via camp

Motion for Interface: a Taxonomy; Elaine Froehlich

2011-07-20T17:25:00.003-04:00

yesterday my Master's thesis on motion in interface (from the Dynamic Media Institute at MassArt) was honored as a runner-up in the Core77 Design Awards, Strategy/Research category. additional information, the thesis pdf and some samples of the research projects can be found on my web site, activesurface.com/core77. I posted some example video from the thesis and some experimental videos that informed the work but weren't included in the document. the thesis document is available there for download if you are interested. it has a creative commons license so you can use any parts if you like as long as you don't change it and give it due credit.

When to Trust Your Gut

2011-02-14T15:44:00.000-05:00

As you accumulate knowledge—whether it's about what books your spouse likes or how to play chess—you begin to recognize patterns. Your brain unconsciously organizes these patterns into blocks of information—a process the late social scientist Herbert Simon, PhD, called chunking. Over time your brain chunks and links more and more patterns, then stores these clusters of knowledge in your long-term memory. When you see a tiny detail of a familiar design, you instantly recognize the larger composition—and that's what we regard as a flash of intuition.

Look up Herbert Simon for deeper information.

source: http://www.oprah.com/spirit/The-Science-of-Intuition

Let Intuition Be Your Guide

2011-02-14T15:36:00.000-05:00

Let Intuition Be Your Guide

Posted by Editor on Jul 09 2010

9 Comments | CLICK HERE TO COMMENT!

The saying, “going with your gut” should probably be more along the lines of, “going with your brain” as researchers start to unravel exactly where that feeling of intuition stems from. They found that as our brains take in information we start to spot patterns of behaviors, events, causes, results and other repeat situations. Our brain takes these patterns and files them into logical groups in a process called chunking. When we use our intuition to help us come up with the answer to something what we are doing is accessing chunks that relate to the situation in question and using the pattern information stored inside them to judge against the pattern in the present.

“Over time your brain chunks and links more and more patterns, then stores these clusters of knowledge in your long-term memory. When you see a tiny detail of a familiar design, you instantly recognize the larger composition—and that’s what we regard as a flash of intuition…”

Read up on when and how to use your intuition

Is there a time you remember your intuition being right on?

from Tony Robbins Valentines day blog post: http://love.tonyrobbins.com/

Lucy and Bart augmenting human evolution with low tech processes

2010-10-24T10:56:00.001-04:00

see their blog for photos, strange and creepy but also beautiful.

Providence dancing traffic cop

2010-10-17T16:42:00.000-04:00

The Girl Effect: The Clock is Ticking: informational design and animation

2010-10-17T16:41:00.000-04:00

44 of film's most evil villans

2010-07-20T11:30:00.001-04:00

this makes a very nice presentation of a lot of footage from different films in a way that feels very solid. the sound track is a huge help.

video about time

2010-07-20T11:17:00.000-04:00

the secret powers of time a video on human perceptions of time

thing to check out

2009-11-10T18:00:00.011-05:00

the ambient orb

apple human interface guidelines
apple user experience website

check out what else is happening in HCI.

minimal mac from a link on andrew's blog.
Geektool an Apple tool to configure things on your desktop.

Stuart Anstis motion studies in how the brain interprets value into motion.

Jeff Han touch wall.
Another video wall example.

student using paper prototypes to mock up interfaces

2009-11-08T19:19:00.000-05:00

some things change by chris pullman.

find research on motion for pilots

2009-11-07T10:23:00.001-05:00

2009-11-07T10:14:00.003-05:00

natural user interface group. check this out for info about multi touch tables.

search for MT mini prototype.

2009-11-04T22:08:00.002-05:00

video of an imaginary holographic 3d creation interface that opens virtual palettes almost anywhere and supports dynamically moving interactions with at least some ability to focus on the tiniest of details. uses motion as part of the interface in amazing ways.

2009-10-24T12:09:00.001-04:00

street games enhanced environments that you can play in.

2009-10-24T10:43:00.001-04:00

David Small design ecology design that can react to changing environments. Read here about research projects going on at the media lab.

2009-10-22T08:58:00.003-04:00

Brian Eno and cybernetics is an article about the influence cybernetics and systems thinking had on Brian Eno's music. he started in a class where his thinking was challenged with group collaborations and rules. from that his approach included open rules-based approaches to his compositions.

Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies cards is a set of cards that encourage people to think differently when they get stuck on a creative (?) project.

police dance

2009-10-22T07:54:00.002-04:00

I thought tractor dance was amazing but the police motorcycle dance here is at least as amazing.

self publishing web site

2009-10-21T16:14:00.000-04:00

blurb.com a place to self publish books, one book or several. they do photos.

2009-10-21T09:03:00.002-04:00

new order, true faith has interesting rotating plane in front of a guy's eyes, in the last few seconds. starts as a vertical plane and ends as a horizontal line. could be a way to connect larger amounts of information onto a source bit.

2009-10-20T12:18:00.001-04:00

bldr web site a web site for finding or donating information on making things. check it out.

get stuff

2009-09-29T17:04:00.003-04:00

dmi studio 2 from spring 2009.
chrono sync synchronize files across 2 or more computers.
scrivner

Kat's mit class blog

2009-09-22T10:45:00.002-04:00

Networked Cultures and Participatory Media: Media City class blog with a lot of good info.

lecture series in the MIT museum on the 3rd floor, room number to come.

Nervous system work-sessions in computational design

2009-09-14T19:22:00.003-04:00

weekly work-sessions in sommerville near davis square on tuesday and thursday nights from 7-9.

livescribe smart pen

2009-08-24T09:19:00.002-04:00

livescribe smart pen interactive explanation. write, draw, take notes just like you would with a regular pen, then upload it all into your computer via USB.

amazing interactive graphic

2009-08-13T18:29:00.003-04:00

how americans spend their day. the graph is funky and the transitions are amazing. you understand some of the differences by those smooth transitions. awesome.

colorburned

2009-07-29T08:18:00.002-04:00

Colorburned web site where you can get brushes, vectors, tutorials and other tools for designers.

video projection on buildings- how fun is that?

2009-07-20T09:53:00.001-04:00

Projection on Buildings from NuFormer Digital Media on Vimeo.

savant art gallery

2009-06-29T10:05:00.002-04:00

savant gallery has impressive ideas from people who create taxonomies, make connections between things, remember through their own processes.

redesign of the european macbook air plug

2009-06-23T16:53:00.002-04:00

good for both the explanation of the problems and solution to the bulky design of the macbook air plug. the plug itself is many times thicker than the computer. a sleek design tied to blocky older technology. the video shows an idea to make a more space efficient plug.

motion study video update

2009-04-06T14:58:00.003-04:00

last weekend I shot video at an aikaido exam. that wasn't on my list for motion studies but the opportunity came up and I decided it was rare enough and possibly interesting so I went for it. like the aquarium, I put a few of the videos on my web site so I can look at them when I have a chance. the aikaido has some qualities that are missing in all the other video I shot since there is usually a conflict with an aggressor in them. there is also a nice piece of someone folding the black pants of one of the judges for the test. it makes me think about how things might fold in and out in an interface.

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.

info video

2009-03-31T18:13:00.000-04:00

some books of interest from David

2009-03-26T12:09:00.001-04:00

Elaine,

Speaking of books... I would like to recommend four books for understanding where the internet is and where it's going. If I had to pick just one to start with, I suggest "Small Pieces Loosely Joined."

Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web by David Weinberger

Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee

Convergence Culture. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide by Henry Jenkins

The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom by Yochai Benkler

You can read a short blurb about each book at:

David's site

And yes, Edward Branigan's Narrative Comprehension and Film (Routledge, 1992) is among my favorite books discussing the process of cinematic narrative. He recently published Projecting a Camera: Language-Games in Film Theory (Routledge, 2008). Branigan is currently working on a book exploring the interaction of color with a viewer in cinema considering psychological, aesthetic, anthropological, and historical perspectives. It should be pretty good if his other books are any indication.

http://www.filmandmedia.ucsb.edu/people/faculty/professors/branigan/branigan.html

latest ideas on my work

2009-03-24T12:40:00.009-04:00

here is what I've been working on and thinking about for the next steps in the independent study work.

1.
I have started considering what the basic elements of motion are. I'm thinking of the basic elements of design and how they might relate.

I guess motion wouldn't be one of them, but:

contrast
rhythm
pattern
proximity
repetition

and these seem to have a place here, too:
balance
unity
hierarchy

then there is:

camera still, object moving
camera moving, object still
camera and object moving
camera and object still

to consider.

2.
the squares from the motion lab are suggesting some kind of motion thing to me. not sure what it is. maybe it's just that they feel like something that could work in an interface while all the other things seem chaotic. I have a very old list of those object motions that I haven't done anything with yet, like:
jump
bounce
fade
roll
wiggle
slide
bump
pour
float
twist
wave
wobble
fly
fall
stretch
bend
spin
push
touch
follow
etc.

I am going to continue to refine the motion lab, hopefully to the point where I can control it to create these kinds of motions.

3.
Scott suggested creating language for when many objects make the same motions all at once. I love this idea. don't know where it might lead but it sounds like it could be a lot of fun.

4.
I also will make some video studies of gravity, water, mechanical movements and maybe more work with the laser lights in addition to (Mike's suggestion) studies of people using real interfaces.

5.
I went to the aquarium last thursday and shot a lot of different kinds of fish and penguins swimming. if you have some time you can look at some of the video here:

aquarium video studies

the list at the top of the page is the second cut so scroll down to the second group for the better video. I'll soon reorganize the page but I wanted to get the video on line so I can look at it whenever I have a chance.

there is a lot to look at but the jellyfish are really amazing and I got several shots of a wave crashing on the green anemones. you have to wait till the end of the video. they tend to be about a minute long and the wave is in the last quarter.

emergence article wikipedia

2009-03-24T11:07:00.000-04:00

emergence

books and web sites referred during reviews

2009-03-24T10:55:00.002-04:00

here are the books and stuff I wrote down from comments during your review:

Phil Worthington Shadow Monsters (not really a book)
Scott Simbbe another design person but I didn't note his topic - this was Mike's suggestion
Random International internet architecture

Eric Raymond the Cathedral and the Bizarre the end to end argument (maybe by someone else?)

Group of Mitch Resnick
Lo Ceiling White Walls
Turtles, Termites and Traffic Jams

Edward Brandigan
Narrative Comprehension and Film

2 random books I think from David
Water and Power
the Computational Beauty of Nature

some stuff from others:
Scott colorlovers.com

Colin search for Golan Levin master's thesis
Golan Levin also has a great site with flash experiments: http://www.levitated.net/
if you search in google you will find a wealth of other stuff

Golan Levin's page

destroyed in seconds

2009-03-10T13:29:00.000-04:00

vieo of explosions

inflatable bag monsters

2009-03-10T12:58:00.001-04:00

wow. I just love these creatures animated with subway exhaust. they are magical.

kaiten sushi time japan

2009-03-09T11:18:00.001-04:00

...where the subject is static and the camera moves.

here it is in faster motion, but unfortunately paired with a really cheesy track.

3 rules for swarms:

2009-01-13T17:23:00.003-05:00

a tendency towards spontaneous order

a. all individuals are only aware of their nearest neighbors
b. have a tendency to align in the same direction
c. all attracted to each other, but try to keep some distance.
fish 1 body length apart, birds 3 or 4 body lengths apart.
when a predator's coming, get out of the way. then try to get back together.

advantages: your odds of being the one eaten is reduced. waves of panic can propagate. information is sent about half a kilometer in birds in a very short time.

find Steven Strogatz whole talk about nature and sync here.

John Maeda makes stuff

2009-01-13T16:49:00.002-05:00

in this video hosted at ted.com, John Maeda talks about his life and work. he shows lots of experiments where he makes students function as parts of a computer. he also made a drawing program that has the feature where you can make a piece move about entirely randomly.

Dubberly Design concept maps

2008-12-18T11:31:00.004-05:00

Dubberly Design has posted a series of maps of different things on one page. some of them have links to pdf versions so you can really see the details.

how to make a blue laser gun

2008-12-07T20:29:00.001-05:00

instructions for making a blue laser gun out of an Xbox and a CO2 pistol (whatever that is).

user experience design at halo

2008-12-06T08:12:00.002-05:00

this is a short interview with Colm Nelson, Halo's interaction designer.

here's a short excerpt:
"By any measure, Halo 3 is one of the most wildly-successful consumer software interfaces in recent memory: more than 1 million players played the game in its first 24 hours on Xbox Live; over 8 million copies sold to date; and “over 100,000 pieces of user generated content being uploaded daily[...]"

the article is fairly brief but I wanted to be able to find it again some day so I'm posting it here.

DMI LUNCH MENU

2008-12-02T12:21:00.001-05:00

Rod Dee Menu

fenway restaurants with delivery

water veins

2008-11-29T15:22:00.003-05:00

natural motion with a haunting similarity to a vascular system. thanks to Paul Kahn and NEW Magazine.

links to self portrait pdf's

2008-11-13T11:30:00.004-05:00

here are pdf files showing 8 self portraits drawn with my eyes closed from an exercise in class compared with self portraits I have drawn from as far back as when I was a teenager.

self portrait 1
self portrait 2
self portrait 3
the above 3 are just portraits drawn from memory with my eyes closed

self portrait bad 1
self portrait bad 2
these next 2 were drawn when I was thinking about a time when I was being told I was bad

self portrait child 1
self portrait child 2
these 2 above were drawn while thinking of myself as a child

self portrait overjoyed
this final one was drawn while I thought about a time when I was overjoyed.

link to as3 class notes

2008-10-16T13:45:00.004-04:00

I started posting my class notes from Brian's class in a separate blog. this way they will all be in one place without other junk inbetween. go to my main blog at viacamp.blogspot.com and look in the column on the right under good links if you want to see them.

boston ballet

2008-10-16T13:36:00.003-04:00

Wii night at dmi

2008-10-09T15:12:00.004-04:00

work hard. play hard. and drive like a bat out of hell! wii night at dmi is a serious study all about passing information through the wiimote. ok and a little bit of friendly competition. tennis anyone?

chaos, mojo, talisman, hoodoo, randomness and brownian motion

2008-10-04T22:47:00.011-04:00

"Chaos = order without surface predictability." -Bala

"Talisman or amulet, a small object intended to bring good luck and/or protection to its owner

Mojo (pronounced /ˈmoʊdʒoʊ/) is a term commonly encountered in the African-American folk belief called hoodoo. A mojo is a type of magic charm, often of red flannel cloth and tied with a drawstring, containing botanical, zoological, and/or mineral curios, petition papers, and the like. It is typically worn under clothing.

"Spider's Nest Blues" by Hattie Hart and the Memphis Jug Band, Hart wants to go to New Orleans to get her toby (mojo) "fixed" because she is "having so much trouble" -- the mojo is protective and its power is wearing off, as witnessed by the "bad luck" she is having.

