aikaido video index
aquarium video index
I have also started shooting some video of water and people using interfaces and have one video of a giant windmill to go into the mechanical motion category. I haven't taken the time to format those for the web yet.
here is my list of motion studies that I am working with:
living things
wind
gravity
water
mechanical things
laser lights
people using real interfaces
working with video of jellyfish and the motion lab, I was able to make an example of movement where I think the motion lab movement has been informed by observation of the jellyfish. it isn't an animation of jellyfish and it isn't exactly a perfect replica of the way the jellyfish moves but has some qualities of the jellyfish, as I could replicate it. the example is enough to make me think that the technique can be refined to the point that it can be useful.
there is a link at the top of the aquarium link above with the jellyfish video and the motio study. follow the instructions under the swif file on the motio web page to see the video work.
2.
once I can make the point that a motion I can create has a similarity to the motion of a real thing the next step is to work out that motion in a real interface problem. I've been looking for a very simple problem that I might use as a test case. there are 2 things I have been considering as study problems:
one is to use the functionality of the small application on my pc that searches for wireless networks. you might remember it, it puts a small computer in the center like the sun and has wireless hubs rotating in planet-like orbits around it. the paradigm is all wrong since the computer is the thing that can move and the hubs are static. I was thinking that motion might be useful to get the point across but using the ideas from natural examples and reinterpreting the interface.
the second idea is something that I'v confronted several times in various interface projects. I would most likely want to start with a very simple problem and then see if it can be expanded to more demanding scenarios. the idea is to attach a piece or pieces of information to an existing piece of information. I was thinking of a bit of text that has related text attached. I suppose the original data could be a different data type like an image but I was looking for a simple problem to begin with, possibly a single word with some additional words attached. I was considering a word with synonyms and antonyms attached, with the motion telling the 2 apart might be a good enough place to start.
an example of applying the idea at the more complex extreme would be the News Reader game I worked on that connected several texts to an original text.
I am still thinking about other interface problems that might benefit from using motion. one suggestion I've had was to look at the video examples and ask myself how that might work in an interface. it's an approach that is entirely foreign to me. maybe that's a good reason to give it a try.
Mike made the suggestion of writing down the qualities of the motion that I'm watching on the video as a way of clarifying what I'm thinking about. that seems like a pretty good idea to me and I will start that as soon as I can.
3.
it's been brought to my attention that the motion lab is boring. admittedly, it's a research project so it's probably not odd that its boring. Simon made a very good suggestion to make an interactive pop-up book to illustrate the research. he was thinking of combining popups like I made in my popup book of Einstein's general theory of relativity and movement from the motion lab projected onto pages of a large book. I have attached a photo of a diagram he made for me. I'm not sure how exactly pertinent to what I'm doing it would be except to say that it would be very interesting, would bring some of my strengths into one place, make a good project for learning more programming and bringing programming into the physical world and be a nice way to document the motion lab in a way that would be interesting to an audience. if I am lucky, I might be able to print any unchanging text on the pages on the letterpress, which would be really fun for me.
