Video Footage of LED Gloves.
Here are a couple of video clips of me using the LED Gloves. My sister filmed me. Unfortunately they are very short because I had a crappy camera. It only allowed me to have 17 seconds of footage. 
Anyway this will give you a general idea of how it works.
It was difficult to show clearly what was going on because it was so dark; but this is all I could manage.
Assignment 2 Blog (Artefact)
Today I experimented again with my artefact. There were a few glitches but I think I managed to fix them. I discovered that the gloves work best when the room is fairly dark. Therefore I have been trying various methods to mimic the darkness. I tried putting pieces of black cardboard around my laptop to see if it would be the same but it didn’t help much. At least I now know that the artefact actually works. I just need to make sure that results are more consistent, so that I will be able to present it. I will try again to see if it I can get it to work in the daylight.
Etude Number 4
Etude Number: 4
Basic Details: It’s about using a physical interface for control Google Earth
Name: Sophia
Pathway Combination: Advertising with Digital Arts
The title of your etude: Hand Gesture interface for Google Earth
A short statement of intentions
My initial thought for this was create something to track spontaneous hand gestures like grabbing, pulling, reaching and rotating.
Conceptualisation of the work
The purpose of the etude was to show the audience other ways to control Google Earth. This is aimed at anyone who is interested in hand gesture interface.
Documentation of Technical and Artistic Process
Technical Analysis
For it to work, a small camera is attached to a computer. The camera then translates each LED-enabled motion into a set of possible actions such as panning , zooming, rotation and tilting. The video tracking functionality is written within the Processing programming framework, in conjunction with Java’s java.awt.Robot library. This robot library converts a special video tracking vocabulary into mouse clicks/releases and cursor movement in order to control the computer.
The hand gesture interface for Google Earth is written in Processing, which is an open-source programming language based on Java.
Here is an example of a processing code for a 3D camera.
void setup()
{
size(200, 200, P3D);
noStroke();
}
void draw()
{
background(255);
lights();
//ortho(0, width, 0, height, -10, 10); // Default ortho settings
ortho(-width, mouseX, -height/2.0, mouseY/2.0, -10, 10);
translate(0, 0, -100);
rotateX(PI/4);
rotateZ(PI/3);
pushMatrix();
for(int i=0; i<width; i+=20) {
for(int j=0; j<height; j+=20) {
box(10, 10, (j+i) / 4.0);
translate(20, 0, 0);
}
translate(-200, 20, 0);
}
popMatrix();
}
References
http://earth.google.com/
http://processing.org/
How successful is the etude?
The etude was quite successful and I managed to get all the bits and pieces I needed for my project. The idea hasn’t been tested yet but hopefully everything will go very well.
Etude Number 3
Etude Number: 3
Basic Details: This etude is about my trip to the Kinetica Museum.
Name: Sophia
Pathway Combination: Advertisng with Digital Arts
Title: kinetica Museum
A short statement of intentions
I wanted the piece to be about my visit to the museum and what I experienced.
I intend to create the etude by sharing my experiences and adding lots of photos.
Conceptualisation of the work
The purpose of this was to see some examples of the type of work I can do for my project.
The target audience was for anyone who was interested in kinetic art.
Documentation of Technical and Artistic Process
Here are some pictures I took during my research at the museum.
‘Red Dragon’ by Peter Markey
Technical Analysis
I have discovered that when doing kinetic art, you have to explore how things look when they move. Experiments include light, motors, mirrors and wind to get the sculptures to move.
The biggest challenge is to get the sculptures to balance. This is similar to imagining two people sitting on a see-saw. If they weigh the same, the see-saw will balance. If one person is heavier, he/she will have to move closer to the centre of the see-saw to get it to balance. Therefore, kinetic artists rearrange their mobiles until everything is in balance.
References
www.kinetica-museum.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_art
How successful is the etude?
I learn’t a lot during my visit to the Kinetca museum. I saw quite a few fascinating pieces of work. Some of them were quite funny. This allowed me to find out more about kinetic art and how it is done.
Etude Number 2
Etude Number: 2
Basic Details: Its about Google sketch up
Name: Sophia
Pathway Combination: Advertising with Digital Arts
The title of your etude: Google sketch up
A short statement of intentions
My initial thought for this one was to try and create my desired model for my assignment. I intend to create this because this will allow me to have something to import into Google earth.
Conceptualisation of the work
The purpose for doing this is to allow me create a 3d object. The target audience would be anybody who is into 3D.
.
Documentation of Technical and Artistic Process
I decided to go with this software because it is easy to learn and quite powerful. It allows me to build and modify 3D models easily and very quickly.
I also discovered that it would allow me to place them on Google earth for everyone to see.
3D Model Created by Google Sketchup
Technical Analysis
The resources I used was mainly the internet and the Sketch up software.
I discovered that my 3D model can be individually coloured with an assortment of solid colours, textures and materials.
References
Google Sketch up
http://www.sketchup.com/
How successful is the etude?
So far everything seems to be going rather well but I still have a bit of work to do.
Etude Number 1
Etude Number 1
Basic Details: This etude is about the beginning of my research.
Name: Sophia
pathway Combination: Advertising with Digital Arts
Title: Beginning of Research
A short statement of intentions
I initially wanted the piece to be about optical illusions.
I initially intended to create the etude using a blog.
Conceptualisation of the work
The purpose of the etude is to assist me with my research into optical illusions.
An optical illusion is always characterized by visually perceived images that, at least in common sense terms, are deceptive or misleading. Therefore, the information gathered by the eye is processed by the brain to give, on the face of it, a percept that does not tally with a physical measurement of the stimulus source. A conventional assumption is that there are physiological illusions that occur naturally and cognitive illusions that can be demonstrated by specific visual tricks that say something more basic about how human perceptual systems work.
This work is targeted for those of all ages. The whole point of this was to show that things are not always what they seem to be.
Documentation of Technical and Artistic Process
An optical illusion. Square A is exactly the same shade of grey as square B.
Technical Analysis
The resources used were word press and the internet.
I have been looking at various websites on the subject of optical illusions and I have been looking into Google sketch up to see if I can create some 3D models.
I have also been looking into Google earth and exploring the software.
References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_illusions
How successful is the etude?
So far everything seems to be going ok. The project is still in its early stages of development and I have a rough idea of what I want to do.
