Techno Babble

KOMMERZ develops individualised concepts and products in the fields of visual media and design. They were showing their Mixed Reality Interface (MRI) concept at Siggraph 2006 which was also seen at last years CeBIT.

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This is an input device for computer applications where a user can interact with the system by manipulating physical objects such as models, figures, blocks etc.

Positioning and rotating the physical object defines the the movement in the application.

I tried it out using objects including a camera and lights to set up an environment similar to that shown where I could experiment with various lighting and camera settings in the car photo-studio representation. It seemed a natural and easy way to interface with the system.

Better quality videos can be viewed from their website, but here is a “live” video showing the system in operation at Siggraph.

Morphovision – the goal of this project, seen in the emerging technologies exhibition hall at Siggraph 2006, is to create unique 3-dimensional images and to pursue this technology as a new 3D image system of the future.

The display system allows you to transform and animate a 3D solid object. The object, in this case a model house, is rotated at high speed and illuminated with special lighting from a digital projector. A touch screen allows a user to choose different visual effects. The house will appear to distort in front of your eyes – this is a visual effect as the model remains unchanged and is actually reliant on persistence of vision (the ability of the retina to retain an image for a brief moment) to achieve the effect.

It was co-developed by Toshio Iwai and NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) Science and Technical Research and Laboratories. Read more HERE.

So much for the technology, I also found this interesting 360 degree Panoramic photograph of the Morphovision booth which also allows you to browse around part of the exhibition hall. Check it out HERE

Shown at Siggraph 2006 livePic is a research project from Keio University Inakage Lab , Japan.

livePic allows a user to create a drawing using a brush and pallet to draw with, on a “paper” like screen – then the user can animate the drawing by blowing on the screen.

On the tip of the brush is an infrared LED which lights up as the tip touches the screen. A web-cam captures the infrared images which are processed to obtain the position of the brush. Drawings are generated from this data and displayed through a projector onto the screen. An infrared thermography device is used to detect the breath of a user if he blows on the screen and this is stored as a temperature image. These images are processed to calculate the position and direction of blowing. Drawings at the position of the breaths are then animated.

See more at the website or view a demonstration video HERE.

CB Model Pro was built around the idea that surfaces should be manipulated directly. The result is a very intuitive and highly productive tool for 3D content creation that seamlessly fits into the production pipeline. CB Model Pro was developed by the creators of Cosmic Blobs, the award-winning entry-level 3D graphics software.

Find out more from the WEBSITE

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One of the many courses at Siggraph 2006 was “Interactive Shape Modeling” and was intended to present the current trends in interactive shape modeling. It is based partly on the AIM@Shape Summer School on Interactive Shape Modeling held recently at the Darmstadt University of Technology.

An interesting course of presentations – have a quick browse through the topics to see if there is anything which appeals to you.

Abstract
Computer Graphics continues to battle the challenging question: “How quickly and effectively can a designer transform a mental concept into a digital shape, which is easy to refine and reuse?”

Traditional techniques of sculpting and sketching continue to be among the quickest and most expressive ways for designers to visually manifest their ideas. Many new modeling techniques successfully use these paradigms for interactive design of digital shapes. Advanced geometric modeling representations and algorithms are an essential foundation for this type of tools.

The course covers the gamut including fundamental mathematical representations of shape, efficient algorithms, interaction paradigms and specialized hardware user interface devices, with presentations unified by a strong emphasis on the use of each topic for interactive modeling applications. The audience will be presented with the properties of various implicit, explicit and hybrid shape representations and the capabilities, limitations and implementation details of current algorithms for interactive shape creation and manipulation. The goal of this course is to impart the audience with both an understanding of the big open questions as well as the skills to apply recent research in interactive shape modeling applications.

Topics and Speakers included:

Karan Singh: Introduction & Motivation — Conceptual Shape Design
Sketching and sculpting and traditional media; From standard CAGD methods to fast free-form shape design; Case study in conceptual automotive design; Hardware for shape modeling; Physical prototypes and their digital equivalents; Overview of industrial software for conceptual modeling;

Denis Zorin: Mathematical representations of shape for modeling
Introduction to shape representations; Geometric concepts of topology, resolution and surface features.

Alexis Angelidis: Global space & Free form deformations (Presenter: Karan Singh)
Space deformations & space warps, practical examples; Free-form deformations and its variants; Wires and surface-oriented deformations; Sweepers; A geometric alternative: constant volume space deformations (swirling sweepers).

