Month: April 2018

We’ve basically finished creating most of the fundamental mechanics behind our game. The things that we still need to work on are: polishing up our level designs, fixing some minor calibration and precision issues, and create an ending story to enhance the entire gaming experience. Through a series of user testings, we’ve identified some issues (listed below):

1. One type of zombie can only be killed when shot on the bottom half;

2.  Our IR computer vision set up works most optimally when the distance between the IR emitter and the receiver is within 1 meter (+/- 20cm). In order to facilitate for a more consistent user experience, I think it would be best if we created some sort of label on the floor to make sure the sensors are not outside of the optimal range.

3.  Insert an instructions page before the game begins.

4. Make the game a bit more challenging by either modifying the number of zombies, the zombies’ movements, or the allotted time. (Or a combination of everything.)

5. When running the game on Ross’s computer, we’ve noticed significant amounts of lag. We will consider running the game on a more powerful computer or even two computers with one responsible for the game and the other responsible for computer vision.

I was a little upset that I wasn’t able to incorporate the letters dispersing and then dissolving into the background before I was able to do the user testing. However, it was still fascinating to see the user testing response even though my project is only 60% finished. Overall, the responses were quite positive. They really liked the idea behind it once I elaborated on what would occur next.

User 1

User 2

User 3

The most challenging part in all three cases was that people weren’t able to recognise the text was reflecting their bodies. Perhaps because they were all seated on a chair on looked at the screen on a low chair, and that limited movement. In the meditation room, I will avoid using any seats and keep the space more ‘free’. Also, the light was dim in the room, and some people wore clothing items similar to the background and that affected how the bodies were reflected. Sometimes, the background and body were indistinguishable. When the letters are smaller, the body appears to be more distinguishable. Hence, I will make the letters smaller. I also found it challenging to see how the program reflected the people’s bodies because I wanted to give people privacy with the program since they entered quite vulnerable emotions on the screen. Therefore, I had to ask them what the program was showing them, and I didn’t always receive the most detailed explanations. Next time, perhaps I will ask them to write emotions that are less vulnerable, emotions they feel more comfortable sharing, for testing purposes. It also really helped to have meditative music in the background to set the mood, and it will be interesting to see how my project will change once I officially implement sound.

So after finally getting my project to work (thank you so much Aaron for your help!!), I had my project tested by 3 different people and it was interesting to see what they had to say about my project.

Here is how the interactions typically went:

User: Woah!

Me: Would you want to user test my project?

User: Sure!

(looks at the projection)

What do I do?

Me: Pretend like my Arduino is a rocketship and visit the planets.

User: Ah! I see. (moves pretend rocketship around)

User 1:

User 2:

User 3:

The user testing experience was pretty positive actually and some of the suggestions from them are:

1. If the rocket ship were to visit the planet, it would make sense that when the projection pops up once the rocket lands on the planet, that the rocket ship would be able to go around the planet animation to essentially “explore” it. Rather than having the boundaries be limited to the area in which the rocket lands, allowing it to explore the planet would be cool. – I really think that this is something I want to try out, especially if the goal was to “explore” the planets. However, I guess if it were to be like “land here to see an animation of the thing you landed at”, it would be okay.
2. What is with the flashing?!!? – Definitely, need to address this because it’s actually quite annoying.

One thing I definitely need to work on is how I can get the users to start the interaction themselves without my spoken prompt, I don’t know if I should have it displayed on the screen or have an instruction panel next to my project since it is going to be projected onto a surface. I need to work out how this works.

I think that it would also be great if some space-style music played in the background as well. I’ll see if that actually works out. Another note, I need to also incorporate my other small side project of “creating your own solar system” into this project.

Before this article, I was not sure exactly what computer vision was. It was a term I had vaguely heard on occasion, but had never had described in detail.

