The first beta of Rhonda just came out a few hours ago and it’s exactly like expected, very cool. If you don’t remember what Rhonda is all about, you might want to read this. Here is a video where Zach Lieberman demos a few of the features.
I tried it out too, but my non existent drawing skills and trackpad didn’t really help.
Believe me. Just watch what this robot already can do, even with throwing some hoops. Sensor Fusion is another project of the Ishikawa Komuro Laboratory of the university of Tokyo.
found at kottke
HasCanvas is one of the Chrome Experiments which promote the new HTML5 standard and of course the Google Chrome webbrowser. HasCanvas is based on Processing.js, a javascript version of Processing, and allows visitors to write and save their own scripts. Most of them remind me of the early Flash days, meaningless little toys. But I’m sure that we will soon see some awesome HTML5 websites.
By the way, you will need a modern browser like Firfox 3.5, Safari 4 or Chrome to see the following experiments.
Click and draw.
both are made by Hiddencorp
Sticky Light is a project by Alvaro Cassinelli, Kuribara Yusaku and Stephane Perrin of the Department of Information Physics and Computing at the Ishikawa Komuro Laboratory of the university of Tokyo. Indeed, this should already spark you interest.
Sticky Light is a 3d tracking technology using a laser diode (low power), a pair of steering mirrors and a single non-imaging photodetector. The big difference to other tracking technologies is the fact that the Sticky Light doesn’t use a camera or projector. So what could you do with? It can track the contour of objects and even augment real-time drawings. Or you could build games like air hockey or a pinball game. Or … just watch this video, after 2 minutes they show you the games demo.
Daito Manabe visited the lab recently and added some functionality to the system: sound. soundLight can now generate sounds based on the movement of the laser.
found @daitomanabe
In 1964, Michael Noll decided to recreate the painting “Compositions With Lines” by Piet Mondrian, with an algorithmic simulation. Copies of both works were shown to 100 people, the computer-generated picture was preferred to Mondrian by 59.
found at Rhizome
Rhonda is a 3D drawing tool like no other, the first when I saw it a few years ago I was immediately blown away. Amit Pitaru developed this amazing piece of software around 2003. Around that time he was collaborating with James Paterson, their project was called InsertSilince. In this video you can see James drawing using Rhonda with his unique style.
So it’s very nice to hear that the development of Rhonda will continue with the help of Zach Lieberman (openFrameworks) and Zach Gage (synthpond).
tha ltd. has just launched a new website for SCR, its creative label intended to serve as a platform for artworks and projects emerging from the recent digital/network media movements. They produce, develop, and sell various interactive art / software / motion-based projects. You might remember their Dropclock screensaver from last year.
Beside the relaunch, they also added 6 new pieces. 4 of them are made by Brendan Dawes, Delaware, Andreas Müller and Theodore Watson, the other 2, which I like best, by tha ltd. themselves.
MUG SHOOTER by tha ltd.
MUG SHOOTER is a screensaver that takes a unique mug shot of you and shares it to the world. A special camera that uses the automatic face recognition system morphs your facial expressions as you move parts of your face. Play around, have fun, and post a unique mug shot of yourself! (Please note, this screensaver displays the 50 most recent posts only, and old images will be automatically deleted. Your posts will be displayed for a limited time of around 1 ~ 10 days.)
CRASHCLOCK by tha ltd.
CRASHCLOCK is a screensaver that depicts the destruction of 4 truss structures falling vertically against the ground in slow motion.
This project is based on a project “CRASH” which was created for an exhibition called “bones” directed by Shunji Yamanaka at the 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT.
Lately I’m really into these video projections on 3D objects and buildings. I always wondered how they do that, how they match the projected animations with the objects. Last November there was a workshop for the students of Hochschule für Gestaltung Schwäbisch Gmünd how to do this with vvvv, a toolkit for real time video synthesis. The students got quite a headstart because they had a scale model of the building and digital 3D models to start with. The position of the spectator is of course quite important to obtain the desired visual effect. If you want to try it out yourself, then you might want to read this guide on the vvvv website: How To Project On 3D Geometry. You can see the results of the workshop here, unfortunately they only used the scale model to show the final animations.
found @mariuswatz
Hiroo Iwata developed these Robot Tiles. You have to imagine them as movable floor tiles which arrange them automatically in front of you as you walk. They’re covered with KURALON® EC, a textile made of conductive fibers. So when you step on it, it can detect in with direction you’re heading. It was part of the Tokyo Fiber ’09 Senseware exhibition during the Milan furniture fair.
As always, a video will make it clear to you.
found at stylepark
The ARS Electronica Center in Linz, Austria, has quite an impressive facade. It is actually a huge display, 1085 windows are equiped with fully controllable LED’s.
“Lights On” is an audio visual performance, the visual programming with openFrameworks was done by Zachary Lieberman, Joel Gethin Lewis and Damian Stewart. Daito Manabe did the music with support from Taeji Sawai and Kyoko Koyama. The colors of the LED’s changed in realtime to the music that was broadcasted on speakers surrounding the building. They recorded the output, both the music and LED animation for later replay.
found at swissmiss