An amulet ( [Pliny], meaning "an object that protects a person from trouble"), a close cousin of the talisman (from Arabic طلاسم tilasm, ultimately from Greek telesma or from the Greek word "talein" which means "to initiate into the mysteries").

"Brownian motion (named in honor of the botanist Robert Brown) is the random movement of particles suspended in a liquid or gas or the mathematical model used to describe such random movements

Consider a large balloon of 10 meters in diameter. Imagine this large balloon in a football stadium. The balloon is so large that it lies on top of many members of the crowd. Because they are excited, these fans hit the balloon at different times and in different directions with the motions being completely random. In the end, the balloon is pushed in random directions, so it should not move on average. Consider now the force exerted at a certain time. We might have 20 supporters pushing right, and 21 other supporters pushing left, where each supporter is exerting equivalent amounts of force. In this case, the forces exerted from the left side and the right side are imbalanced in favor of the left side; the balloon will move slightly to the left. This type of imbalance exists at all times, and it causes random motion of the balloon. If we look at this situation from far above, so that we cannot see the supporters, we see the large balloon as a small object animated by erratic movement."

Einstein's Explanation of Brownian Motion; click here, this is a link. this is an animation showing a bunch of small balls making a bigger ball move around by randomly hitting it over and over again.

Below: Lucretius's scientific poem On the Nature of Things (c. 60 BC) has a remarkable description of Brownian motion of dust particles

"Observe what happens when sunbeams are admitted into a building and shed light on its shadowy places. You will see a multitude of tiny particles mingling in a multitude of ways... their dancing is an actual indication of underlying movements of matter that are hidden from our sight... It originates with the atoms which move of themselves [i.e. spontaneously]. Then those small compound bodies that are least removed from the impetus of the atoms are set in motion by the impact of their invisible blows and in turn cannon against slightly larger bodies. So the movement mounts up from the atoms and gradually emerges to the level of our senses, so that those bodies are in motion that we see in sunbeams, moved by blows that remain invisible."

all quotes except for Bala's taken from Wikipedia, September 30 and October 4, 2008.

Microsoft releases Photosynth for public use

2008-10-02T11:37:00.002-04:00

I haven't checked this out yet but hope to once I get a little caught up with the rest of my work. Microsoft has released an online version of its software that collect groups of images and builds a kind of 3D model of a place out of them. it's available here

terminology considerations for a catalog of movement

2008-09-23T11:16:00.004-04:00

I'm considering words to describe my catalog of movement.

lexography
The pursuit of lexicography is divided into two related disciplines:

* Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries.

* Theoretical lexicography is the scholarly discipline of analyzing and describing the semantic, syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationships within the lexicon (vocabulary) of a language, developing theories of dictionary components and structures linking the data in dictionaries, the needs for information by users in specific types of situation, and how users may best access the data incorporated in printed and electronic dictionaries. This is sometimes referred to as metalexicography.

General lexicography focuses on the design, compilation, use and evaluation of general dictionaries, i.e. dictionaries that provide a description of the language in general use. Such a dictionary is usually called a general dictionary or LGP dictionary. Specialized lexicography focuses on the design, compilation, use and evaluation of specialized dictionaries, i.e. dictionaries that are devoted to a (relatively restricted) set of linguistic and factual elements of one or more specialist subject fields, e.g. legal lexicography. Such a dictionary is usually called a specialized dictionary or LSP dictionary.

taxonomy
Originally the term taxonomy referred to the classifying of living organisms (now known as alpha taxonomy); however, the term is now applied in a wider, more general sense and now may refer to a classification of things, as well as to the principles underlying such a classification.

Almost anything — animate objects, inanimate objects, places, concepts, events, properties, and relationships — may be classified according to some taxonomic scheme.

The term taxonomy may also apply to relationship schemes other than parent-child hierarchies, such as network structures with other types of relationships. Taxonomies may include single children with multi-parents, for example, "Car" might appear with both parents "Vehicle" and "Steel Mechanisms"; to some however, this merely means that 'car' is a part of several different taxonomies.[1]

A taxonomy might also be a simple organization of kinds of things into groups, or even an alphabetical list. However, the term vocabulary is more appropriate for such a list. In current usage within "Knowledge Management", taxonomies are seen as less broad than ontologies as ontologies apply a larger variety of relation types.

ontology
In both computer science and information science, an ontology is a formal representation of a set of concepts within a domain and the relationships between those concepts. It is used to reason about the properties of that domain, and may be used to define the domain.

Ontologies are used in artificial intelligence, the Semantic Web, software engineering, biomedical informatics, library science, and information architecture as a form of knowledge representation about the world or some part of it. Common components of ontologies include:

* Individuals: instances or objects (the basic or "ground level" objects)
* Classes: sets, collections, concepts, types of objects, or kinds of things.[1]
* Attributes: aspects, properties, features, characteristics, or parameters that objects (and classes) can have
* Relations: ways in which classes and individuals can be related to one another

lexicon
In linguistics, the lexicon (from Greek Λεξικόν) of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes.

The lexicon includes the lexemes used to actualize words. Lexemes are formed according to morpho-syntactic rules and express sememes. In this sense, a lexicon organizes the mental vocabulary in a speaker's mind: First, it organizes the vocabulary of a language according to certain principles (for instance, all verbs of motion may be linked in a lexical network) and second, it contains a generative device producing (new) simple and complex words according to certain lexical rules. For example, the suffix '-able' can be added to transitive verbs only, so that we get 'read-able' but not 'cry-able'.

Usually a lexicon is a container for words belonging to the same language. Some exceptions may be encountered for languages that are variants, like for instance Brazilian Portuguese compared to the Portuguese language, where a lot of words are common and where the differences may be marked word by word.

When linguists study the lexicon, they study such things as what words are, how the vocabulary in a language is structured, how people use and store words, how they learn words, the history and evolution of words (i.e. etymology), types of relationships between words as well as how words were created.

An individual's lexicon, lexical knowledge, or lexical concept is that person's knowledge of vocabulary.

vocabulary
The vocabulary of a person is defined either as the set of all words that are understood by that person or the set of all words likely to be used by that person when constructing new sentences.

all definitions taken from wikipedia. links to the articles are placed on the terms. I will post some thoughts on the terms considered and why I am considering them soon.

notes and suggestions on research agenda

2008-09-14T16:25:00.005-04:00

I've been pooling notes for the exhaustive and exhausting self-study that I need to submit by October 1 in order to keep my job. one of the items I am asked to supply is my research interest and agenda. I do not know what a research agenda is, so I did some searching and found the following links.

Professor Barbara Ryder of Rutgers University has a simple, very understandable list of ideas on how ad why to do research.
this link goes to a pdf with her questions and answers. I am going to use this one in writing the paragraph on my research goals and agenda for my self-study.

Luis Villa made a blog posting of a series of notes from a seminar on establishing a research agends. First Movers focuses on legal research but it seems to have good general tips on what belongs in a research agenda and how to think about doing research long-term.

Getting A Teaching Job: The Research Agenda again, is written by a law professor. this article describes what a research agenda is and goes on to discuss why schools look for research agenda in prospective professors. I think the approach fits a variety of fields.

Brad Neuberg's "Coding in Paradise" is one programmer's musings about his own personal approach to research and why he finds it important. there is a list of research questions down on the page that I found helpful when I start thinking about my own research questions, particularly now that I need to explain them in writing to an academic, liberal arts audience that will most likely not understand any technical information but will very likely be evaluating my writing against an unknown and undefined criteria.