Denis Zorin: Multiresolution modeling
Mesh and parametric surface editing; Multiresolution editing with subdivision surfaces and volumes

Marc Alexa: Mesh editing based on discrete Laplace and Possion models
Some remarks on discrete differential geometry; Relation to multiresolution modeling; Laplace coordinates; Shape transformation properties.

Sarah Frisken: Designing with distance fields
A history of applications and research using distance fields; Representing, editing, and rendering distance fields; Adaptively sampled Distance fields (ADFs) and implicit surfaces; Interactive concept design and detailed carving with ADFs

Marie-Paule Cani: Towards ‘virtual clay’
Local deformations & force feedback in volumetric sculpting; Physically-based virtual clay: enabling local & global deformations.

Steven Schkolne: Gesture-based shape modeling
Modeling with your hands in free space

Further details of the course are available (including tutorial Notes and Presentation slides) HERE.

Published papers on these topics are available at the same location or from My Local Store (20Mb PDF file)

Recently announced Photosynth, from Microsoft Live Labs, takes a collection of photos of a place or object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed 3-Dimensional space.

The first prototype to come out of Microsoft Live Labs, Photosynth is based on a research paper entitled “Photo Tourism: Exploring Photo Collections in 3D”.

It doesn’t appear to be something which attempts to re-construct a 3D model from photographs in the way that some packages do, such as PhotoModeler, rather it seems to present a new mechanism for displaying and browsing photographs.

VoodooIO is a project from the Embedded Interactive Systems group at the Lancaster University Computing department in the UK.

It adopts a novel approach for designing User Interfaces using a set of “pin” components that can be positioned and moved on a flexible active material.

Voodoo pins are realized as embedded computers that can communicate with a desktop PC via a planar networking substrate, using Pin&Play technology. The Pin&Play infrastructure involves a substrate with embedded conductive layers and custom-designed coaxial connectors that allow the pin computers to affix to the substrate, providing both physical attachment and digital connectivity.

Ad hoc networking techniques allow any combination of pins to be dynamically brought in and out of play from the substrate network. A communications protocol provides automatic discovery of network pins, as well as bi-directional communication between pins and the computer. A high-level programming API, configuration tool, and application hooks allow VoodooIO to interface with existing applications.

VoodooIO adopts a vision of the physical interface as a malleable material that can be shaped and adapted, rather than a device with a predetermined form or prescribed use. The intention is to overcome the obstacles that prevent hardware interfaces from being as easily appropriable by users as graphical user interfaces (and software applications in general) have become, blurring the boundaries between interface developers, interaction designers and end-users.

The concept is based on deconstructing the interface into atomic units of control – such as buttons, switches, knobs, sliders and lights – and a substrate material that allows individual units to be aggregated and spatially organized into control surfaces distributed across the environment.

Here is a Complete list of Emerging Technologies shown at Siggraph 2006.

A Preview Moview (Quicktime) of the Emerging Technologies is available from HERE

Full details of these topics are available on the Siggraph Website and a summary is presented here. (This is a long post so be sure to read the complete article). Some of the items described here will be posted as separate articles.

AR Tennis - A collaborative augmented-reality game for cellphones. On their cellphones, two players see a virtual tennis court overlaid on the real table between them. They move their phones to hit virtual balls across the net.

The Interactive Theatre - Recipient of le Prix Emerging Technologies at Laval Virtual 2006 and presented as part of the exchange agreement between Laval Virtual and ACM SIGGRAPH. The argoGroup theatre combines group navigation, social experience, and significant individual interaction. At SIGGRAPH 2006, the theatre presents a program of artistic, educational, and entertaining interactive shows in stereoscopy (3D).

Augumented Painting - An interactive tabletop augmented-reality setup that creates an artistic representation of the scene. Users can select a painterly, cartoon-like, or black-and-white illustrative style. Virtual objects are added and displayed in the same artistic style.

bubble cosmos - A system that produces real bubbles containing white smoke and projects CG images onto them. When users break the bubbles, they produce changes in the visual stimulus and sound effects.

Copycat Hand - A humanoid robot hand that imitates the motions of a human hand at 150fps or faster.

Cubee: Thinking inside the box - An interactive cubic fish tank VR display that is suspended to enable viewing from all sides and free manipulation. The compelling interaction metaphor of objects inside a box can be used to evaluate interactive realism in dynamic simulations.

Deskrama - An interactive space browser for architectural designs. Moving its lightweight LCD panel on a building’s plan drawing displays a 3D interior view of the building.
Read more…