Flocking + Xbox Kinect Hack

So for something delectably sweet, here's the video of mine and Ray's Xbox kinect hack project. We're pulling out the depth map, isolating the user, and generating a particle system based off of the user's movements. Particles flock to fill in your silhouette when you stay still, and display swarming/flocking behavior around your centroid when you move.



Kinect Flock | Particles + xBox Kinect by Alex Wolfe + Honray Lin from Alex Wolfe on Vimeo.

Ah sorry the angle of my camera is slightly off from the angle of the kinect, but you get the idea : ) This project was ridiculously fun to work on, Ray ended up doing most of the depth map pulling and I developed the particle system in Cinder. Since we are using a depth map instead of plain camera data it is very easy to get extremely accurate user silhouettes, despite whatever is in the background.

Each point generated by the kinect that comprises my body has a gravitational pull on one particle in the simulation. The strength of this force is inversely related to how fast I'm moving, so when I stand perfectly still the particle zooms to the point it corresponds to, and when I move its free to wander and behave on its natural flocking tendency. Thus you get these really sweet visuals as my silhouette breaks and reforms depending on how fast I'm moving.

The depth data we actually got back unfortunately wasn't nearly as accurate as I had first imagined. I was hoping we could at least pull out some noticeable distinctive features, but most of the time we just get blobby shapes. If I can get my hands on another kinect, I want to tweak it so that the z Axis data is far more exaggerated, even if its just in particle size/color

And finally, here are two concept sketches I did in order to better understand noise and my desired particle behavior. It's actually more reminiscent of what I hoped for Z data and depth to look like. They're quite beautiful in their own right

Kinect Flock | Processing Concept Sketches from Alex Wolfe on Vimeo.

Read even more about the project and others at the interactive art + computational design blog!

sketching

And to placate my conscious for the lack of creating anything remotely worth posting about in the last 3 months, some assorted sketches from the last year and a half


Some of my least successful portraits of my exceptional friend Liz Song, but still two of my favorites.

 Concept for another piece of digitally fabricated jewelry. An armored ring and matching gauntlet. These actually were the original concepts for the pauldron project until I was defeated by Maya. (Solid-Works isn't half as effective for creating fluid shapes like these in 3 dimensions)

 

Random doodles (from when I should have been learning machine level assembly : P)

 

Concept sketch for the painting that I"m currently working on and a quick jotted down quote from Everything is illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. If you haven't read it I highly recommend it. I read another one of his novels, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, while I was interning in New York. I usually would sit in the window of the Dean & Deluca across the street and constantly switch between laughing hysterically and bawling my eyes out. This clearly made me the most attractive fashion intern there,  but still it was one of the most amazing stories.

Portfolio Site + Unabashed Negligence

"oh why hello out there!" (she is greeted by not even the cicadas)

Apologies for my long silence and absence. But on the brighter side, I have excellent news.

First off, I finally have my official portfolio site up and running, (my own domain and everything!)

you can go check it out at alexkwolfe.com. I'm still working on getting it completely up to date, but my most significant projects are up there. This means I can actually start using this blog, as what it was originally intended for, a place to post about works in progress, various obsessions, and anything else I find interesting rather than just a portfolio.

So thank you for those of you who still randomly check this page (which I think is entirely comprised of Kiera and my Aunt), and hopefully you will be hearing more from me : )

Swoon video

Here's a short clip of the app running in real time.Which basically means horribly jerky half dead laptop time. I swear this flows rather nicely when run properly, but just to give you a basic idea..


Swoon from Alex Wolfe on Vimeo.

Swoon :: Screenshots

Screen captures from my latest Processing sketch. Its a particle system that paints on your screen using input from a webcam and perlin noise. Make sure to check out the video here. You can also move around for some gorgeous abstract effects (since the app pulls the camera data as it draws), but I was tired when I took these : /

Here is a shot of what the app looked like before the webcam data was added in. Perlin noise is computed based on the mouse placement, so the width and nature of these curly wisp strokes are nearly infinite.

BEAT

Addicted to this podcast from White Heat. Hopefully its the first of many. British boys have the best music.

I apologize for the lack of absolutely anything. I've been finishing up a program that can play chess(much better than me actually), Robot soccer, and this weekend is going to be a last ditch public art all nighter ampMonsterRockStarDEATH extravaganza.

Meanwhile I'm going to zone out, listen to this, and let the caffeine haze wash over.

White Heat Podcast 001 by White Heat

Googe Boutiques

In case you somehow managed to miss the internet fashion uproar over Google's new Boutique site, head over and check it out!

yeah, yeah, having your own store/being able to pursue the style of your favorite idol is ridiculously cool, but the actually intriguing part is the new search engine they've come up with (but what else can you expect from a project by Google?). Here's a link to mine, and photo below

Combining "fashion and computer geeks", Boutiques uses computer vision/learning algorithms to actually mine data from the physical images you are attracted to, rather than just browsing keywords. I've been playing around with it, and while the selection is fairly limited at the start -- my typecast of "edgy" after taking the style quiz limited my selections to mostly drapy black numbers with sprinklings of studs, it does seem to learn after some aggressive Loving/Hating. So after about an hour doing Chloe - LOVE, Bebe HATE, Ann Demulemeester - LOVE, Lanvin - LOVE, BCBG - LOVE, anything camo - HATE, etc. it does seem to pick up on your general preferences.

The specifics for the loving/hating process, namely sihlouette+pattern, color, brand, and price, were a bit frustrating to me at first, inadequate adjectives for harnessing my utter lust and devotion / visceral hatred, they make complete sense from a computer vision standpoint. Especially with that many images to process I imagine they are just analyzing general outlines (made especially easy by fashion photography's stereotypical white backgrounds) and basic color/pattern from inside the image.

My love for quizzes and the vanity boost of possessing something whose sole purpose is to cater to my every whim asides, I quite like it. Impressions?

Also should come in quite handy for holiday shopping (wink, wink)

Wind Interaction :: Part Four - Finished!

Here are the photos of the finished turbine. The LED's brightness directly relates to the speed of the wind. It makes a beautiful dimming, brightening, dimming, sort of breathing pattern when in use. I originally wanted to make a bigger more extravagant diffuser than the little bird, but it was so cute, and it works very well for its purpose.

Materials :  PVC, an old 2x4, old case fan, laser cut acrylic, a couple diodes and capacitor, rice paper, 1" and 1.25" electrical conduit tubing.

The steel tubing attached to the wood mount slides inside this much longer one so the turbine can freely pivot to always stay in the wind. Laser cut a small square of acrylic to serve as a tail/guide.

Little bird diffuser cut out of some extra rice paper I had in my studio. Neatly covers a 10mm LED connected to the motor.

The turbine only generates 2 volts at max speed so it powers exactly one 10mm LED. I do love the rather simple form. Beautiful, but so little energy for the labor! I tried to get some footage of it in action, but of course as soon as you build a wind generator you will be faced with a series of days devoid of any breeze. Right now I only have two finished, but ideally I could make dozens and stake them in series on a hill. Especially in the dark all you will see are the birds fading in and out of existence with the whirring of the fans.

Wind Interaction :: Part Three - Making the Blades

Super tired, so here's just some quick photo documentation of the finished fan blades/bases. Blades were cut from 3" PVC in order to get a beautiful curve. I'm a bit concerned they will be too heavy for the tiny motor, but blades cut from plastic bottles seemed so flimsy in comparison.