Zugara brings us the next installment of AR shopping.  The company is an advertising agency that uses interactive marketing.  They have an impressive client list including the company I work for, Toyota.
Their new AR product – The Webcam Social Shopper uses AR markers with motion capture to help the shopper “try-on” different clothing.  I like the way you only have to use the AR marker to set up the 3D plane, then once it captures the location, you can go markerless.  Also, it uses motion capture so you can scroll through the clothing choices without having to run back to your computer each time.
The markerless and motion capture scrolling gives the Webcam Social Shopper an easy-to-use feel that I think is important for any product, especially AR.  The more steps it involves, the less chance people will bother to use it.

we are interested in how to create systems where the user loses the sense of mediation, and begins to respond to being immersed in a blended physical/virtual as if it was a single “world.”
Our approach to exploring AR and Presence has been to develop an AR presence questionnaire in parallel with a physiological presence experiment analogous to the UNC VR “pit” experiment, which leverages a strong physiological reaction (fear of heights) to measure presence.

Farms are increasing in size, animals, machinery, buildings, land and staff members. Moreover, the amount of data and information is steadily increasing and the farmer quickly loses track of things. Consequently, he tends to spend more and more time in his office behind the computer screen, even though he is needed in the livestock house. The alternative is an increasing number of hand-held units – one for each system. The farmer must have access to relevant information, regardless of where he is. And last but not least: He must have his hands free.

Tasks
AgroTech has a vision of providing Danish farmers with relevant contextual information, regardless of where they are. This calls for active augmented-reality (AR) “glasses”. However, it also requires synthesising of all existing system data – databases of animals, agricultural areas, weather and climate data, production and financial data, etc.
Development perspectives
The purpose of this project is to develop and test the possibilities of augmented reality technologies and concepts to make farming easier. At the same time, these types of aids emphasise the need for synthesising of all existing system data and for flexible exchange of data and information between the different farm systems. AgroTech cannot realise this vision alone. This requires active participation of leading suppliers of technology to the agriculture and food industries. Hopefully, this participation will stimulate other forms of co-operation – for the benefit of producers and consumers.

N Building from Alexander Reeder on Vimeo.

N Building is a commercial structure located near Tachikawa station amidst a shopping district. Being a commercial building signs or billboards are typically attached to its facade which we feel undermines the structures’ identity. As a solution we thought to use a QR Code (two-dimensional bar code) as the facade itself. By reading the QR Code with your mobile device you will be taken to a site which includes up to date shop information. In this manner we envision a cityscape unhindered by ubiquitous signage and also an improvement to the quality and accuracy of the information itself.
December 15th, 2009 we held an opening which included the limited release of an iPhone application made specifically for N Building.

If a QR Code is static, what could we do with a dynamic device like the iPhone? Our proposed vision of the future is one where the facade of the building disappears, showing those inside who want to be seen. As you press on the characters their comments made on online appear in speech bubbles. You can also browse shop information, make reservations and download coupons. Rather than broadly tagging, we display information specific to the building in a manner in which the virtual (iPhone) serves to enhance the physical (N Building). Our goal is to provide an incentive to visit the space and a virtual connection to space without necessarily being present.
The building is detected in real time by its shape (for an example, see video). Characters are then superimposed over the live video. Twitter feed comments are located via GPS tagging. Store information, reservations and other infrastructure is part of the iPhone application. The iPhone application is not for sale in the iTunes App Store, but is available to interested parties on request. While N Building’s QR code provides a subtle yet important queue to users to take out and use their mobile devices, Qosmo, Inc. is available to implement a similar system for structures without QR Codes or any markers.

Jeremy Wood’s GPS Drawing project is an investigation of how technology enables us to identify and record new aspects of our journeys and of our surroundings.

The project leverages ‘digital mark making’ using GPS satellite navigation technology to automatically record where an individual has been as a digital dot-to-dot line. This novel method of drawing treats travel like a geodetic pencil or a cartographic crayon, making ephemeral inscriptions on landscapes as one moves through them.

The drawings, made on land, water, and from the air, use GPS receivers to capture journeys, both intentional and free-form. Wood and his collaborators use a wide range of physical means to make the drawings– car, scooter, inflatable boat, plane, skydiving, and, of course, walking– with the results ranging from ‘poodle doodles’ (drawn by dogs hooked up with receivers) to an 8-mile tall dollar sign drawn over Las Vegas, a giant dragon over Wales, a mosquito over Bangkok, and a game of tic-tac-toe over Hollywood.