You and Your Research is a transcript of a seminar talk given by Richard W. Hamming of Bell communications research on March 7, 1986. the talk is about his relationship to his research peppered with some stories of others around him and where they succeeded or failed in their life's research. it's interesting.

links to my processing sketches

2008-09-09T09:00:00.004-04:00

pointLight5 is my sketch for moving light around following the mouse. I got it to read mouseX and mouseY.

(speaking of mice, I cleaned a lot of droppings in the studio this morning. pretty yucky.)

useMyClass10 is a space with the point light and another kind of light from the pointLight sketch with some spheres created with a class and some composite cubes with a stationary cube in the same place as a non stationary cube that rotates according to the mouse. it looks pretty cool.

moveClass4 is a sketch that I started with the hope of making the elements of useMyClass float around on the screen. it didn't work out that way but what happened is really interesting. I have no control over this one and I don't know how it does what it does but it does move.

I posted moveClass5 here also but the only difference from moveClass4 is the background color. today I couldn't see the darker one on my screen, probably because I was facing the rising sun so I made it lighter.

Jason, exporting processing sketches to html is easy. so I did some for all of you to see.

the turing test web page

2008-08-29T22:20:00.004-04:00

this is a web site that has a collection of information about the Turing Test including some links to online bots that you can interact with.

Jason Salavon revisited

2008-08-29T22:00:00.003-04:00

last week I posted a link to Jason Salavon's web site after looking at only a few pieces. today I took some more time to look at his work and found The Grand Unification Theory (Part Four: Every Second of Deep Throat). he took one frame from each second of the film and arranged them from light to dark radiating from the center of the page. he did one for "Star Wars," "Snow White" and "It's a Wonderful Life," too.

notes aug 21

2008-08-28T09:59:00.001-04:00

I put my notes in my sketchbook for this class. if you want to see them you will have to find me and ask to borrow the book for a minute.

notes August 20

2008-08-28T09:52:00.005-04:00

Make an array


Fruit[] fruits = 
{orange,pear,apple,pomegranate}

Fruits[1] = orange
Fruits[4] = pomegranate

for (int =0; i < fruits.length; i++)

Or try an if statement


if(count < array.length-1) {
 do something;
count++;    //this at the very end and the only use of count for the 
  //array.

}


println(array.length);   //to find errors in the array counter  


force += attraction*(target-value);

Cygwin – Unix(BSD)
Virtual box open source virtual linux for pc.
Curl is easy means of transferring files to web. url + file name needed to post music data.

Need unix prompt from pc to do music stuff.

JMyron libraries Dan worked with. Processing constructs – look under video capture/frame differencing.

A frame full of pixels is a really big array. Create multidimensional array with rows and columns. Will make one massive array

Good to use camera with fixed focus and fixed direction.


numPixels = video.width * video.height,;

Video with windows will need: api fall into 2 categories,

native video and
each platform
capture talks to camera and
avi mov are containers. Car how codec that are inside those containers.
H.264,MJPEG, DivX
NTSC, PAL
Interlaced
Codecs
Hardware
And making things work natively on different platforms.
Either make your own library or use things that can talk to all of them

Check out real world video compression book from peachpit to learn how to encode video.

Windows : directShow, quickTime for windows
Mcos: quickTime (Cocoa; OTKit)

For capture, (important part)

MacOS quickTime cocoa has capture support
Windows directShow, no capture for quickTime. Worse, QT Cocoa is C++ mac only software, DS C++ for windows. Java doesn’t support any of that.

OT Java = processing.video
Mac: playback, capture ,terrible
Windows: playback even more terrible
Future: unspeakably awful
Deprecated

Don’t install update install new quicktime because it will break this stuff. No support at apple to check if QT java works. Capture works ok. Playback not. Should support DV camera and maybe HD camera. Windows doesn’t work at all.

WidVDIG video digitizer doesn’t talk to windows at all.

Bottom line - basic playback ok maybe on mac windows, advanced playback is trouble. Basic sketch working with video. Ask Peter to help, join the army trying to figure out how to do it.

ffmpge – java very fast and works in real time. No library now but maybe soon.

Mac capture ok
Windows look at JMyron for directShow support.
Future ffmpeg-java for playback. Java media components for playback
Use native libraries for capture.

Should be able to fix this with libraries outside of java. Flash capture works well because somewhere there is a set of libraries adobe supports that works on all platforms and they keep fixing them when they break.

If things break its not your fault. Capture applications won’t work on windows unless you use library that supports native video capture or

Mac QT for java.
Nothing on Linux.

cross platform libraries

OTHER KINDS OF INTERACTION

Watercolor

MouseX mouseY, pmouseX, pmouseY are reserved variables in processing. Pmouse I think means previous mouse position.

Remember, you always get a periodic rate. Never get continuous data, you get a set of samples and if the difference is great enough you get gaps, stepping, aliasing. You may need to interpolate to make things seem smooth.

Hold shift press play and you get whole screen mode. Can also hide menu bar and other thing.
Can also hide cursor noCursor();

Most pixels ever mostpixelsever.com has tutorials and how to use big screens. Also an explanation for how to use presentation mode without menu bar.

And can look at flickr for some other examples.

Try iterating some drawing sketches over and over again and see if you can get something to work.

Dist function: dist();

lets you measure distances without resorting to heavy math Pythagorean theorem.

Today apple store put out app that takes data values from iPhone.

Collisions with text is easy, its a rectangle. If something collides with a rectangle look for min x left edge, max x right edge, min y etc.

When in doubt, google trig and see what math has to say about the problem. Look on the processing site for some stuff. There may be answers there, too.

Toxic libraries has example vector interactions for complex shapes. Also has sin/cos lookup tables. Makes transitions gradual in movements. Think of roller coaster. Has wavy shape. At top & bottom going side to side, on sides going more vertically as a transition between the top and bottom. Slow down and speed up between states.

Shiffman book:
Look at chapter 5, fake physics and specifically 5.8 and try example 5.9.
Look at chapters 8 and 9.
Look at example 13.8, oscilation. chapter 13 is math stuff.


Location += location + “speed”
(location = location + some amount)

Then


force += attraction * (target- value);
acceleration = force/mass;
vel = (vel + acceleration) * damping;

Look on Ben Fry’s web site, http://benfry.com for examples from the data visualization book. Peter recommends it as the second processing book to buy.

Look for integrator class.

Basic interpolation in watercolor 1a sketch.

Build interaction into objects by building it into their class.

two digital artists experimenting with media

2008-08-24T15:03:00.006-04:00

Jason Slavon has been experimenting with making art from data for a long time. he seems to have used every kind of code there is. "Top 25 Grossing films of All Time, 2 x 2," "Every Playboy Centerfold " and "Homes for Sale" are my favorites but I haven't looked at everything yet. ok, maybe he maybe hasn't used processing at all but his work precedes processing and explores the interaction of data and visual in really cool ways.

30 September: today I took a few minutes and looked at the "Late Night Trio," which has 64 nights of video and audio of Leno, Conan and Letterman composited into single frames. now that's my favorite.

Boris Muller is a graphic designer interested in translating text into visual expression in programmed ways. he also has some map experiments on his web site. I don't seem to be able to see the maps due to plugin incompatibilities. need to explore a little more.

font conference at college humor

2008-08-22T11:42:00.002-04:00

Watch this video casting a group of fonts as characters. the fonts are characterized by their names, not any understanding of the concept of their design or the reasons behind their design or their historical significance, making it great for the general public but not for any serious insight into typography. still its really funny.

Joe's 5 tips for better writing

2008-08-16T10:06:00.001-04:00

Joe's 5 tips for better writing - the nasty version. I think its time for this to be easily available.

