Tangible Table Prototypes and Interactive Augmented Environment with Kinect in SG2011

Posted by on April 5, 2011 1 comment

SmartGeometry 2011 is officially over! The Interacting with the City workshop cluster has generated a series of multidimensional Tangible Table prototypes as well as an interactive augmented environment using Kinect and online data sources (Google Maps, Yahoo, Twitter, real-time weather data) for collaborative design and modeling.

The cluster, led by Przemek Jaworski, Flora Salim, and Martin Kaftan, is joined by brilliant participants from academia and practice: David Gillespie, Davide Madeddu, Eva Friedrich, Jacob Østergaard, Jakob Bak, Joao Albuquerque, John Fihn, Jose Luis Perez Galaso, Rafael Roa, Rafael Urquiza, Raul Kalvo, Stefan DiLeo, and Suhee Oh, who spent four intensive days to develop these demonstrable prototypes from scratch and got them exhibited in SmartGeometry 2011 Conference as shown in this video:

Hands on Ofelia Beach uses real-time wind and weather data to generate visualise simulation on the map of Ofelia Beach as shown on the table. Architects and designers can use 3D building blocks to model new constructions on the table and experience the impact of the wind flow generated from the new buildings on the site. Kinect is used to scan the 3D building blocks.

Project 1: Hands on Ofelia Beach

iUbi uses Kinect to scan 3D freeform model on the table, sends the point cloud for analysis and normalisation in Processing and GC (GenerativeComponents).  Human and thermal comfort analysis is projected back to the model, and the digital model reverse engineered from the physical model is geotagged and sent periodically to an iPhone server, thus the model can be viewed in augmented reality using an iPhone.

Project 2: iUbi

Social.Construct (agents of mass construction) is an agent simulation system that is based on real-world data from Google Maps and Twitter, simulating agents movement across the city based on attractors (hot spots) and visibility analysis. The agent is building a public structure over the city space over a period of time, which reflects the most traversed path.

Project 3: Social.Constructs

uPlanSim (Interactive table as a tool for planning and simulation) is a multi-touch table with an agent simulation system running on a Copenhagen city map. The agents are rebuilding the city and pathways across the city based on visibility. Streets that are more visible have the higher buildings over the street lines. New attractor points can be dropped by a touch on the table. Multitouch on the table will enable panning and zooming of the 3D maps.

Project 4: uPlanSim

There is also an augmented environment project where a kinetic physical canopy is installed over a walkway, with Kinect scanning the space and Google Street View of Copenhagen Central Station projected on the wall. Whenever someone walks over the space and is recognised by Kinect, the programmatic code will send user position from Kinect to the physical installation, and hence triggers movement on the canopy, and updates the Street View at the same time.

Project 5: Augmented Environment

We will continue our collaboration and updates of our works will be posted here and in the Interacting with the City workshop cluster website.

Workshop – day two

Posted by on March 29, 2011 No comments

Some impressions of workshop day two :

a video:

and presentation slides:

Workshop – day one

Posted by on March 29, 2011 No comments

Day one completed! We managed to achieve the main goal of this day – to write/assemble simple skeletons of programs for object scanning, and calibrate feedback visualisation.  Tomorrow – goal nr 2 – generation of simple 3D structure or an object! (which will be sent to 3d print).

More photos at

http://smartgeometry.org/index.php?option=com_community&view=photos&task=album&albumid=49&userid=77&Itemid=0

Preparations – final stage

Posted by on March 26, 2011 No comments

Workshop is about to start in two days! :-) Here’s the latest photo of our workspace…

If you haven’t done so, go to our box.net folder, and download all necessary drivers that you might require! (Kinect, Sony PS3 camera, TUIO etc).

See you soon! :-)

Agent driven structure

Posted by on March 24, 2011 1 comment

I just dusted off some of mine old code for an inspiration. This is an induced delaunay structure which is driven by an agent. The nice thing is that the calculation of the triangulation happens only inside a resizeable box, therefore, it does not slow down with increasing complexity.