Architecture of Subtraction was the thesis of architect Karmen Franinovic at Interaction Design Institute Ivrea. Franinovic developed a collection of projects to explore ways that technologically-enhanced interaction between humans and environment can impact our perception of place and social interaction in cities, with the goal of engendering “experiences of subtraction” in the midst of the fast-moving urban flow.

The Recycled Soundscape project (shown at left) was designed as a system through which to explore the auditory aspects of experience in the city, while offering relief through sound and relational design. The project, subtitled ‘Sonic Relaxation and Play in the City,’ consists of ‘a set of kinetic, human-scale interfaces’ which seek to facilitate reflective activity in the public sphere. Engaged in diversions and concentrations of attention within the sonic context of a specific location, people are invited to augment, modify and perform acoustic landscapes by playing with surrounding sounds, tuning the composition of a sonic environment, and listening to/recording noises (human, natural, machine, electronic) that are otherwise difficult to take notice of. The result is ‘an interactive system for public orchestration of an urban sound ecology’ where anyone can transform the existing sonic characteristics of a place over time, recomposing its ‘evolving memory in sound’.

George Stephenson

With the success of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, George Stephenson was once again employed to build a new line linking Manchester, the centre of the northern textile industry with the port of Liverpool. The proposed route posed a serious threat to the Bridgewater Canal which had a monopoly on the transportation of goods between Liverpool and Manchester.

Parliamentary wrangling lasted several years but eventually an act was obtained and George Stephenson started work on the Manchester and Liverpool Railway in 1826.

The proposed route proved a serious challenge with a number of difficult engineering problems along the 31 mile long line, including crossing the unstable peat bog of Chat Moss, a two-mile long, 80′ deep rock cutting at Olive Mount and a viaduct across the Sankey Valley.

Edge Hill Street Map

The Liverpool terminus was to be at Crown Street while in Manchester the terminus would be in Water Street.

Another major consideration was whether to use stationary engines and cable haulage or locomotives which were still in their infancy. In order to reach a decision, a competition was arranged to try and find a locomotive that was sufficiently powerful to work on the line. A £500 prize was offered for the winning locomotive with the competition being held at Rainhill, on the completed line, in October 1829. Each competing locomotive had to pull a load three times its own weight up and down the track at Rainhill 20 times at a speed of at least 10 mph. In distance this approximated a return trip between Manchester and Liverpool. Initially ten locomotives entered for the Rainhill Trials but on the day only five arrived and two of them were unable to compete due to of mechanical problems. Of the remaining three ‘Sans Pareil’ and ‘Novelty’ achieved a good result but the clear winner was the ‘Rocket’ built by George Stephenson and his son Robert.

Following the successful outcome of the competition, locomotive haulage over the majority of the line was confirmed although the last section to the two Liverpool termini was cable hauled.

the Rocket

The locomotives would run as far as Edge Hill cutting where they would be detached with loaded coaches being cable hauled through a short tunnel by winding engines at the passenger terminus at Crown Street; returning coaches ran down to Edge Hill by gravity. Goods traffic was handled at the Wapping Goods station close to Liverpool Docks. This was reached by an impressive 2030 metre tunnel from Edge Hill cutting; wagons were cable hauled up from Wapping and descended by gravity.

Horses were used for shunting at Edge Hill and their stables were cut into the sandstone walls of the cutting.

Edge Hill Cutting

As well as the engineering achievements, Stephenson was asked by the directors to build something ornate on the line and he chose a Moorish Arch which was built over the line in the Edge Hill cutting. Stephenson skillfully used this arch to hide the two stationary engines which powered the incline into Wapping.

The Liverpool & Manchester railway opened on 15th September 1830 in the presence of the prime minister, the Duke of Wellington, and a large number of other dignitaries. The ceremony featured a procession of eight locomotives running between Liverpool and Manchester which included the ‘Northumbrian’, the ‘Rocket’, the ‘North Star ‘ and the ‘Phoenix’.

Edge Hill Cutting, old

Unfortunately, William Huskisson, one of Liverpool’s MP’s, crossed in front of a loaded passenger train to speak to the prime minister. Despite a shouted warning he was knocked down by the Rocket which crushed his legs and he later died of his injuries. The procession continued in sombre mood but when the Northumbrian arrived at the Manchester terminus the passenger carriages were pelted with stones by weavers, who remembered the Duke of Wellington’s involvement in the Peterloo Massacre and his vigorous opposition to the proposed 1832 Reform Act.