March 20, 2008. Joe gave 5 tips for better writing during our class discussion. He said he would make a better version for us, but for those of us who appreciate the spontaneous nature of what he said in class, here is the unedited version taken from my notes:

1. Use active voice
2. Be detailed
3. Vary sentence structure
4. Write as though you are talking to someone
5. Use examples

and the free, bonus tips:

1. Put the main point at the beginning of the sentence
2. Don't use big words you don't understand
3. Be assertive, unequivocal in your writing

but wait, one cool quote
Sartre about Giacometti: "It was like he was trying to cut fat out of space." Meaning, I think, edit your writing, rinse and repeat until squeaky clean.

august 14 notes

2008-08-16T09:54:00.003-04:00

August 14 notes

Minim libraries for using sound
Tritonin libraires will be future for sound in processing

toxi.code or toxilibs (look at google code).

Object oriented programming

An extension of the way to work. If you use functions you are starting to use object oriented programming.

Attributes and then stept.

Instantiate object – choose instance variables. Push matrix and pop matrix inside the class so you can draw lots of them. Variable in object-speak is an attribute. Can change attributes over time like a variable and find owh what they bcome.

Underscore is to separate variable that has already been defined. So it’s an instance of the variable and easier to figure out what you used because it’s similar without being the same, which you can’t use the same variable for 2 different thing.

To be really good you would encapsulate those values. Below is good code form for programming with many classes. Not usual for processing sketches which should be fast and simple.


void setX(_x) {
 x = _x; 
}

void get() {
 y = _y; 
}

Private variables are not available outside of something.

Peter showed an example of using laptop microphone to read into the cube tower and change the stacking order so it pops. Then he did a spectral analysis.

Objects makes it easier to use more than one object. Showed array of cube towers that react to his voice in different ways. Efficient and fast. Frequency spectrum. Has same basic idea.

Making arrays of objects. Go to people example.

CubeTower[] towers;

Class name[] array instance name. use plural for name of array so you remember what it is when you see it again.

When you create an object variable you make a space in memory for it. Like an empty box. First you create a name for it.

For an array, you make more of them. So name array and make a variable for it. Then you fill each empty box with some stuff.

Person[] people;
people = new Person[4];

pushMatrix and popMatrix is within the object class to draw but not within draw in this case.

For next week read dan shifmann’s class chapter 8 about object oriented programming and chapter 9 and do the examples.

Ben Fry book Visualizing Data uses processing for all the examples so if you want to do lots of rollover types of things get that book and look at how he does the examples. The book is not about processing but still makes a good reference work.

augusst 13 notes

2008-08-16T09:49:00.003-04:00

August 13 notes

Think of loading data as columns (with headers) into objects. Put those object names into classes. function has set of inputs with set of outputs. Object describes a broad range of attributes and then function inside the class (called a method) that uses the attributes to do something.

sometimes first row has names for the columns. You can start at row 2 to use the data without the column heads. Attributes would be the column heads. Jason could have called his class Player because it is the thing that draws the players.

splitToken takes a string chops up into pieces based on a character. Jason’s table has both tab separated and tab separated columns. How did he solve that? splitToken can separate by more than one data type. WHITESPACE in his code made any number of spacebar spaces as space.

His object “Player” creates a lot of variables. His array fills the objects with data. The dot in the


Class Dog }
int length;
int color;
String breed;
}

Dog fido = new Dog(13, 0x00ff00, “terrier”);
int myLenght = fido.length     //the dot is important because it pulls up the attributes. 

records[totalRebounds].TR ...

Jason used variable int startingEntry = 0;
It increments each time you press the mouse. Use variable instead of number because it’s hard to understand without a name or because it has to …

Jason’s code is literal. Doesn’t look at minimum and maximum. Can not iterate through a set of data and adjust through …

With delicate variables audio signal or particle need to calibrate the data can use library from noisepages.com that has onscreen sliders for calibrating data ranges to calibrate the ranges to get number feed back and use those numbers in the code.

Look for prototyping article on Peter’s site. There is article for prototyping application to work out what to do with lighting based on the sound. Crosses and numbers in video are only used in the calibration but turned off for the performance.

For centering the text need to find the length of the string and then center that.
Processinghacks.com for good cheats and tricks for processing

Fonts are lame in processing and everybody knows it. There are workarounds but none of them really work very well.

Vertext by Michael Chang was a library for creating type as shapes in processing but it is now gone from the link on the processing site.

Now use NextText library

Geomerative also does font importing. Look at examples. They interpreted the geometry data embedded in the font file. Has its own set of classes dealing with shapes

Scott mapped his itunes library into 3d space with dots.

ProXML undocumented but he used it to import his data. Now he can design the space and can creates all disks and each time it draws it moves them toward the x y coordinates that they are going to. Used easing to get it to move naturally.


x += (destx - x) * easing;
y += (destx - y) * easing;
z += (destx - z) * easing;

to make sphere use photoshop sprite and use pointSprite in openGL (extention maybe 2.0) image command in processing creates a rectangle and pasts an image on that rectangle. Point spirtes make the rectangle a point and positions the sprite to that. Only works with high end processors.

Could brute force figure where the camera is and always face the disk toward the camera.

Can use a spacing algorithm for layout to position things on the screen.

Array out of bounds error will always be [] index number. To troubleshoot look for the place where the problem is and work backward to find the broken part.

For array with 4 elements. Programming counts from 0. if you do length array.lenght
Object.attribute

Array has 4 items in it but it counts them.

To turn into index number need to do something.
In this case it is array.length-1

Set of classes exist
Arrays in processing work because of how they work in java. Packages called java.util in java has set of utility classes including data structures. It changes. Processing can use up to / including java 5. java numbers don’t go sequentially. Java 1, 1.1 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 (same as 2), 5, 6, 7se, openTDK. Is backwards compatible language. Processing targeted 1.3 and 1.4 as targer language. Any mac guaranteed to have 1.4. good compatible version.

.0143 supports jave 5 but not after those. Not stable yet. But can use 1.4 and 5 syntax and most libraries are built on version 1.4, which is java 2.1.4 does most of the things that people need. Almost nothing you need in 5, 6, or 7.
Code from java books should easily drop into processing and work. Processing compiles the language.

Java compiles code for the processor for the virtual machine that can run anywhere. Has to be compiled but processing does it.

Processing goes through an interpreter then compiler. It interprets all the drawing commands into java code then compiles.

How to get xml files online

proXML
simpleML

swivel.com is good for data

check the.echonest.com for music visualization api’s.

here is a video made by a mad hacker that is 4k in size.

How to do:
Peter showed particle animation using gradient fills. Not designed to always face front. How to do it?

Need open gl import to do this thing. Need to be able to talk to openGL so make a n obkect PGraphicsOpenGL

Here are the things you need to get to make openGL work for


import javax.media.opengl.*
import processing.opengl.*;

PGraphicsOpenGL pg1;
GL gl;

void setup() {
  size (1024,768,OPENGL);
}

void draw() 
{
 pgl = (PGraphicsOpenGL) g; 
 gl = pgl.begin();
 

 //makes blending based on alpha values
 gl.glDisable(GL.GL_DEPTH_TEST);  // don't know why works - disables depth test fixes glitch
 gl.glEnable(GL.GL_BLEND);   //makes the blend
 gl.glBlendFunc(GL.GL_SRC_ALPHA,GL.GL_ONE);   //chooses blend mode 
}

Look for this book
openGL red book and orange book – massive. Some are documented on openGL.org. look for openGL and not directX ot HLSL do this on the 3d card for efficiency in processing.

Navigating knowledge – pick out what is important and let people do those. Otherwise it is overwhelming.