3D fluids – wind flow

Posted by on March 24, 2011 3 comments

This is a test of implementing 3D fluids into Processing, if anybody is interesting in doing some wind analysis in the city with the tangible table.  For 2D there is already a good Processing library available.

MAPS

Posted by on March 23, 2011 No comments

1)

ModestMaps  http://modestmaps.com/

They have been ported into Processing. You can use dynamic maps from Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, OpenStreetMaps.  we extended it  also to  be used with these maps  http://maps.cloudmade.com/editor#.  We  made an extention to be able to use the maps  with Tweets. The access to layers does not work with dynamic maps, only  with the static maps.

2)

Importing GIS data

GIS data can be imported for example from  Shapefiles.  There is a java project http://www.openjump.org/, that can be used as a library in Processing. Shapefiles also  contain  other data apart from the location http://www.mapcruzin.com/natural-disaster-shapefiles/volcano-arcgis-shapefile-download.htm and can be used as well for displaying vector maps.  The data can be visualized in 2D, or  in 3D on a sphere = good visualization if someone wants to deal with global datasets.

quick example – displaying locations of volcanos

Parametric Bioclimatic Urbanism + Augmented Reality.

Posted by on March 23, 2011 1 comment

Bioclimatic control logic:

testing shape – Comfort temperature – type of use / Final comfort temperature –  final shape.

Parametric Bioclimatic Mecanism:

1) Comfort temperature associated with 4 types of use:

·Low intensity: sitting, playing cards, siesta! = Tº range

·Medium intensisty: walking, cycling, skating… =Tº range

·High intensity: playing football, running…= Tº range

2) Average of temperature and relative humidity in Copenhagen (summer-winter) = Air temperature (AT)

3) Increasing temperature due to solar radiation / solar radiation related to orientation, slope and material = Sun temperature (ST)

4) Real temperature (RT) = AT + ST / What RT do you have? = Type of use associated with RT.

INTERACTIVE FIELDS – data flow:

· Moldable physical model – modified by designer – scanned with Kinect – informs digital model with ST

· Parametric digital model – informed by Copenhagen climatic data (AT), solar radiation data (ST) & pedestrian flows (iPhone traked)

· Digital model informs – projector with optimun uses – iPhone on site (Augmented reality)

Rafa Roa, Jose L. Perez, Rafa Urquiza

Workshop Schedule

Posted by on March 20, 2011 No comments

Workshop is only few days away, so it’s a good time to refine and finetune our timetable. Here it is :

Day 1 : Collaborative work environments

Morning:

- welcome meeting, introduction to all participants and champions of the cluster
- briefing of sub-groups (discussing tasks for first day)
- first experiments with interface : tangible tables, gesture and object tracking. Enabling multi-user collaboration.

Afternoon:

- connecting the hardware, running first program skeletons, installing libraries and establishing connections between sub-components and computers
- connecting to online data sources of group’s choice : google maps, environmental data banks etc.

Evening :

- quick presentation of each group – strategy, milestones, proposed outcome, ‘roadmap’ for next 3 days. Presentation with diagrams, examples, or live-demos (if possible)

Day 2: Tapping into data sources

Morning:

- briefing with each group, discussing targets for entire day

- integrating collaborative working environments (tangible tables, augmented reality and video projections) with data visualisations. Adding necessary components, simulations etc.

Afternoon:

- further work with data interpretation and visualisation

Evening:

- short presentations of each group, targets achieved/difficulties on the way/successes and failures/lessons learned
- general discussion about targets for next days.
- strategic planning – how to transform ‘harvested’ datasets into meaningful information used in design process. First drafts of 3D models illustrating data-driven design approach

Day 3: Design sessions

Morning:

- groups briefing, discussing 3D models
- exporting data into CAD software, optioneering, assessing solutions

Afternoon:

- exporting first experimental models to CAD programs
- FIRST DEADLINE FOR 3D PRINT SUBMISSION (SLS model)

Evening:

- catch-up meetings with each group, presentations of current work and targets for final day

Day 4: Preparing for final presentation

Morning:

- usual briefing, coffee and short discussions
- integrating all workflows into one complete chain of tools

Afternoon:

- finalizing 3D models of outcome
- exporting models for 3D print (SECOND BATCH – DEADLINE)

Evening:

- preparations for final exhibition

————————————-

This schedule may, and probably will change a bit to accomodate rapidly changing and flexible goals, but some parts of it are pretty much fixed (3d printing deadlines and morning/evening review sessions).