Despite the tragedy on the opening day The Liverpool & Manchester Railway quickly proved a great success carrying 445,047 passengers in 1831 with profits of £71,098; four years later profits had nearly doubled.

Photo:Edge Hill cutting in the 1930's with the Crown Street tunnel on the right

Edge Hill track plan in 1914. The Crown Street tunnel passes over the Wapping tunnel, this has been omitted for clarity.

The Moorish Arch in the Edgehill Cutting published by Ralph Ackerman in 1831

Crown Street Station Published by Robert Ackermann

Crown Street Tunnel looking towards Edge Hill in August 1957. The tunnel portal was infilled in 1980 when the site of the coal yard was landscaped.The plaque reads 'This tunnel constructed in 1929 by George Stephenson served the original passenger terminus of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway at Crown Street. Photo by C A Appleton

Crown Street goods yard (on the site of Crown Street Station) in 1964

Plan of the Edge Hill cutting Reproduced from Industrial Archaeology Review Volume II/1 - Autumn 1977

Inside Stephenson's Crown Street Tunnel Photo by Nick Catford

Entrance to the boiler house for the Moorish Arch engines on the south side of the cutting Photo by Nick Catford

The north side of the cutting - Drawn by Colin Parson and reproduced from his Liverpool & Manchester Railway web site

A junction of two smoke flues on the south side of the cutting Photo by Nick Catford

The steam tunnel with a hole in the floor down into one of the boiler rooms Photo by Nick Catford

Inside Wapping Tunnel Photo by Nick Catford

Source: http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/sites/l/liverpool_edge_hill_cutting/index.shtml

Social Murmurs (image above, video below) by Kyle Philips is a socially-aware portable bench surface built using Processing and Arduino:

Social Murmurs from Kyle Phillips on Vimeo.

compArt Database Early Computer Art is a growing repository of persons, works, events, publications, institutions, and more. They belong to, and constitute, the domain of early computer art. “Early” refers to the timespan from 1950 to 1979 (in 1979, the first Festival Ars Electronica took place in Linz, Austria). “Computer art” refers to digital art in general, and algorithmic art in particular. In those early years, not much of other forms of digital art existed. Digital art has its predecessors in analog art. It has its relatives in art.

“compArt | center of excellence digital art” is a project at the University of Bremen, Germany. It is dedicated to research and development in computing, design, and teaching. It is supported by Rudolf Augstein Stiftung and the University of Bremen.

The Workshop

“If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.” — Lord Kelvin

Through Design we can turn an invisible activity of energy consumption into a process that can be experienced, thereby potentially altering awareness and leading to a change in behaviour.

Following this line of thought, the Visual Voltage exhibition presents a set of objects specially designed to help visitors reflect on how they consume energy.

To deepen the discussion about this topic, the Stockholm-based Interactive Institute, together with Berlin-based design-research firm IxDS, will be hosting a one-and-a-half day workshop addressing professional designers and product manager.

The goal of this workshop is to discuss, share and invent design strategies for raising awareness about energy-efficiency, without imposing the “gloomy feeling of guilt” (Régine Debatty); and for changing our consuming behaviour without making us feel like energy-saving martyrs.

The Visual Voltage Workshop is an extension to the Visual Voltage Exhibtion.

The pain of everyday life

If electromagnetic waves are the new medium of city´s communication system, then our everyday life is unavoidable entwined by an invisible information cloud, built upon wireless interconnected networks. Albeit, we never experience access-restrictions by walking through the streets unless we unsolicitedly want to enter a private space. But, since the advent of wireless data networks and ubiqoutous computing, private space has been shifted into an invisible layer. Closed networks, such as WEP or WAP restrain access to this layer. Thus, being expelled from the Internet can be a painful act and harm you to a certain extend. The project “constrain city walks” let you literally, feel this pain, by tightening a worn chest strap which is embedded in an ordinary jacket. The stronger the signal of perceived restriction, the harder your breath! Alternative routes through the city are the only constrained conclusion. Thus it indicates an invisible form factor of city’s policy and at the same time it unhinges you between the decision of eluding or allowing the pain of information society.

The project “the pain of everyday life” is a city-intervention and a digital art performance addressing public and private space within the realm of everyday constraints. It resembles an urban interface for an invisible city, an architecture which is subconsciously perceived and which constantly oscillates as resonant landscape, consisting of electromagnetic waves.

