Filed under: Anaglyphs
Here’s another quick Xidmary Anaglyph. The plugin takes some configuring, and i’ve discovered b&w pictures work best. This is the most successful anaglyph i’ve made to date in terms of 3D effect.
(click for larger view)
I decided to go down to Aldgate East and see if I could find the Janet Cardiff walk that I mentioned in an earlier post. When we got there it seemed as though the library was closed, so we decided to have a look in the gallery and ask if they knew anything about it. The whole building was going through refurbishments, there was only one video exhibit in the gallery. We asked the woman at the desk and she said they they were still doing the walk from there. £135 x2 deposit later on my credit card and we were off. Due to the fact the walk is supposed to start in the library, we had to wait outside the library doors until the walk caught up. What followed was a wonderful journey around Aldgate East / Brick Lane / Liverpool St from the unique perspective of Janet Cardiff. It was really difficult to tell sometimes if what you were hearing was from the street around you or the recording!
It is definitely something I would recommend to anyone. Notes: Bring the best quality headphones you can find, also you get your deposit back, so it is really free.
Filed under: Anaglyphs
I found a new plug-in that lets you render from two perspectives in Max 8.
here is a very quick anaglyph i made with this new plugin:
Filed under: Events
Yesterday I went to Spitalfields Market to check out the current Kinetica exhibitions and attend the Sam Buxton talk.
Below are some photos and videos I took there:
01 dollhouse.JPG 267K
02 faces.JPG 1.0M 03 goingthere.JPG 297K 04 jimcamp01.JPG 196K 05 jimcamp02.JPG 345K 06 jimcampbell.3gp 626K 07 lightball.JPG 182K 08 lightcircle.JPG 1.2M 09 pendulum01.JPG 930K 10 pendulum02.JPG 966K 11 strobe.3gp 451K 12 strobe01.JPG 349K 13 strobe02.JPG 1.1M 14 printwall.JPG 251K 15 uvspinner.JPG 1.4M
Here is a description of the photos and videos:
01. A coin operated dolls house situated as you walk in. A useful reference to my Double Project.
02. Diane Harris. Three dimensional face sculptures with real faces projected on top. Another good reference for my Double Project.
03. Janet, Natalja and I on the tube going to Kinetica.
04. An interesting Jim Campbell piece. It involves a still image of a building with moving shadow people walking around in front. It works by the material that the picture is printed on diffusing the light from his usual simple LED screen behind. A good effect.
05. Another interesting Jim Campbell piece, although at first I thought it was strange that it is situated in the lift.
06. A video of Jim Campbell’s famous LED man walking work.
07. Some beautiful play with light and colour.
08. Another shot of the light and colour display.
09. A great interactive piece which invites you to play with the pendulums. The pendulums hover over some light sensitive paint and draw a line as they move. This piece is (I’m assuming) by rAndom International.
10. Another shot of the pendulum piece.
11. A video of Gregory Barsamain’s great animated sculpture exhibit. Although this piece is amazing to watch, I recently went to a Pixar exhibition at the science museum where they ripped off Barsamain’s idea, but did it better in my opinion.This works just like an ordinary animation. Each segment is one frame of the animation, the sculpture is then spun at a speed so that with each flash of the strobe you only see the segments in the same position as it’s predecessor, thus giving the impression of motion just like watching a film in the cinema.
12. A photo of the animated sculpture.
13. Another photo of the animated sculpture.
14. Another rAnfom International piece that continuously ‘prints’ an image onto a photosensitive wall with a LED ‘printer’.
15. A photo of Peter Sedgley’s UV spinner. An interesting use of ultraviolet paint. Looks like something from the 70’s.
The talk with Sam Buxton was really interesting. He basically talked about the progress of his entire career and was completely open and honest with the description of how he has experienced being an artist. An RCA furniture design graduate, Buxton has a great variety of work under his belt. Currently he is collaborating with Reebok on an advertising campaign along with other miscellaneous projects and installations.
Related links:
Sam Buxton Design Museum Collection
We also briefly visited the WhiteCube gallery while waiting for the Sam Buxton talk to start, it was ok if you like that sort of thing.
Filed under: Holophonic Sound
Wikipedia article for Binaural Recording
The Binaural Source. Pretty good articles and projects
Holophonic.ch – A good site with news and info on everything holophonic
Etude Number
2
Your name
Russell Etheridge
Your Pathway Combination
Digital Arts Specialist
The title of your etude
Binaural Test
A short statement of intentions
I want to see if I can create my own binaural recording. Although it may not be possible to re-create the method in which Hugo Zuccarelli records Holophonic interference patterns of sound, it may be possible to create some kind of 3D spacial audio experience.
