4d : using my examples and what your seeing

The pieces ive created and blogged ALL require a webcam to view and interact with.

The project itself is a real time motion capture webcam piece, i decided that real time was a major requirement to illustrate fully the relation to the movement within a space and revealing that space through that movement.  The main idea behind this piece is that for a spaces very existence and worth, use of that space is imperative.  When looking at the tralfmadorian perspective of time and space i toyed with ideas of ausing a security cam-eque webcam piece, that layered all the use of the space into a recuring video, the newest action layered above older actions.  However the tests proved too poor of production quality, but it did make me look to the space around them, the unused sapce.  My piece now makes a focus of the space used, isolating that unused space and removing it.

When looking at the final piece ive produced you’ll see a thin grey outline for where the image will be, below to the left a button. clicking this button takes a snap shot of the web cam’s view point.  The aim is to take a snapshot when only the bare space is visible, no people in it. that way you get a image of only the space when movement is detected, hense illustrating the point of the project, highlighting the used space.

In the older version there is a second video, this video is the live feed, showing the movement and the perosn making it, its worth looking at this one to get an understanding of how its all working.

4D THE FINAL VERSION

been in uni this morning and spoke to mike, showed him my final versions and asked him whether anything could do with a tweak.  so we decided that one video was enough, so i’m only using the video where the space is revealed, i.e. the main project and none of the extra bits that can be viewed in my previous versions.

Here’s the Final Version.

I’ll post a description and about entry, after this one, detailing what your seeing.

4d final versions

Ive worked on the project to how i want to display it, the first part of this was to increase the video size, so im using 640 x 480 instead of 320 x 240.  This had a knock on effect meaning some of the layers weren’t being created in the right places, so ive had to work out a new plan and layout.  The size of the swf has changed, and instead of seeing all the other inputs ive decided to only show the 2 main videos, the video with the “space” being revealed, and the video with the actual camera footage being revealed.  so that the correlation to the movement and space can be made most obviously.

im still a little unsure on wether to include text to detail what my proect is, and im tempted to create a quick logo or text title for the piece too, heres the two versions i have so far .

v1/wo text.

v1/w text.

4d : working

Ive got my project working now, its taking the picture from the webcam, thanks to the narrative work i did, and now ive managed to slot it behing the movement mask, over the video, meaning that its revealing the background/ the space, like i intended, and not the movement.

Here it is working (the button has to be pressed for a picture to be there to be reveale in the left box though) .  i have decided to use the old version too, so next to the top left box is the version that reveals the video as it had done.

4d & Narrative

Been  working on my project for Narrative, the idea for it is using a webcam to create a comic book for the user based on stimuli or a user own narrative (no decisions been made on this yet).  I decided to use the 4D webcam code as a starting block, and work on the code to capture a image using a button as the main focus.  This code however is what ive been having trouble with in 4D, so ive worked and worked at it, and i think through making my prototype narrative project i may have learnt how to do it for 4d.  Heres my narrative project.

4d: Issues…its all CS4’s fault!

so, yeh it turns out to be all cs4’s fault.  I uninstalled cs4 on my laptop and found an old version of CS3 i had lying about and im running it on trial at the moment. so its back to working on the desktop in secure knowledge that i wont have to worry about it not working afterwards.  Working on the code for getting an image from the webcam and putting that in the work, so i can take an image of the room when empty to represent “the space”.

4d: Issues…uhoh.

So, finally got the project working, but without the background image.  Finally happy with how its working, so i decide to show mike, hoping that maybe it’ll be okay without the space revealed.  But none of it works, not on my laptop, or lab pc’s, so I’m in trouble.

Its in AS2, so I’ve checked publishing settings, all AS2.  so far only difference is that i downloaded CS4 trial on my laptop, when i use CS3 at home… i cant imagine a problem there tho.

Ive created a few laptop versions that work fine, I’ve managed to get one working that has a snow like effect, and doesn’t use the squares i prefer in the other versions i had.  LaptopV2

Ive also done one of this with the added code / button, to take a picture, trying to work on getting the background image in there, but its not working yet (you can see the image as a ghost like effect tho).  LaptopV2w/image

Last of all ive got the project working with the squares, but it masks the movement, instead of revealing it, but if that works surely i can work out how to switch it back?  LaptopV1 opposite

4d: Motion capture progress!

ive been working on the flash motion capture, at the moment, i have a working prototype, which is the same code as the last try, but with better quality and will hopefuly allow me to build upon it to get a still image of the room in it.  At the moment it works by only revealing the sections where there is movement, so waving your hand in front of the camera will reveal your hand, i want it to reveal the area, the space, in which your hand is.

heres that version

webcamv2

The aim is now to use a pre taken image of the room that it’ll be set up in, or have it take one on set up, and reveal this image instead of the live video upon movement detection.  Looking at mask layers for this at the moment.

4d: real time? yes.

So after all the tests ive done, with photoshop and some limited flash mock ups of piecing my work together im looking to take the work to the next level.  Ive spoken to mike and weve talked about the pluses of making my project work real time instead of a pre made video piece or a mock up of a real time project.  So ive been looking into using a motion capture web cam piece, the aim would be to show the use of a space, so i imagine this as an installation piece.  The use of the space is based on its existance through its use.  So revealing areas of a room when there is movement is my main idea so far, how this will be visualised is not clear yet.

This is some of the web cam motion capture stuff ive been playign with.webcam motion capture work

we had to give a report upon our return from crimble, so here’s the little presentation i used to get across my progress

Powerpoint

4D-Radar

For my 4D project I’ve decided to look at radar. Radar tends to work by sending out/emitting wave. This wave could be microwave or radio wave. Radar works by the emitted wave hitting an object and bouncing back and being detected. Radar was famously used in the Second World War by the British to locate German Planes and submarines.

What interested me was the idea that the objects weren’t there until the wave was emitted, the pulse had to be activated/created to search. This got me re examining my previous ideas about how a space is manipulated by the people within it. Is a space there if its not experienced?

If a tree falls in the woods does it make a sound?

Well, if no one has seen or experienced the tree does it exist? Is it there?

The space or object is reliant on those that experience it.

For my project I want to create a digital representation of a space through a web cam recording, but only reveal the space when it I in use, a full illustration of the idea that space is relative to those experiencing it.

To create my project I’ve been looking at some code from Justin Roberts. The code has different ways of visualising the web cam feed. There are a few that are key to my project. One detects movement in the picture; this one will be used to show interaction within the space. Another detects the “normal” it detects what isn’t moving, the background the space itself, for example if some one added a chair it may be picked up as movement but once its normalized and hasn’t moved any more its added to the background. For my project I want the movement to act as a mask in which to reveal only the space that’s interacted with. Creating images much liked this test image.

The next plan is to buy a webcam and start outputting some test stuff, stay tuned.