A chest strap (corset) with high torque servo motors and a WIFI-enabled game-console are worn as fetish object. The higher the wireless signal strength of close encrypted networks, the tighter the corset becomes. Closed network points improve the pleasurable play of tight lacing the performer‘s bustier. Thus, constituting the aether as a space of possible pregnancy, filled with potential access-points to the networks of communication. Everyday walks between home, work and leisure are recompiled into a schizogeographic pain-map which is fetched from GoogleMaps servers with automated scripts. By wearing the straight-jacket, the artist not only writes, but is at once also able to read the city code.

The outcome of his walk provokes an emergence of a city-shaped body. The map keeps not only tracks of all wireless networks along the route, but also the wearer’s détournement when entering a very dense network place, a so called pleasurable pain zone. Therefore, the artist becomes the 21st century flaneur who balances along sensual perceived pain and the torture of everyday routes in a very special Arcades Game Project.

Common Sense: what if every mobile device had an air quality Sensor?

[ home page ]

We are developing mobile sensing technologies that help communities gather and analyze environmental data. We hope that this hardware and software will empower everyday citizens to learn more about their environment and influence environmental regulations and policy.

We have developed various research prototypes, which are being used in studies such as a deployment on street sweepers in San Francisco and a deployment of a handheld device in West Oakland. Right now we are focusing our efforts on air quality sensing. Our hope is that our research prototypes will demonstrate the utility of embedding environmental sensors in commercial commodity devices such as mobile phones.

The Common Sense Team:

Paul M. Aoki (Intel Labs Berkeley)
Prabal Dutta (U.C. Berkeley Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences)
Rob Ennals (Intel Labs Berkeley)
R.J. Honicky (Nokia Research Center)
Neil Kumar (U.C. Berkeley Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences)
Alan Mainwaring (Intel Labs Berkeley)
Chris Myers (Isopod Design)
Eric Paulos (Carnegie Mellon University)
Ali Rahimi (Intel Labs Berkeley)
Nima Reyhani (U.C. Berkeley Department of Statistics)
Sushmita Subramanian (Intel Corporation)
Wesley Willett (U.C. Berkeley Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences)
Allison Woodruff (Intel Labs Berkeley)
Rui Xiao (Intel Labs Berkeley)

courtesy of the Catalogue

by Chris Oakley

Single-channel video
Year of Production: 2004
Duration: 5’ 30 ”

Crystallising a vision of ‘us seen by them’, The Catalogue explores the codification of humanity on behalf of corporate entities. Through the manipulation of footage captured from life in the retail environment, it places the viewer into the position of a remote and dispassionate agency, observing humanity as a series of units whose value is defined by their spending capacity and future needs.

The Catalogue was produced with financial assistance from Arts Council England.

Christian Nold
Jan 2004 – ongoing

Bio Mapping is a community mapping project in which over the last four years with more than 1500 people have taken part in. In the context of regular, local workshops and consulltations, participants are wired up with an innovative device which records the wearer’s Galvanic Skin Response (GSR), which is a simple indicator of the emotional arousal in conjunction with their geographical location. People re-eplore their local area by walking the neighbourhood with the device and on their return a map is created which visualises points of high and low arousal. By interpreting and annotating this data, communal emotion maps are constructed that are packed full of personal observations which show the areas that people feel strongly about and truly visualise the social space of a community.

How will our perceptions of our community and environment change when we become aware of our own and each others intimate body states?

The concept has been applied in the following contexts Stockport Emotion Map, San Francisco Emotion Map and the Greenwich Emotion Map which have their own sites.
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This project has been presented in the following contexts:

England, Scotland, Spain, Turkey, France, Belgium, Portugal, Finland, Holland, Latvia, Italy, Germany, Slovenia, India, USA, Japan (no particular order)

Long term art/community projects:
San Francisco Emotion Map , San Fran, Mar 07 – April 07
Mapping Fulham , London, Oct 06 – July 07
Greenwich Emotion Map, London, Oct 05 – April 06

a project by William J. Mitchell

The Zaragoza ‘Digital Mile’ will incorporate digital media into everyday aspects of the public realm to make places that respond to their users; accommodate multiple activities; and provide stories, information and services to the people of the city.

The arrival of the high-speed train to Zaragoza and the urban transformations that will take place in the areas around the former “El Portillo” station and the new “Delicias” station constitute an opportunity to develop an innovative technological-urban development project: Milla Digital.

Milla Digital will make use of the spaces of both the areas developed to configure a City of Innovation and Knowledge, where housing, companies and facilities will exist together under a common orientation fully engaged in knowledge-intensive activities, an urban development of great quality and advanced telecommunications infrastructures which both the residents and the businesses located in the Milla will benefit from.

