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INTERACTIVE DRAWING
INITIAL THOUGHTS
Drawing, interaction, music, performance, abstraction, and installation. Enhancing the drawing process with a collaborative interactivity through programming.LOOKING FOR MORE
I want to create something on the interactivities between real-time drawing and computation. Ron Hul introduced his animation “Ode to Summer” few years back, a 3D animation of a Chinese girl reading poetry in a lotus garden rendered in never before seen Chinese Calligraphy style. It is the three-dimensional quality of lively two-dimensional brush strokes in this animation fascinates me. In 2005, Play Station 2 has released a beautifully rendered game called Okami in similar style. Besides the rendering, player can actually pause the game and use the analog stick to draw Chinese calligraphy that will turn into a spell or do something special to the game. Recently, Golan Levin and Zachary Lieberman’s collaboration “messa di voce” and Zachary’s own project “Drawing” are also perfect examples of creating interaction with drawings. I want to do eventually is actually an Intermedia of all that was mentioned above, a mixture of real-time drawing, interactivity, gaming and performance.INTERACTIVE DRAWING
Normally when people draw, they actually tempt to duplicate the picture that has already been generated in their minds. In other words, most of the drawings have a purpose. The degree of similarity of the actual rendering and the picture inside is usually determined by their various drawing skills. During the course of drawing, no matter a person is trained or not, there is a possibility that this person would enter a drawing flow. A trained and skillful artist has better chance to access one. A flow is a result of highly concentrated mind so that the drawing becomes an intuitive and absolute interaction between the painter and the canvas. While in the flow, painters and their possible artistic stimulus become one instrument freely expressing their minds on the canvas. All the creative decisions will be made instinctively by the painter’s subconscious base on his lifetime experiences. Medium becomes an extension of the painter’s body and skill is not a issue anymore. When what to draw no longer bothers a creative mind, the interaction becomes a purely artistic reflex to the most basic design elements. This is what I am interested in. What if I throw in one more stimulus to the creative process by putting two persons on one canvas and they can only communicate with each other through the strokes on canvas? What if they generate drawings base on each other’s drawings? What if one of the two people is actually a machine? I am not trying to subvert the creative process of one person by generating un-expecting lines and shapes around his or her drawing. It is really looking for the balance between a pure machine and a creative mind. I am more eager to know under this condition, will a person be able to counter the given interaction and create something fabulous.PAPER PROTOTYPE 1
The paper prototype consist one Initiator (Painter), one Reactor (Computer), two bold sharpies, a reference card, and a blank white poster. There is no computing involved in this prototype. Tester and programmer play Initiator and Reactor. During the testing, there is no oral communication between the two. Initiator will start by drawing on the poster, big and bold strokes if possible. Reactor reacts to Initiator’s strokes and adds on graphic elements or modifies the drawings base on the reference card. Reactor can rotate, rescale, multiply, overlay and break apart the graphic elements on the reference card in order to match the qualities of Initiator’s drawings.
^Reference Card, a collection of preset patterns for Reactor^^Reactor diagram^
^positioning and possible outcome^
TEST RESULTS
FEEDBACK ON PROTOTYPE I
- In the first few tests, reactor had problems catching up with Initiator’s free drawing because Reactor has to simulate the computation process. Drawing 6 and Drawing 7 are typical examples of disconnecting between Initiator and Reactor. In this case, Initiator is able to complete the pre-generated pictures in mind without collaboration with Reactor.
- Starting a drawing without any purpose or motivation troubled initiators. They usually won’t put down any stroke till they figure out what they are going to draw. The lack of temptation may be solved by a well-designed installation.
- The randomness of the stroke reaction confuses initiators. Most of the initiators are expecting a clear pattern after a few experimental strokes. They are expecting the computer to enhance their drawings rather than expecting the computer to collaborate drawings with them on an almost equilibrant level of interaction.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS TO DRAWING CAPTURE
- Solution A: Infrared light
The primary source of infrared radiation is heat or thermal radiation, any object has a temperature radiates in the infrared. Even objects that we think of as being very cold, such as an ice cube, emit infrared. When an object is not quite hot enough to radiate visible light, it will emit most of its energy in the infrared. For example, hot charcoal may not give off light but it does emit infrared radiation which we feel as heat. The warmer the object, the more infrared radiation it emits. Therefore having a infrared camera, I will be able to capture only the painter. It has been done in many major interactive shows such as Messa di Voce. I am not sure how well it does on capturing strokes.
- Solution B: Digital Whiteboard (Electronic Whiteboard)
The digital whiteboard (or electronic whiteboard) is designed to allow interaction with a computer display on a real whiteboard. In order to interact with the real-time writing and drawing on the whiteboard, a digital whiteboard usually consist some type of position capturing of the specially made marker. The capturing device is either built in to the physical board or has a portable sensor bar that can be installed on the side of a real whiteboard. If the capturing device could output the positioning data to Flash/Processing or could make the marker works like a mouse, this might be the solution I am going for. Because the capturing area can cover up to at least 4’ by 8’ for most digital whiteboard kits. The downside is that they are luxury items, normally cost $500 and up.
- Solution D: WACOM Cintiq
When working with a WACOM Cintiq user works with the pen directly on a twenty one inch screen. There is little or no learning curve because of this natural “pen-on-paper” work approach. This is an easy solution to my project on the technology aspect, but I am expecting a larger and a real canvas for people to explore.
PROTOTYPE
I am going to house the sensor in a wooden box and mount the box on the bottom of the canvas. Sensor will pick up the positioning data of the drawing pen and pass the data to the computer application. Then the computer application will generate the picture and project it on the canvas through projector.
^computer and projector^
^projector, canvas, and sensor^
FINAL PRESENTATION
LINKS
- Ron Hul, “Ode to Summer”
- Golan Levin Messa di voce
- Jonah Warren and his whole body game
- Trailors of PS2 game Okami
- White Board Animation
- Graffiti research lab
- Beauty and Chaos
- Zefrank.com
19 Nov 2006 / admin / 0
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