I really liked Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s installation Standards and Double Standards (2004) , as I think the idea of an exhibit having constant moving pieces that indicate where a viewer is standing in real time is a nice touch. I have seen something similar to this in a museum in my town, the Perot museum. It is an interactive science and history museum, and when you enter, there are a bunch of water molecules suspended on the ceiling at a certain level. When you walk under them, they “fall” or move down a couple of feet toward your position. In that way, it’s like rain that only moves when you stand under one of the molecules.

I found this reading very interesting as I find the field of computer vision very exciting and I see it as a rising industry in many forms such as VR or AR. What I find particularly amazing is the algorithms that find patterns in a set of almost abstract pixels and find some sort of meaning to it.

The “ELEMENTARY COMPUTER VISION TECHNIQUES” section was important to me as my final IM Project includes the detection of motion as I am using a kinect to detect hand movements.

I also found the “LimboTime” game interesting as it would have to take into account both depth and motion.

I tried some of the .pde files linked to in the reading and was fun to play around with (some didn’t work probably due to my processing version)

The reading was relatively easy to understand and informative as well as interesting as it gives specific examples such as limbo after explaining the different computer vision techniques.

The part about detecting smile was especially interesting. Before learning about how computers work, I had thought of the smile mode on phone cameras that take pictures when a person smiles as detecting happiness in a person. After doing this reading, it makes much more sense to understand it as detection of muscle movement in certain direction.

I got the idea for my final project from synesthesia which is when hearing sounds triggers seeing colours. Although not exactly the same as synesthesia, I borrowed the concept of experiencing colours through sound for this project. My plan is to have a musical instrument which allows the users to paint pictures through playing the instrument. Every user and every attempt at playing will produce different paintings

 

Materials needed:

• Laptop
• Musical instrument (build a new one or use an already existing one)
• Screen
• Arduino

 

• The users will be asked to play an instrument which is fairly easy to work out how to play (such as a piano keyboard). 
• Each key/note will be assigned a colour and the shade of the colour will change according to how long the key is pressed down.
• Blotch of colours in varying size and location will appear on the screen as the users play the instrument.

This reading was interesting in the sense that it helped me tackle the complicated concept of computer vision. It separated the idea into comprehensible parts that explained the varying ways in which algorithms are able to interpret external movement. I liked the fact that it was a relatively simple read. This definitely influenced my ability to understand it.

I also really enjoyed the example that it gave of the limbo game. It was interesting to see an application and a fun one that was developed so quickly. I makes me think about how projects don’t necessarily have to be extremely extravagant, just effective.

This reading highlights a very important thing in the world of computing: the rapid and sustained growth of computational power over the past several decades. It is all thanks to this growth (outlined by Moore’s law) that the average creator/artist/student can now have easy access to platforms that enable complicated implementations such as the interactive computer vision artwork “Videoplace”.

As modern day computational technology (software & hardware) continues to advance, I wouldn’t be surprised to see several highly optimized and lightweight computer vision/virtual reality based platforms take over the gaming and online collaboration model. Inshallah.

This reading really protrays how drastically computer-related research and functions have changed. Going from an exclusive feature to an accessible, easily transferable function, the use of computer vision has dramatically changed.

An interesting point in the reading was about the role of the entire human body in the interaction with a computer. I found Videoplace an incredibly interesting launchpad for human-computer interaction because of its obvious and still-apparent affects in the field and in other interactive art. The development from simply human movement to also the incorporation of other senses, such as sight and speech, was also interesting, because it shows the endless potential of interactive pieces according to a designers needs and motives. Moving forward, the potential for interactive instillation art is also explored- perhaps the most interesting part to me. I really enjoyed this because instillation art is meant to engage an audience, and combing it with this field allows obvious interaction, which is uplifting to audience engagement.

The reading also touched on the possible problems one may encounter when attempting to create interactive work. This especially resonated with me because often times, I will scratch an idea because I don’t know how and if I would be able to do it. Detecting these problems and finding solutions enables artists and designers to pursue projects regardless of the possible failures that may result from the technical bits.

All in all, the computer function of design opens up endless possibilities for artists and their works- there is no rejection of any crazy idea.