Milla Digital is a basic project of Zaragoza City Council to help companies, institutions and citizens position themselves to form part of the economic and social means of the 21st century.

All of the spaces, parks and buildings on the Digital Mile include free, public wireless connectivity as well as open access to the digital systems and responsive media elements located along the Mile.

The project evolves along the pedestrian path called the Paseo del Agua. The WATER WALL is an interactive fountain where people can digitally control the streams of water. With a command – by jumping into the water or sending a message through an electronic device – the water can start and stop or change in pressure.

The intelligent streetlight system creates a distinctive atmosphere along the Mile by changing color or intensity in response to the time of day, demands for use, or artistic desires. In tandem, digital street furniture – – like café tables, bus stops, and signage — display information about such practical matters as menus, bus arrivals, or the location of available parking spaces.

Affixed to the facades of buildings, URBAN PIXELS delineate the edges of the Zaragoza Digital Mile from the rest of the city. When viewed from the air or from the ground by pedestrians, drivers, and train passengers, this ‘light’ footprint intervention works synchronously or asynchronously to emphasize different moods or zones along the Digital Mile. Each pixel unit includes a solar charging unit and can be programmed wirelessly.

The MEMORY WALK walk makes visible the way people travel through the city by recording pedestrians’ steps across a space. Every time a footstep falls on a digital paver, the paver emits an additional increment of light. As people cross the pavement, paths of light are illuminated where people tread the most; untread areas emit no light. Thus, people become aware of the traces their movements leave upon the surfaces of the Digital Mile.

DIGITAL AWNINGS are screens that can rotate in four directions: up, down, left, and right. The movement of the awnings is controlled by either pre-programming, a command by mobile phone, in response to people’s physical movements, or in the service of a collective special event. This system enhances the experience of the Digital Mile by displaying abstract, impressionistic, provocative, personalized, or integrative content, including information and images related to Zaragoza’s history or people’s real-time activities in other areas of the Digital Mile.

Digital Public Space

The general design concept of Milla Digital consists in both the visual and functional union of different elements through a network of facilities and public spaces designed for educational and multiple community uses and special urban elements.  This network will be comprised both of digital elements and of physical elements that will be superimposed within the urban space.

PHYSICAL ELEMENTS: these are organised along a pathway that stretches from the southern tip of Portillo to the area of the Delicias rail station.  The station and the southern and western neighbourhoods will be linked into this area by means of a new pedestrian bridge that will acts as a symbolic gateway to Zaragoza and that will span the motorway.  The pathway will continue northward to the Expo site, which will be accessed by the Bridge Pavilion across the Ebro.  This pathway and the different bridges will knit Milla Digital together and provide an armature for many uses.

DIGITAL ELEMENTS: these will overlay and complete the physical framework

• Digital infrastructures: The systems proposed include elements such as for example intelligent street and building lights that can be accessed through the Internet, changing colour and intensity depending on the time of day, on the demands or on the possible artistic interest.  Digital street furniture elements, such as coffee tables, bus stops or signs, can display information about menu content, the location of a bus line or the available parking spaces.
• Ambient technology: Wireless access will provide a base level of service for public places along the Milla Digital, offering ubiquitous, free Internet connectivity, as well as access to the new responsive media and information.  In addition, location-based services will provide tailored content through mobile phones or PDAs to subscribers at key spots.
• Digital public places: Digital places will support the different activities and will foster the relationship between people and public spaces by responding to the users’ needs.  Several kinds of digital plaza are proposed for the Milla, for example, façades that incorporate a digital display screen that can change colour and content, programmable awnings that can provide shade and modify spaces along the edge of a building, paving that reflects patterns of use and the responsive “water walls”.  The layering of all these elements will create a new type of place that can be both personal and public at the same time.

PLACES:

• PORTILLO:
  This is one of the most significant historical and cultural locations of the city.  The Portillo was the former western gate of Zaragoza, protected by the Aljaferia, the old Moorish palace and currently the seat of the Aragon regional parliament.

  It also used to be the site of the former railway station that is going to be replaced by an underground/local train station so it will continue to be a place of great activity and an important access to the city.  Portillo is considered by the neighbours of the area to be part of their neighbourhood.  But during the different times of day, a variety of people pass through it such as tourists visiting the Aljaferia, people going to work and the citizens of Zaragoza, in general.

