Daily Archives: 05 Mar 2014

Nastassia Barber

05 Mar 2014

A visualization using an IR camera of heat loss in a hand in a box of ice over time

For this project, I learned a lot about data collection.  I wasted a lot of time meticulously collecting data from my personal life which ended up not being super-interesting for a visualization, mostly because I didn’t plan ahead enough regarding my data logging routine.  I changed my mind at the last minute and decided to get a series of IR images of myself getting colder over time, because most people who know me well would say that I am unusually cold-natured so that seemed like an interesting trait to explore.  I wanted to do full-body images but couldn’t because the resolution of the camera was too low for them to be interesting.  I then changed to just my hand, which brought a new set of problems because data collection was kind of painful (and eventually my hand started… vibrating?) and I kept moving.  If I had to do this differently, I would have stuck with my original general idea but collected the data better.  If I had more time with this data, I would have made the graph interactive so you could select a point on the image of the hand to show the plot for that point.

Here’s a couple of images from some preliminary tests with the IR camera:

test2_0000_IR_0211.jpg

test2_0004_IR_0215.jpg

I like the appearance of these images better than the ones I ended up using, but I had to stop before getting as pretty/dramatic results as I would have liked as the camera kept crashing and I was somewhat concerned about injuring myself.

From the video, you can tell that I learned A) my hands do get cold very fast (each frame is only about 2 seconds apart) and B) my fingers get cold much before my palm.  I guess the only surprising thing was really that my palm stayed literally exactly the same temperature in most places over time.  Yay, blood vessels!  There weren’t really any significant outliers, but there was a certain amount of noise, so I’m unsure if the oscillation I saw in the temperature at most points was a real phenomenon like my heartbeat, or just noise.

Here’s my video:

Aaaand free screengrab programs for windows seem to be very questionable so here is a higher-resolution screenshot.

final

Spencer Barton

05 Mar 2014

For my final project I am thinking about controlled story telling. The reader will control the pace of a story by dragging a see through display over a map showing the whole setting for the story. As the display is dragged over the map the characters will be animated underneath bringing the story to life.

Imisphyx V : A tabletop novel experience

Imisphyx is a non-linear story where viewers explore conversations between the characters by placing various tiles on the tabletop.

I saw this project last year and remembered it as a nice example of the reader dictating the story. The table-top set-up is also something similar to what I plan to employ and that format was accessible. This story was all about text. I will instead focus around the visual story with audio potentially also included.

Augmented Shadow

This project explore the interaction between multiple people who have control over a scene. There are a number of parameter cubes that set the scene but nothing is illuminated until the light cube is used.

I like the use of a  physical to explore the scene. The display that I plan to use will provide a similar illuminating effect by uncovering the scene underneath. The Augmented Shadow project drew the viewers attention to what was going on in the periphery – the shadows – instead of focusing in on the light. Using only an led display on my project will lose this effect. The display will be more of a window that focuses attention. It may be wise to include projection as well so as to mitigate some of the window effect.

Ouija board

While not a project, Ouija boards may serve as an interesting new take on the idea of uncovering the unknown. When a user of an Ouija board navigates the planchette around the board they are uncovering secrets. The OLED display presents a similar opportunity. It may be better to focus on the mystery/discovery piece of the display as opposed to the novelty of the technology.