Sensing stuff...

OK, here's another set of methods of getting information into the computer, other than my webcam experiments.

A short while ago I read a very inspirational book by Brendan Dawes (http://www.brendandawes.com/) called 'Analog In , Digital Out' (at Amazon UK). He's one of the gurus on Flash and all things multimedia. His book focusses on the ways that analog or real-life sources of data, like light and sound, can be converted into useful and meaningful data on a computer.

His experiments include making a doorbell ring when someone visits his website, and gathering colour, size and shape data from a webcam trained on a piece of playdough - where the playdough was the user interface...!

All sounds strange but these two examples alone have given me lots of ideas and influence on my project.

The doorbell example was created using the following kit:
http://www.makingthings.com/products/KIT-MAKE-CTRL/
This electronics kit connects to the computer using either USB or ethernet and can have an array of sensor devices attached to it. These sensors include those for light, infrared, pressure and a series of switches. It's also possible to send signals out to the device and control devices like motors and LED lights.

The data is received into Flash using a custom actionscript class as a stream of numerical data. It's then moreorless up to the designer to use the data as they see fit.


The playdough example was created using a combination of a webcam and a piece of software called Cycling74 Max 5. The software company originally began by making audio-plugins for editing suites on the Apple Mac. Using the program's video capabilities, it's possible to detect an object's size, colour and whole load of other variables...

Lastly, a lot of the examples in the book employ a programming language called Processing, which is derived from JAVA. The description from the website says...

"Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions. It is used by students, artists, designers, researchers, and hobbyists for learning, prototyping, and production."

Processing is an incredibly versatile language that makes programming specifically for graphics a complete cinch. Many of the classes you would have to explicitly call if using a traditional JAVA compiler are readily available. I downloaded a special class that enabled me to use my webcam within the Processing environment. The example I tested consisted of around only 50 lines of code. It enabled the user to wave their hand (or any other object) in front of the camera and attract a virtual tennis ball to their fingertips... I'll provide an example on my website soon!


These are the 3 main programming environments I shall research and employ during the course of my project...


MA

Detecting motion in certain areas...with a webcam - part deux

This example is similar to the other area detection example - however it's more refined, uses 'slightly' more sophisticated code to detect the certain areas, AND is more fun to play with.

When you start the example, you will see three blinking dots towards the bottom of your picture. These are the hitpoints where the motion is sensed.

Area Detection example 2

I've found that raising your hand up relatively quick up into the picture works quite well! It's way more useable than the first example - in my little honest opinion


MA

Detecting motion in certain areas...with a webcam

Next - it would be handy to detect motion in certain areas of the screen. The following example detects motion in each corner of the camera's picture - like a 2x2 grid.

Each corner plays a different sound when you wave your hand in front of it. Now - it's not the best sort of detection by any stretch of the imagination, but have a bit of a play and see what you think...

Area Detection example 1

Have fun playing many tunes...!

Simple motion detection using a webcam

Well, I want to make some kind of music-based program or even a game. I haven't quite decided what I'd like to make though, however I'm going to be mucking around and experimenting with wild and wacky user interfaces. Using a webcam as an input device seems a good place to start - the mouse and keyboard are boring :P

So the following link will take you to my first experiement - motion detection. You obviously need a webcam for this otherwise nothing will happen(!). If you're using an Apple Mac with a built-in webcam you may need to select the correct camera device - for some reason there are a few in a list to choose from!

Motion Detection Example

The program senses a certain level of motion in front of your webcam. I guess it depends on which webcam you have - I have the Microsoft VX-1000 and it seems sensitive enough... Let me know how you get on...

At some point I'll upload videos of me waving manically at my computer screen - good times...


MA