Chap 17 is brush up of what we already did

Read chap 18 – data input with examples and rss, yahoo libraries. Has rollover function.

Look in chapter 19 for syncing ML, client server stuff, and stuff like that.

2008-08-16T09:45:00.001-04:00

July 31 notes

Put data folder into sketch folder. Put font into data folder.

Tools > create font
Do not check all characters box or all the funky characters will be embedded in the file.
Processing fonts are all bitmaps, created in processing

textFont(myCentury, 100);

= (font name, size);

2 arguments for text

text("Whoo. Fonts.", 50, 150);

numbers are x and y coordinates.

P3D runs without any extra stuff in a browser
OPENGL will run after asking for use of the graphics card that the user has to authorize.

Create text file
CSV coma separated values
TSC tab separated values
Rows are separated by carriage returns.

unn

June 13 39%
July 16 19%
August 29 1%

Strint[] value = to call for a text file and name the file

Split cuts the rows up into columns. It goes into an array command.

Find datasources at manyeyes.
Or cencus buread, Ben Fry’s site, visualizing data,

FIND DATA
USE YOUR OWN DATA
TRY TO VISUALIZE IT.

July 30 Processing notes

2008-08-16T09:43:00.003-04:00

Processing class July 30 2008

Rigorous drawing stuff

do this:
BREAK DOWN COMPLICATED PROBLEMS INTO SIMPLE PROBLEMS.

How processing drawslings:
It takes a pen width and draws and then can take a different one and makes the next. Just like you might change a pen when drawing on paper.

TYPE CONSTANTS IN ALL CAPS, LIKE

strokeCap (SQUARE);

string is a collection of things


String dog = "Fido";
String dog2 = "Woofy";
String dog3 = "Charlie";
String dog4 = "Blue";
String dog5 = "Killer";
println(dog + "," + dog2 + "," + dog3 + "," + dog4);

or can do this


String[] dogs = {"Fido", " Woofy ", " Charlie ", " Blue " " Killer "}

Array = list, collection
To call it use      []
So all   []   is an array.

groceryItems[]    = list  (collection) of grocery items
groceryItems[ stuffToBuyAtGroceryToday =

1. milk
2. eggs
3. apples

{milk, eggs, apples}      or, stuff between curly brackets are items on the list.

Now need a way to refer to these items in the list
Can refer to them by number
Look at #3 on the grocery items list
Or

stuffToBuyAtGroceryToday[2]         //in this case code counts from 0

Now use a short name


buyStuff.length      //dot

colors

#201E12
#7382AD
#7C595F
#D66753
#CDDD74
#26738F
#978988
#86B742

Can use noise to generate random information. Is maybe more useful than random. Why????
Tron has use of noise to make data visual. Random is boring to look at. noise used to make octaves of randomness. Randomizes in an organic way. Perlin noise makes continuous slopes within the screen example shown. Semi continuous random information. Bands. Is a set of pre-calculated vectors. Good for generating clouds and smoke.

Using Translate


//can use translate to make something happen relative to another point
//subtle randomization can go a long way
//can make it look organic
//non-subtle randomization can look synthetic

pushMatrix and popMatrix are beginning and ending a translation. All the rest you don’t need to know.

Translate moves the 0,0 point from top left corner. All coordinates are relative to 0,0. translate allows you to move the 0,0 origin point to somewhere on the screen, or where ever you want it to be.

On 7a example, it looks like the square is rotating but actually the whole thing is rotating.

To rotate from the center of the square, instead of starting at 0,0; the corner of the square, make the start point -1/2width, -1/2height.

pushMatrix and popMatrix starts a new set of translations for each thing. pushMatrix starts the translation and popMatrix ends the rotation. There is a matrix behind the scenes that runs the whole thing.

0, 0 coordinate is top left. Is also how each shape is translated. Will rotate around top left corner. How to make it rotate around its center? Make with and height half of width and height. To use variables, see example 7b.


Size(200,200);              //defaults to java 2d
Size(20,200,P3D);       //is jave 3-d. is real 3-d that runs on the graphics card. Can be flakey
or
Size(20,200,OPENGL);        //.    GOGL. Will run in a browser but not well, otherwise is really true 3-d. can do things that run fast and look really good. Can copy and paste code to get good glow effects. Uses graphics card to make the effects.

Open GL library can be loaded into the sketch> import library menu button.

america is f****d

2008-08-01T11:43:00.006-04:00

This video uses the F word a lot but the message resonates with me. after looking at the world around me and seeing poor design at every turn, I easily sympathize with his reaction. it's time that someone speaks out.

technology, dance, movement, tractor square dance has it all

2008-07-29T10:52:00.001-04:00

words escape me.

processing notes July 17

2008-07-22T19:14:00.004-04:00

For working with 3-d models

Core.jar
Is all the stuff under reference > language

Libraries
(obj loader) use for loading object files into processing.

(pro-midi) has some problems. Input and output to midi. Not written from scratch.

If you want stuff: write it yourself. See the site for more user-created libraries. Use any java code you want.

Use: import javax(where java libraries live).audio.mid(path)

Library is a collection of classes organized in a particular way. They are shared. Best ones get added to processing website. Some get implemented into core.

Core libraries don’t need to be removed if you don’t use anything. It just ignores them.

Sketchup----open source modeling program

lib
Design by numbers john Maida at mit group made
DBN simplified syntax and drawing, logo-style drawing
Book: design by numbers

But later people wanted to do more; motion, video, sound
That’s where Processing came from
Focused on making code as simple as possible. Should run into things that you can not do in the program.

Keith Peters book about flash has explanation of bitwise operators that makes sense!!! Don’t know which one.

Concatenation code:
You can add strings like this:

  println(myRed + ", " + myGreen + ", " + myBlue);

the

adds multiple characters.
Most numbers and characters can be typed without using entity codes, etc.
Characters = single quote
strings = double quote

black bar at the bottom of processing window is the console.

Variables in processing are containers. Like a little box. What’s in it can change. It has to have a type and a name. once it has those 2 things you can change it as often as you like. Really big program its easy to reuse variable names by accident. To avoid problems variables have both a type and a scope.

Within its function and within its class. If in setup you can use it in setup.
Within a function can only use it in that function. Then it forgets it ever existed.

 
Int mySize = 200;
Size (mySize, mySize);

If any 2 functions need to use it, put it above the setup and they will all have access to it. Don’t make variables in draw. If you do it a lot it will slow the program down. If you load an image in draw it will redraw the image over and over as it cycles through frames.

When creating processing sketch it creates a class. When your code gets too full of other stuff objects can be created as classes.


These are operators 
num = num+1   is same as      num++

num +=

If then statements

Need to use if with else if you want to be compliant. Statement needs to be true or false statement.

Width and height are reserved keywords that processing knows.

Logical operator uses double symbols, like

     &&    or   ||

Better video support possible in the coming 6-12 months hopefully.

The For Loop

It’s all about counting.

1. Start with a number. 0
2. add 1
3. stop when you get to 10


for (int i= 0; i<10; i++ ) {

}

for (int i= 0; i < listLength; i + + ) {
    (spaces added to because blogger wouldn't post)
}

For loop is good when you repeat yourself efficiently.

Array is for storing lists of stuff. Java list is called array.


int[] circles = {
  170,113,78,30,13};

[] indicates array
/*Length of an array is the number of elements in the list*/

If you work with an image of 400 x 300 would be 120,000 pix. With video take that number x the frame rate per second x number of seconds in the video. So for loop will make better code.

