith generously gave their time to help a roomful of PhD students make a little more sense of our personal maelstroms. All of them helped me considerably. I cite Paul rather a lot, and I’m kind of a fan so that was a buzz as well.

Naturally I twittered constantly, so my stream-of-consciousness impressions of OZCHI 2008 are archived for eternity, along with everyone else’s.

]]> Viveka: OZCHI 2008 http://xn--rls.viveka.id.au/ozchi-2008/ Wed, 24 Dec 2008 22:23:59 +1100 http://xn--rls.viveka.id.au/ozchi-2008/ Quite a cohort from CCS went to OZCHI this year. It was my first, and I got a pretty good overview; I presented a paper, attended a workshop and participated in the Doctoral Consortium. That last was particularly excellent. Paul Dourish, Margot Brereton and Wally Smith generously gave their time to help a roomful of PhD students make a little more sense of our personal maelstroms. All of them helped me considerably. I cite Paul rather a lot, and I’m kind of a fan so that was a buzz as well.

Naturally I twittered constantly, so my stream-of-consciousness impressions of OZCHI 2008 are archived for eternity, along with everyone else’s.

]]> Viveka: Live twittering from the ASID conference today. http://xn--rls.viveka.id.au/2008/10/24/live-twittering-from-the-asid-conference-today/ Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:08:03 +1100 http://xn--rls.viveka.id.au/2008/10/24/live-twittering-from-the-asid-conference-today/ #asid - Twitter Search

]]> Viveka: Live twittering from the ASID conference today. http://xn--rls.viveka.id.au/live-twittering-from-the-asid-conference-today/ Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:08:03 +1100 http://xn--rls.viveka.id.au/live-twittering-from-the-asid-conference-today/ #asid - Twitter Search

]]> Viveka: Cool toys at the Games Studio http://xn--rls.viveka.id.au/2008/10/16/cool-toys-at-the-games-studio/ Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:21:08 +1100 http://xn--rls.viveka.id.au/2008/10/16/cool-toys-at-the-games-studio/ I’m in the UTS Games Studio, the denizens of which are demonstrating the cool toys we have there. First is Leena who has embedded various i-cubex sensors in a teddy bear (well, a dog, but she admonishes us to ignore that), a tennis racket any glove. All of these are generating audio at the moment. Greg and Daniel have been playing with our MERL Touchtable. This is a multi-user multitouch display table; its special capability is that it can distinguish between four users. Other touch tables can support lots of users and touches, but can’t tell who is who. They’ve made a simple but very engaging game called Ball Fight that used this capability nicely. The CCS mob is getting quite excited by the artistic possibilities ^_^

]]> Viveka: Cool toys at the Games Studio http://xn--rls.viveka.id.au/cool-toys-at-the-games-studio/ Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:21:08 +1100 http://xn--rls.viveka.id.au/cool-toys-at-the-games-studio/ I’m in the UTS Games Studio, the denizens of which are demonstrating the cool toys we have there. First is Leena who has embedded various i-cubex sensors in a teddy bear (well, a dog, but she admonishes us to ignore that), a tennis racket any glove. All of these are generating audio at the moment. Greg and Daniel have been playing with our MERL Touchtable. This is a multi-user multitouch display table; its special capability is that it can distinguish between four users. Other touch tables can support lots of users and touches, but can’t tell who is who. They’ve made a simple but very engaging game called Ball Fight that used this capability nicely. The CCS mob is getting quite excited by the artistic possibilities ^_^

]]> Viveka: Slide decks - Second Life in Context / Responsive Environments for INteractive Arts http://xn--rls.viveka.id.au/2008/09/04/slide-decks-second-life-in-context-responsive-environments-for-interactive-arts/ Thu, 04 Sep 2008 00:58:36 +1000 http://xn--rls.viveka.id.au/2008/09/04/slide-decks-second-life-in-context-responsive-environments-for-interactive-arts/ A couple of slide decks for talks I gave recently: last Wednesday a guest lecture for the Interactive Arts class on Responsive Environments as an art form.
Then the previous Wednesday, a presentation to UTS staff on Second Life, in the context of other available metaverses and with some focus on its uses in education.
My slides tend to be all pictures - there’s enough text with me talking over them without writing it all out again so you can read what I’m saying. It does mean though that they don’t stand alone when I stick ‘em on the web. You’ll just have to look at the pretty examples )

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