  The focus of development at Portillo is to create a community open space and services in concert with private office and residential development.  It will also be the location of a new bus transfer station and local train station.  The challenge is to create a truly usable place that can be used by a variety of people: residents, workers, public transport users, visitors to the Aljaferia, school children, and that can cover needs such as strolling and resting, spots, cultural events, events, picnics and socialisation.
  Among the actions to be developed at Portillo are the Museo de la Milla/Mediateque, where both school children and parents or citizens in general, can discover the digital culture.

• ALMOZARA:
  The Almozara Park near the Delicias train station, is one of the most prominent sites of Zaragoza.  It is on an axis situated between one motorway entering the city, the train station and the Expo site, so it will be visible for millions of visitors.  This place will also become a crossroads situated on the backbone of Milla Digital linked to Delicias stations by means of a new pedestrian bridge.  This area offers the opportunity to create a powerful gateway to Zaragoza, as well as a new image of the city.

  The most important aspect of the new development at Almozara is to achieve a highly visible node of public facilities, landscape and infrastructure that knits the area together, while defining a new entrance to the city.  Taking advantage of the topography of the land: facilities and public spaces at the upper level of the station and motorways will be devoted to functions of city-wide and regional importance, whilst the facilities and spaces at the lower level will be designed to serve neighbourhood residents.   One of the most outstanding actions to be developed at Almozara is the Centre for Art and Technology.

• PASEO DEL AGUA:
  This includes the connecting spaces and parks between the nodes of Milla Digital: Portillo, Almozara and the Expo2008.
  Paseo del Agua (South): The southern section of the Paseo del Agua that stretches from Portillo to Almozara, will act as a limit for a series of new open spaces, public facilities and sports and play areas, designed to serve the Delicias and Almozara neighbourhoods.
  Paseo del Agua (North): The northern section of the Paseo del Agua, situated between Almozara and the Ranillas meander (Expo2008) is an essential link with the Expo site as it will cross the most western limit of the Almozara neighbourhood, acting as a buffer between the houses, shops and community services and the major avenues.
• EXPO GATEWAY:
  This area is located at one of the entrances to Expo 2008, on the banks of the Ebro river.  It will also be the place where the Bridge Pavilion will be located, which will take people to the site of the International Exposition.  This place will continue to be important after the event as it will be the gateway to the high technology business area of Zaragoza and to the recreation zone that will be erected on the Ebro river banks. As it will form part of the Expo, it will be a good showcase to show the potential of Milla Digital.

A Project by The Living, Van Alen Institute New York Prize Fellows

Through hands-on design and prototyping, we investigated three parallel tracks of research and three definitions of the Living City.

LIVING CITY: A platform for the future when buildings talk to one another

In the future, buildings will talk to one another. In the era of ubiquitous computing—as sensors disappear into the woodwork and all kinds of data is transferred instantly and wirelessly—buildings will communicate information about their local conditions to a network of other buildings. Architecture will come to life.

Living City is an ecology of facades where individual buildings collect data, share it with others in their social network, and respond to the collective body of knowledge.

Buildings talk

Ubiquitous computing

Ubiquitous Computing

Public space

Our platform allowed us to explore air as public space and building facades as public space.

Ecology of building facades

Easy-to-deploy wireless sensor network

Empire State Building talks

We created software to collect and share the data from each wireless sensor network, allowing any participating building to talk to others and take action in response. The first conversation was between the Empire State Building and the Van Alen Institute building.*

Facade breathes

Building off of our previous development of Living Glass, we created a thin, transparent, lightweight building skin that breathes in response to air quality and moves to create an interface to important information.*

Living City A Project by The Living, Van Alen Institute New York Prize Fellows

For 75 years, since it was founded in 1934, the Allard Pierson Museum has been Amsterdam’s foremost venue for discovering archaeology and the ancient civilisations of Egypt, the Near East, the Greek world and the Roman Empire. To mark this 75th anniversary, the exhibition entitled “A Future for the Past”, is bringing together the past, present and future. Archaeology is revived using state-of-the-art visualisation techniques.

Fraunhofer IGD presents together with Visual Dimension two Augmented Reality applications about Satricum and the Roman Forum . Therefore two large photographs on the walls of the exhibition space are superimposed with information via Augmented Reality technology.

The background image of the Rome application is the oldest photograph of the Roman Forum in a Dutch collection, with visible excavations, preserved as a glass negative in the Allard Pierson Museum. The picture has been studied in detail and has been dated in 1855. On top of this photograph several points of interest (POI) are superimposed: Temple of Saturn, Via Sacra, Colosseum, … Each POI reveals information via context sensitive media like photographs, rendered images of Rome Reborn reconstructions and videos.