Conceptualisation of the work
When conceptualising this etude, the first thing I noted was that any difference between the two recording devices would ruin any 3D effect created. At first I envisioned using two identical microphones spaced equal distance apart as human ears, however it proved to be very difficult (or expensive) to organise two mics at the same time. Reaching this barrier I started thinking of alternative routes to my goal. I knew that any speaker can act as a microphone, so I thought why can’t I use a pair of ear phones as two identical microphones? I then realised that most mic inputs are mono and if you plug a pair of earphones into a mic input you only receive a signal from the left ear piece.
After a bit of brainstorming with my audio expert friend we realised that a couple of years ago we both purchased identical headphones. Below is a sketch of how I imagined the recording device to work.
Put simply, both left channels of the headphones are strapped to a balloon blown up to roughly the same size as a human head. The balloon will be strapped to a crutch for support, and a microphone stand will hold up the crutch
Describe and depict what the actual concept of the etude is.
The purpose of this etude is to discover how easy it is to record a relatively good binaural experience. It is also to discover whether the patented version of holophonic sound invented by Hugo Zuccarelli is simply binaural sound with a few bells and whistles. By creating a successful binaural recording with two sets of headphones will prove that such an elaborate process like holophonic is unnecessary.
When you say three dimensional, most people will imagine a 3d space or object with their minds eye. Your ears tend to be overlooked as a detector of 3D space, but they are very good at locating the position of a sound. The way ears do this is not entirely known, but its is amazing that even people with one ear can pin point the origin of a noise. I think this is a very useful area of study and extremely relevant to the 3D Hybrids module. I believe that if this technology becomes advanced enough we will eventually be able to do away with the ever increasing number of speakers in our living rooms and cinemas. Then in time to come, instead of Dolby releasing their new 255.1 speaker system we will have just two audio sources capable of replicating incredible 3D surround sound.
On completion I hope to give the audience of the sound file the same experice (or very similar) as what was happening in the room where the sound was being recorded. I am hoping the listener will be able to visualise the sound sources moving in the room around them.
Documentation of Technical and Artistic Process
After a bit of discussion the design of the recording device was changed to this:
Put simply, both left channels of the headphones were put on one headband, which was then put facing outwards on my head.
A few friends came round, armed with some noisy objects (a shaker, a bongo and a guitar) we were ready to record.
Below is the sound file we created, listen to it with headphones:
References
Documentation of references can be found in the following blog category:
Holophonic Sound Blog Category
How successful is the etude?
The audio created by the setup is better quality than I anticipated. It is possible to detect the position of the instruments but mainly when they are right next to the listeners ears. When the instruments are further away it becomes difficult to determine the direction. Also when we recorded the instruments they were moving vertically as well as horizontally, although in the recording it is not possible to tell when the instruments change in vertical position. With Hugo Zuccarelli’s matches holophonic test it is possible to tell exactly where the sound is coming from even if it is above or below you.
I would definitely like to look into this topic further and perhaps expand it into something more interesting than simple spacial audio tests. It would be great to combine this with my research into anaglyphs and create some kind of combined 3D visual and 3D audio experience.
Filed under: Holophonic Sound
Cardiff is a Canadian born artist who specialises in binaural technologies. A couple of my friends told me about her. They had recently experienced one of her exhibitions where you put on a pair of earphones and follow a prerecoded binaural walk around Aldgate East. There will be points that try to trick you and give you a sense of things around you that aren’t really happening, such as cars that aren’t there or someone following you.
Similar Event in Washington D.C.
Below is a link to a review of the Aldgate East audio walk. Iwill try and do this at some point.
Cardiff Aldgate East Binaural Walk Review
Here is a link to a similar kind of event in London. It is on a blog dedicated to binaural events, cd’s and podcasts:
Filed under: Etudes
Etude Number
1
Your name
Russell Etheridge
Your Pathway Combination
Digital Arts Specialist
The title of your etude
Poor Man’s Rapid Prototyping
A short statement of intentions
I want a cheap alternative to the expensive process of taking a 3D model and going to a professional service to print it out in 3D. As a result I came up with the known method of printing out slices of the 3D model onto card with a regular 2D printer and sticking the slices of card together, building the model.