Tricky thing – array has a number of slots. Numbers start at 0 and end –say 4, array has 5 elements.

myList.length-1 will tell the last slot because the array starts numbering at 0. the out of bounds exception is a mistake with the array length. Reference on processing site has details of what you can do with arrays.


int[] circles = {
  170,113,78,30,13};
size(400,400);
background(150);
noStroke();
smooth();

for (int j=0;j<4;j++) {

  for (int i=0;i < circles.length; i++){
    fill(random(0,255), random(0,255), random(0,255));
    ellipse ((width/4)*j,(height/4)*j,circles[i],circles[i]);
  }
}

Loop inside the loop allows the first loop of several concentric circles to be repeated several times.

For 4 pix x 3 pix image :


for (int i=0, i<4; i++)

translation matrix
keeps track of complex math

rotate and translate commands

pop and push matrices
there is a matrix of where all stuff. Push and pop allow you to move stuff relative to where I had previously been.

See 7b

What is hard- where starts at 0. rotates around 0. position is x-y but rotation always restarts at 0.

Mark Coleran demo reel

2008-06-20T11:29:00.002-04:00

Mark Coleran makes interfaces for movies that move and pulse and twirl in ways that feel like interfaces ought to work. this reel has intriguing movement ideas to study. you can back out to his home page at www.coleran.com to look at the large reel if you want to see the big version.

some ideas to look for:

2008-06-06T18:04:00.002-04:00

scaling
rotating in 3D space
sliders
mac dock is notify when an icon appears

any simple animation showing a process would qualify as instruct

2008-06-06T16:04:00.005-04:00

this video talks about gestures on tabletop mulit-touch tables and gives some details about how the tools work and some of the features included in selecting, copying, cutting and pasting. this is a very nice explanation of the interface on this multi-touch screen; more functional than the normal eye candy that gets shown in the publicity videos. the tabletop is from the University of Toronto and the Mitsubishi Electric Research Lab. I need to give a shout out to Jan, who commented on a previous post and left his blog address iatelevision.com.

toronto_multi
note to self: add to matris: context, possibly related. think about different function for this.

watch the content of web pages flow in slow motion

2008-06-03T16:23:00.004-04:00

these videos show mozilla.org, googleco.jp and wilipedia page content flowing slowly enough on a page that you can see the ordering and repositioning of the pieces.

internet neutrality - updated with video by Tim Berners-Lee

2008-06-03T16:08:00.004-04:00

a few days ago, I posted a video on net neutrality and asked if anyone knew if the warning about the loss of access was true. today I found (at iatelevision.com) this video from Tim Berners-Lee clarifying his point of view on net neutrality. watch this. here are some quotes from the video. I edited this a little out of order but I hope I haven't altered the message.

"The US House seems to have wavered from the path of preserving net neutrality... even though it's against the long-term interests of the industry.

In the US, the threat is that companies will control what I can access for commercial reasons.

Freedom of connection with any application to any party is the fundamental social basis of the internet and now is the basis of the society we've built on the internet. Let's see whether the United States is capable of acting in accordance with it's fundamental values. Or is it, as some people have been saying, run by the misguided short-term interests of large companies. I hope Congress can protect net neutrality so I can continue to innovate in the internet space. I want to go on seeing the huge number of innovations which are happening out there and which are so diverse and so exciting. I want to see that continue unabated."

2012: The Year The Internet Ends

do any of you know if this is true or not?

interactive multi-touch table

2008-06-03T15:52:00.002-04:00

here is an example of a multi-user, multi-touch table display with things moving around all over the place.

Intel mashmaker gallery

2008-05-28T15:36:00.004-04:00

the mash maker gallery shows the results where people took data from multiple websites and create new ways to view that data. there is a link to the home page here so you can get more info about the details..

George Balanchine Serenade and Agon

2008-05-12T12:01:00.004-04:00

Twyla Tharp writes in her book "The Creative Habit" about George Balanchine's choreography of abstracted gestures "that pluck a chord in us that we can't name but that resonates."

Balanchine created "beautiful plotless structures that mirror music rather than interpret it… The content is the essence of life, not the details of living." He wasn't trying to explain or tell a story with his movements. His language of movement created connections between the natural and the emotional.

I chose the example video because the movements are broken into small pieces, they are interspersed with natural movements shot from intimate range rather than performance range and the use of atypical music makes the movements seem more primal.

terminator cyborg point of view data feed

2008-05-10T17:27:00.013-04:00

updated and dynamic, the Terminators from the Sarah Connor Chronicles have animated graphics as well as text readout. check out the show web site for a dynamic animation using the same kind of display graphics.

the classic, the original, the governator at his best.

who could resist terminator vs. robocop? yes, it's just gratuitous at this point.

I am including these screenshots from the terminator's point of view with this thought. the idea of displaying data as it is read was well imagined in the terminator movies. but imagine a future where humans can augment their natural sight with display devices that read and interpret deeper meaning to what is seen. for example, a surgeon could use a visual display that allowd them to see what is happening inside of a brain on superimposed on top of their regular vision.

twyla tharp on failure

2008-05-08T14:47:00.003-04:00

Twyla talks about the differences between success and failure and how to evaluate them, as well as motivation and creativity.

laser magician

2008-05-07T10:12:00.006-04:00

this isn't related to my research at all but it is amazing. . this guy plays with a laser like it's solid matter instead of light. wow.

the nora project demo

2008-05-03T19:39:00.000-04:00

go to 2:15 in the demo to see a scatter plot.

title sequence to the matrix

2008-05-03T18:50:00.005-04:00

original matrix Trinity scene

crazy matrix titles

scroll forward to 2:59.

(caution, this video is in poor taste)

ok, this is disgusting but the only bit of the opening sequence I can find so far.

levitated flash experiments in motion

2008-04-24T19:08:00.000-04:00

sea.thing slowly undulates across the screen like a leviathan, twisting and turning in its element. click on a segment and it separates from the rest to move separately.

legged.creatures collide and engulf each other.

falgellum are creepy worm-like creatures with a very realistic way of moving.

orbiting.networks - spheres of sizes made by time of mousedown create orbits with their neighbors.

the trema. generator - fills the screen with various sized blackdots.

isoblocks grows a grid of cubes in a background-like space.

cylinder .image.display is a more practical thing, a rotating cylinder of tall images that can be selected and enlarged.

Tim Hunkin clock for the london zoo

2008-04-24T18:30:00.003-04:00

Tim Hunkin made an animated clock for the London Zoo that has a whole range of things happening. it seems like a great way of making narrative from moving parts.

flash sound tutorials

2008-04-24T17:08:00.000-04:00

Kenny Bellew has a good tutorial for using sounds in flash.

snapz enlarge tool demo

2008-04-17T13:08:00.003-04:00

this smapz tool demo shows a moving window that shows an enlarged area of the screen directly below the cursor. I am not exactly sure where this would fall within the area of movement and info yet but I believe it has relevance to the topic.

transitoins in yahoo design pattern library

2008-04-10T21:18:00.002-04:00

it turns out that Yahoo has a site with different kinds of transitions for web design. some of these are perfect for my catalog of movements made within interface and some of them do help in understanding what is going on in the interface.

the pause that refreshes

2008-04-10T21:07:00.002-04:00

this article in UXmatters deals with transitional elements in an interface. interesting points in the article are the ideas of a pause or transition allowing a natural rest period in an interface. there are several examples of transitional elements that allow someone using a product to understand something that is happening.

Jason, if you sent me this link and I'm not crediting you, I apologize ahead.

transition as interface

2008-04-03T12:59:00.006-04:00

Jason said:
I have been thinking a bit about visual morphing and how everything between a and b in the typical morphing process is just fluff (yes, I know I am a weirdo). Anyway, the word "transition" kept popping up in my head.