Satricum is situated 60 km south of Rome and started in the 9th century BC as a Latin village on an acropolis, a higher place near the river Astura.  It had a temple hut, that was converted into a small stone building. Around 540 BC, a first temple was build. It was replaced only 40 years later by a larger temple, that probably existed another four centuries, although the city had already been destroyed by the Romans in 346 BC. Our Augmented Reality application tells an interactive story of this place. A 3D reconstruction of the first temple augments the photograph in the background. Several points of interest around the temple are showing media overlays and information about excavations, the temple construction, records, …

The applications are presented on two hardware devices: the MovableScreen and UMPCs. The MovableScreen is a stationary Augmented Reality see through device. It consists of a large display mounted on a revolving aluminum pillar. The image of a camera on the back of the pillar is shown on the screen and thus enables the video see through effect: It’s seems like one can look through the display and the pillar. Interaction with the points of interest is simple: While the visitor looks around by rotating the MovableScreen, the POI in the middle of the screen pops up a bubble with an image slideshow or a movie. Furthermore a description text appears on the screen.

The UMPC simulates how these applications are working on the real scene outdoors. It features video see through effect, too. Looking on the UMPCs screen seems like seeing though it and looking at the two photographs. When focusing a POI with the cross hair in the middle of the screen, again a bubble with a preview of the underlying information pops up. Touching that bubble enables a full screen view of movies, image slideshows and description text about the POI. The visitor puts down the UMPC in order to read the information and focuses the next POI afterwards.

These applications build on the results of the project iTACITUS. The tracking of the devices (MovableScreen and UMPCs) is achieved by a computer vision technology called “Poster Tracking”. Therefore features of the two background images are extracted and stored in randomized trees for fast recognition. After this initialization the camera position and orientation is computed via KLT frame-to-frame tracking.

Designer:

Michael Zoellner

Produced by:

Fraunhofer IGD

Allard Pierson Museum

the voices of Oakland

The Voices of Oakland

The Voices of Oakland uses Augmented Reality (AR) technology to introduce visitors to the history and architecture of Oakland Cemetery, Atlanta’s oldest cemetery. Wearing headphones and carrying a portable computer and tracking devices, the visitors walk among the graves and listen to the voices of various historical figures. The visitors can tailor the experience to suit their interests through a hand-held interface. The Voices of Oakland is a prototype created using DART (the Designer’s Augmented Reality Toolkit). DART was conceived and implemented in the GVU Center at the Georgia Institute of Technology, with audio production assistance from the Digital Arts Entertainment Lab (DAEL) at Georgia State University.

the voices of Oakland

Dr. James Nissen
James Nissen’s gravestone is too old and worn by the elements to be legible. He was the first direct interment at Oakland, in the year 1850.

Carrie Berry Crumley
Carrie Berry was just a little girl, 10 years old, when the general Sherman arrived in Atlanta. Yet, despite her tender years, she kept a diary of her experiences.

Franklin Miller Garrett
Thoughout the twentieth century, Franklin Miller Garrett’s life and the history of Atlanta were interconnected. He was the official historian of the city.

prototype

at the cemetery

In this prototype of The Voices of Oakland, the experience is controlled from a second portable computer communicating with the visitors’ computer over a wireless network. This second computer acts as a kind of “Wizard of Oz” interface, allowing the tour guide to monitor which buttons the visitors have pressed on their hand-held and to decide what audio segment should be delivered next. In the final version of the experience, the visitors’ position will also be tracked using a GPS (Global Positioning System) device, allowing the experience to work without a human “wizard.”

The visitors walk through the cemetery and approach graves pointed out by the narrator, or any other grave they find interesting. In our current prototype, they can use the hand-held device to select audio segments concerning: the life of the figure buried there, the historical context, or the art and architecture of the cemetery.

The people behind the project:
Steven Dow
Jaemin Lee
Blair MacIntyre
Danny Muller
Christopher Oezbek

Here & There

Sociable Media Group at the MIT Media Lab

Hear&There

An Augmented Reality System of Linked Audio

Joey Rozier and Karrie Karahalios
Professor Judith Donath

Introduction

Hear&There allows people to virtually drop sounds at any location in the real world. Once one of these “SoundSpots” has been created, an individual using the Hear&There system will be able to hear it. We envision these sounds being recordings of personal thoughts or anecdotes, and music or other sounds that are associated with a given area.