Conceptualisation of the work
I wanted a more or less automatic process, the only interference I would apply is similar to a doing a jigsaw, just construction. Everything to do with the printing out of the 3D model would be produced by the computer, my part in the construction would not include trying to make it look like the original model, only following steps.
Describe and depict what the actual concept of the etude is.
The purpose of this etude is to test the cheap alternative of rapid prototyping against the more costly professional 3D printing services. As a hybrid, this etude brings an object that for all intents and purposes does not exist and forges it into a tangable, physical object that one can hold. This is a relevant test to my Double Project as it will give me the base to judge how to build the sets into which my animation will be projected. The target audience for this piece are, perhaps, 3D concept art students who can not afford to have their models professionally prototyped.
The virtual model I have chosen to use for this etude is a free ‘57 Chevy that I have adjusted and textured. I want the final print out to be as accurate as possible so that the audience will respond to it as though it were a miniature of the real thing. I would want spectators to respond to the model with appreciation that a car that once only existed as a string of 1’s and 0’s has been fully re-created in our own tactile 3D world. I want to give the impression that the distinction between virtual and reality is not simply black and white.
Documentation of Technical and Artistic Process
I have documented my process in two separate blog entries:
Poor Man’s notso-Rapid Prototyping – Part 1
Poor Man’s notso-Rapid Prototyping – Part 2
References
I have documented the references for this etude in the following blog category:
How successful is the etude?
Well the model is instantly recognisable as a car. It does resemble the original model, however the actual differences in the details are innumerable. This would not stand up as a professional prototype of a 3D conceptual model. It has however given me the experience to make a decision on how I will build my Double Project sets.
Perhaps the most positive result from this etude is that if I were to attempt this again I feel very confident that I will be able to produce something much more successful. I think the major changes to the process would be to split the model up into at least double the amount of segments and to use a better material, for example balsa wood cut with a hacksaw.
Filed under: Rapid Prototyping
Above is a photo of ‘Tommelise’ a 3D Replicator that someone has built with a budget of $150 – $175 that apparently is capable of even replicating itself.
“Tommelise is a spinoff from the RepRap project.
The RepRap (Rapid Replicator) project was conceived and begun in the Spring of 2005 by Dr. Adrian Bowyer at the University of Bath to create an open source 3D printer capable of making solid objects from plastic. The exciting part of Dr. Bowyer’s is that the RepRap machine is designed to be able to produce a majority of its own parts, that is to say, to reproduce itself, more or less.
The project’s goal is to create a working RepRap machine that can be built for a budget of just over US$400.”
Boot-strap Tommelise 3D Replicator Project
Sounds like someone has watched too much Star Trek.
Filed under: Anaglyphs
I found a commercial 3D monitor that uses polorized 3d technology, the same you get at IMax i think.
Filed under: Anaglyphs
I have always been interested in viewing images in 3d. Last year I got into rendering things out of 3d studio max so that they are viewable with 3d glasses. I achieved this with a plug-in called Stereographer Max. I wanted to expand a little on this for my 3d hybrids assignment by making a short animation, but the plug-in doesn’t work with the current version of max so I am currently looking for a newer version.
In the meanwhile, I have been experimenting with taking photo’s from two different angles and putting them together in Photoshop. Here are a couple of my most successful images:
(if you look under the juggling balls, there is a 3d dinosaur book that I bought last Saturday that inspired me to look into this again for hybrids (below is the stegasaurus)
Here is one I made last year with the Stereographer Max Plug-in:
I am still on the hunt for an anaglph plug-in that will work in 3D Studio Max 8 or later, if I still have no luck I may resort to installing an older version of Max to do it with.
Filed under: Holophonic Sound
Holophonic sound is when, through a special process of recording, an illusion of realistic sound placement is created. The basic idea behind this is to place two microphones at a distance apart equal to the distance between your ears. This in particular is called binaural recording. Taken a little further, placing the microphones in a head shaped object with the mics where the ears would be, would produce a fairly realistic result.
Hugo Zuccarelli…
A more advance version of this type of recording, called ‘holophonic’ invented by Hugo Zuccarelli, is where he creates an interference pattern and mixes it with a barely audible reference signal. This is basically the same principal as the way holograms are captured. The results are spectacular. You have to listen to this with headphones / earphones, it won’t work on speakers: Holophonic Demo MP3