More on cluster space : Josh Mason has posted a video showing workshop space at CITA :

There is also a 3d model available here (Rhino 3dm)

Cluster space will be separated from the rest of the hall by curtains, windows will also be covered, so we get enough darkness to work with projections.

More info to come soon!

(please remember about our Wednesday pre-workshop meeting)

One more update – below is a video showing current development of a DSI (diffused surface illumination) multi touch table that we will be using (there will be two). I hope we can do some nice funky stuff with it :-)

Copenhagen Projects

Posted by on March 18, 2011 2 comments

Thanks to those who have joined our first online meeting. Based on our discussion today, we will focus all group projects on one city: Copenhagen. Concentrating on Copenhagen will facilitate all of us to collaborate for the exhibition, share data sources, and brainstorm how these projects can relate / impact each other, and how we can link all these models for the exhibition at the end of the Conference.

As discussed today, everyone has expressed their design interest and ideas. We have therefore narrowed these into 3 major themes. Within each theme, there are flexibility for each group to determine their design propositions, data sources they will use, perform data analysis/interpretation and visualization methods on tangible interfaces, and 3D models as outputs for the exhibition.

Please feel free to edit this post, as we are still forming these ideas and groups for the workshop, and you might want to expand my notes on these projects, especially add/edit my remarks which are ended with question marks.

  1. Environmental / climatic responsive design and modelling
    • Design proposition: freeform models that adapt to energy analysis / weather data??
    • Data sources: weather data, tangible, flexible/mouldable models (realtime table 3d scanning)
    • Data analysis / interpretation & visualisation: real-time simulation of wind, shadowing, etc on the table interacting with models??
    • 3D models: freeform models scanned with Kinect then optimised with GA and re-fabricated with CNC/object printers (or the other way around)
    • Participants interested in this theme: Davide Madeddu, Raul Kalvo, Jakob Bak
  2. Designing 3D public spaces that adapt to human movements or social interactions
    • Design proposition: 3D public spaces designed based on human movements or interactions with each other. Is it a model of a public installation in a park for example? Or a model for pedestrian tunnel??
    • Data sources: bicycle data, Twitter, Facebook, foursquare, Reality mining project, We Feel Fine.
    • Data analysis / interpretation & visualisation: agents, particle systems
    • 3D models: 3D spaces being rendered then laser cut / CNC models??
    • Participants interested in this theme: John Fihn, Suhee Oh, Joao Albuquerque, David Gillespie, Eva Friedrich, Stefan Di Leo
    • Joao will be working on another separate prototype of the table which has magnetic foam blocks.
  3. Parametric Bioclimatic Urbanism + Augmented Reality
    • Design proposition: Multi-use public systems.
    • Data sources: google maps and pedestrian flow traking/mouldable models (realtime table 3d scanning)/weather data
    • Data analysis / interpretation & visualisation: tangible table interface/GC, iPhone Augmented reality.
    • 3D models: realtime GC model, physical mouldable 3D model on tabgible table
    • Participants interested in this theme: Rafa Roa, Jose Luis Perez, Rafa Urquiza, Jacob Østergaard

Those who miss today’s discussion, we’ll have a catch up meeting on Thu March 17, 10 pm Barcelona/Copenhagen time | Fri March 18, 8 am Melbourne time. Check your email for the details.

We all will meet again on next Wednesday 23rd March – 9pm London time | 10 pm Barcelona/Poland/Austria time | Thu 24th March 8 am Melbourne time. I will send an invitation to the online GoTo meeting closer to the date.