Ingenious Interface

This is just a quick post to assert that we have deeper thoughts about things other than cake. Don’t worry; the next post will again be back onto cake or tea.

I’d like to draw attention to some impressive new interfaces which seem to be bringing a Philip K Dick reality ever closer. Using various open source technologies it is possible for artists and programmers alike to experiment and innovate with things such as computer vision, augmented reality and tangible holographs.

Computer vision enables face detecting and motion tracking of live video footage meaning that a user can interact with software using gestures or that the software can autonomously react to user’s movement. The video below does not illustrate the practical potentials for openCV but is too pretty to not include here.

Gold dust from Memo Akten on Vimeo.

Amongst other things computer vision enables the process of Augmented Reality (AR); the fusion of computer graphics/text and live video imagery to ‘enhance’ the experience. This has become more popular on mobile devices of late and there are many AR applications for the iPhone on the horizon. Here is an illustration of mobile based AR:

Touch screen interfaces such as that of the iPhone have almost been absorbed into common use and understanding in their short existence. Despite this, one of the difficulties of using this type of interface is the lack of tangible feedback from the smooth screen apposed to pushing buttons on a phone or keyboard. This problem also applies when flailing around your arms whilst interactive with a gesture based computer vision interface. This almost seems like an impossible problem to overcome. Of course this is not the case as illustrated by this Tangible Hologram which responds to user interaction using small blasts of air or “Airborne Ultrasound Tactile Display” (via). Amazing if not a little scary – love it!

This post was written by Gareth on August 21, 2009 at 11:55 am