We hope that this system will be used to build a sense of community in a location and to make places feel more alive. Over time, an area such as the Media Lab Courtyard can be filled with sounds from many members of the community so that new members can get a sense of who others in the community are. Then, the new member can drop his or her own sound into the space, adding to the collective definition.

To make the augmented environment as realistic as possible, we use spatialized (or 3D) audio, using Java 3D. This provides important cues to the explorer roaming the augmented environment, as it allows sounds to “appear” to be coming from a particular location in space.

In addition to being able to drop sounds in a space, Hear&There includes a graphical user interface to allow precise control over where a sound exists in space, how large it is, and various properites of the audio.

An additional interesting application of this project is the notion of activation networks. Although the user of the system can choose to explore all of the SoundSpots, they may also choose to take a more guided route. Using this approach, most of the SoundSpots in an area are “turned off.” Whenever a user moves into a SoundSpot that is turned on, he or she is presented with the option of turning on other SoundSpots that the SoundSpot’s author suggests.

This is the first stage of a project that will branch into new areas in the future. Some questions we may address in the future are the notion of temporal information (so that a SoundSpot changes over time), augmented communication channels within a space, and moving sounds.

More Information:

Joey Rozier’s Thesis Proposal. Note that the project has changed a bit since the proposal.

The published contribution to ICAD ‘00

the presentation at ICAD 2000. (It’s about 6MB.)
some photographs of the system.

The Dexia Tower by day

In the middle of the Rogier Square the building shines like a beacon over the town.

The Tower is visible from several major traffic arteries in the capital and is situated precisely in the middle of the Mint Square – North Station axis.

Dexia Tower, Weather project

It has a trapezium-shaped footprint covering an area of 4,400 square metres.

The building has a total of 6,000 windows.

Illumination

Behind each of 4,200 windows there is a lighting installation consisting on average of 12 light bulbs, each with three LEDs – a green, a red and a blue – that can be combined into a complete colour palette.

European Union

A rapid change in the colour of the lamps instantaneously gives an impression of movement.

The façade can show figures, letters, geometric shapes with various effects and also graphic designs.

the illumination system

The combination of green, red and blue produces white.

To start the lighting system, all blinds should be closed as the leds are not strong enough to light the façade alone.

The reflection on the closed blind illuminates the whole surface of the window.

If the blind remains open, you only see a horizontal light line at the bottom of the window.

When the illumination system is working, all the sun-blinds close automatically. This is necessary because the colours are reflected off them.

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a light show during the Touch project by Lab[au

The system is controlled by a central computer. The resullt is entered in a programme to be translated for the lighting system by the computer.

An image, a visual effect or letters are only visible when some windows are lit in some colours. This means that each of the 4,200 windows equipped with the system can be illuminated separately and exactly in a given colour. This produces the image or the animation you can see.

A central computer translates the effect to be shown, image per image.

For each window, the calculation gives the exact colour in order to display the result on the façades.

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The Touch project by Lab[au

The data are sent through a rapid computer network to three distribution centres spread out on the various floors of the tower.

These centres translate the data for groups of about 100 windows.

These data are then distributed to the 100 footlights of each group, which will receive their individual data through a small integrated computer.

They will then determine the proportion of red, green and blue necessary to obtain the colour wanted for this particular window.

The supercomputer calculates more than 20 images per second and each of the 4,200 windows has such a small computer to check the colour to be displayed about 20 times per second… for a unique result!

The tower is a building with three illuminated façades, which is visible both in the neighbourhood and in the distance.

It is integrated in the city like an urban signal and contributes to the international image of Brussels.

Dexia wants the tower to be an urban sign through its architecture and the presentation of works of art and events. The three main projects for using the building in this respect are:

• a permanent illumination (the present RGB project)
• an original creation every year (ex. Touch project in 2006)
• a participation in a limited series of national and international events.

The Dexia Tower is equipped with a highly effective energy-saving LED lighting system (electroluminescent diods).

Each led, at its maximum capacity, uses 1 watt. As a result of the various colour and movement effects, this maximum capacity is never achieved. The different creations presented so far have never exceeded one third of this total capacity.

During the night, the tower is illuminated 9 hours in the winter and 5 hours in the summer.

Recent tests reveal that the Dexia Tower uses about a third less electricity than the Eiffel Tower in Paris, while the energy required to light a football stadium costs no less than seven times the energy consumed by the Tower.