Transition can be a meaningful form of animation. It serves to communicate the crossing from one thing the next and almost always requires some form of motion. I think in your case you are not interested in motion as transition but motion as stand alone form of communication. However, you can't have motion (or animation) without transition and vice versa.

Sorry for the babble, what I am really getting at is perhaps you could frame your study as "transition in interface" and then nobody starts thinking about bugs bunny or text on wheels. Animation represents all kinds of things you don't care about, transition in interface seems way more appropriate.:)

-Jason

then he sent a link to this web site talking about transition as an interface element.

and I answered:
good points. I did realize after class on thursday that I didn't emphasize that my interest was movement in interface. I think I am correct to use the word movement rather than animation, regardless of what other people think about it because animation is the enabler for movement but it's the idea that the movement can contain information that I am interested in investigating.

the examples on that article page are really good ones. I haven't been thinking about transitions as simple as these and I think they are strong. thanks for the thoughts.

and don't let me forget that the eagle has landed.

quicktime video of mac os user change

2008-03-29T17:00:00.005-04:00

on the Snapz Pro X web page you can see a video (made with Snapz Pro X) of the Mac user change screen. it rotates a cube-link image from the desktop of the first user to the desktop of the second one. there are a lot of other interesting video captures on this web site. they are there to illustrate the capabilities of the screen capture program but they are interesting in themselves.

learnin is phun

2008-03-27T22:40:00.009-04:00

See more funny videos at CollegeHumor

you can download this game and play yourself. it is a physics sandbox where you can easily create objects (2d), endow them with properties and they react and respond. the video shows lots of examples of building and setting properties for different objects and how they work together afterward. there is also a link to the game you can download at college humor.com. oops. too bad, windows only.

informational movement from Ocean's Eleven and some type

2008-03-27T14:57:00.004-04:00

In this animated video using text and part of the script from the movie "Ocean's Eleven," movement of the text objects on the page also gives an idea of the caper they are discussing. The object of this animation is to entertain but part of what it accomplishes is also some visual ideas of the space they are talking about.

I know the video won't show in the aggreator so here is a link to the video on You'Tube.

defrag hard drive - good use of movement to provide information

2008-03-27T12:20:00.005-04:00

this screen shot of a hard drive optimization (Norton Systemworks defragmentation tool), is the first good example I have found of movement that exists to contain information. it's interesting that it's also a very old idea.

link to the iraq war map

2008-03-20T09:28:00.003-04:00

The Iraq war fatalities ma is here.

and here is a good critical assessment of the information value of the map from my friend Andrew Gilmartin:

The one element I don't like is that there is no direct representation of deaths over time per region. I understand that this information visual is an animated one and so is intended to be "watched" rather
than "seen" but, being old and gray, I like my information visuals to have a conclusion or a summary and this one does not. So, while each death is marked by a dot and the density of dots does indirectly
represents deaths over time but where deaths are geographically close together then the dots overlap and so the density is less than what it should be. What constituents a region is hard to define; place names
are important for orientation but they might not accurately reflect regionalism. I am sure there is some math that could be used to cluster deaths.

Inspiration for interface design

2008-03-16T17:05:00.003-04:00

| View | Upload your own

Dan Saffer of Adaptive Path slideshow on where interface design inspiration comes from. some of the text is too small to read but it's still worth looking at.

Star Wars Sweded

2008-03-16T10:55:00.004-04:00

Sweding the classic. Take a break from that frantic writing and have a laugh. The dogfight is awesome.

1:47. I don't know how to get the video to show in the aggregator but it's on my blog page at viacamp. maybe a link to youtube?

Interaction-Design.org HCI encyclopedia

2008-03-10T21:31:00.005-04:00

this is a web site dedicated to collecting terms of interaction design, complete with an online citation maker. there is an invitation to write entries for terms that you suggest. so if you get some good info under your belt you may be able to have it published here.

Jacob Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics

2008-03-10T21:08:00.005-04:00

here are 10general principles for usability on useit.com.

and as long as I'm at it, here is a blog discussion linking the 10 heuristics to real life zen haiku

I eat beef to get even

2008-02-10T15:18:00.000-05:00

quoted by a cowboy talking about his job working with cows. thought it was funny.

stream of consciousness 1

2008-02-07T15:30:00.000-05:00

3 feb 2008

I like interface.
To the point of obsession
And other stuff too.

my interest in interface is strong. there is no doubt of the direction I think and have always thought I would take for a thesis project. I think it's a good idea at this point to explore some other ideas before committing, though. what I'm not sure of is how to approach a period of experimentation in other interests in the context of this project. two things concern me at the moment: I don't want to get behind on the serious work of the thesis for one and I do want to spend some time thinking about other things that I think I would find to be interesting additions or other options to the thesis but I think that approach will want some kind of limits or structure to keep it from becoming an unwieldy distraction rather than a chance to open my horizons.

some of the things that always have interested me are visualizing information (really a subset of design for interface) and using animation to communicate information. the final presentation last semester also brought up some ideas that could prove to be fruitful directions to explore: interest in the hand-drawn scans in my presentation had me thinking for a while. I don't really think it is feasible to consider that as a thesis research but contemplating the difference in the freedom of design using traditional tools against the refinement of what is accepted as professional work done with the current tool set, mostly adobe products, could be a wonderful concept to bring into a more widely defined project. also, I started making the movie for the sound project using photos I took and by overlapping them in photoshop I started getting effects that fascinated me. I have not done much work using photoshop as an image editor so the whole experience opened my mind to ideas I have never had before. putting those images into a movie was also interesting. it's possible that the movie making and animation to communicate ideas are somehow linked together in their general direction.

I've also been paying some attention to dreams this week and some messages are coming through. one night I dreamed of something that had to do with something from a long time ago in my life. odd, but it seemed to do with arranging living space. not sure how that fits. there were more dreams but lost now. I'll pay more attention later.

another area I've liked to play around with is creating stuff using some kind of code. I've never been able to focus on that kind of work to any degree. there has always been some kind of distraction in terms of work to do or work to search for that has drawn me away. it would be good to work on ways to make prototypes of interface designs. things that don't show something working just don't do justice to the idea and could be said to fail to communicate effectively.

at a really basic level, things I find important are color, concept, contrast, structure, logic and typography. that seems like a weird grouping. I hate an application that requires training. when it's a web application that requires training I always think it's because the application is poorly designed. today, with new, interactive possibilities for web programs, that idea may be entirely too demanding. but if it is, what is the new baseline to describing how applications on the web work?

obsession, obsession, obsession, obsession.

I have questions about how changing from hierarchical file structuring systems will affect how we understand our computers and how it will change the way programs work.

so here's the split.

for interface design, I have a lot of ideas for directions project(s) can go and a lot of ideas for how to go about thinking about it.
for everything else, I am at a disadvantage. I know what I like and what I dislike and what I might consider doing and which things I would not want to consider doing. but I don't know where to start thinking about those thing or how to identify possible projects within the group.
it seems like a good idea to take a moment now to consider - explore as best I can - directions I haven't taken seriously to see if something strikes me as a likely alternate direction or as a modifier to my other interests.
I don't know how much effort would be good to put into that search for direction or how emphatically I should deviate from my expected path. should I start by researching in 2 directions at the same time to keep from getting behind? would it be better to spend a finite amount of time thinking about other things and then stop and see what kinds of things have shown up by then.

hi everyone

2008-02-03T11:07:00.000-05:00

here I am.