IxD Lab 2: work in progress » CONCEPT DESCRIPTIONS

CONCEPT DESCRIPTIONS

: After the concept generation stage of the project students were asked to make a full description of the final concept they would develop and prototype.

THAT SINKING FEELING (TSF)

1 March 2007 – 5:13 pm

AIMS

who is it for?
TSF is a visual information system which gives to the user an immediate sensation about the present and future conditions of the high tide in Venice. Its target is anyone who needs to walk around the city without a “sinking feeling”.

what information does it give?
As Venice is an island linked to the high and low tide mechanism of the Lagoon, TSF allows the users to see in an easy and intuitive way where and when the water is going to raise up/down, to easily plan their movements in the city.
TSF also gives you the possibility to know which kind of boots (or waders) choose depending on the zones you want to visit; the device projects over your body four different rays of light related to the level of each zone.
i.e. When high tide is 100 cm, in San Marco’s square water will reach your knees, but if you’re in Cannaregio it will only touch your ankles. [more ...]

SECRET GARDEN/PLAY A WAVE by Giovanna Nicosia

27 February 2007 – 3:27 pm

According to me Venice has always been that kind of place where it is still something misterious to be discovered.
Where, for sure, the same little stone invites you to have a conversation with it!
I like to think that somewhere in Venice there is the possibility to see who is having information about tide after while he is playing with an anomalous vawe or someone is playing with a misterious being after while the segret garden is revealing his soul.

SECRET GARDEN

AIMS

a] “La caratteristica fondamentale del vivere veneziano, continuo interscambio fra pubblico e privato, viene mantenuta anche nella struttura del giardino” (G.Berengo)
Secret Garden starts as a project to be realized in order to mix togheter private and public space.
It is also a way to share feelings between Venetians and all kind of people that is coming in lagoon.

b] “Il giardino è spesso individuabile, da chi transita per le calli o per i rii, dai ciuffi di verde che sporgono; questi giardini sono una minima parte rispetto a quelli esistenti” (G.Berengo)
Have you never know about the big number of gardens in Venice?
Have you never had the curiosity to get to know what could be behind the wall along the calle?
Have you never try to look at the sky and seeing trees mix up with the sunshine?
SECRET GARDEN project wants to put eyes on the wall to see and make happen the impossible/invisible.
SECRET GARDEN is one special window to give that kind of experience that is more a glimpse than a clear vision of something.
So, SECRET GARDEN is a kind of glance on slow time living memory because the same little plant saves the past (it tells us about conquests or ancient distroied forests).

c] Reading Gianni Berengo Giardini segreti a Venezia, I got many informations about all the possible gardens to be found. It is quite amazing, but looking at the map there are so many gardens! Almost the 50% of Venice is covered of green!
Because of the nasty walls all around the gardens, I suppose to work behind the windows that usually gives us the unic way to have a look inside the garden. It can be possible to find a lot of grid windows or really small ones, but always they are caracterized by the white Istria stone frame. If it is not, I would prefer to make an installation in one blind window (there are many).

EXPERIENCE

a] The experience is based on a game of perceptions. If the user is passing nearby the window installation, first of all, he got a vision of a really bright green. This last is a video of the invisible garden behind the wall, but it is just a fresh view of leaves mixed with light.
When the user is in front of the window (or standing to look at) the previus view of the garden becomes more strange…because misterious presences start to appeare! Nymphs, monsters, Fauns…animations of what is usually standing like fix sculpure in the garden.
In the beginning I was also thinking to make the window as a mirror for each passerby [secretgarden.mov].

b]The emotional tone has to sintetized that typical feelings during the night when you are walking on one lonely calle: surprice and scary, shadows and unexpected noise. It also wants to be a poetic experience of Venetian secrets.

IMPLEMENTATION

a] I am quite sure about the idea in which the installiion has to be as less invasive as possible.
That’s why I going to work behind an hypothetical window or using simply projection of light.
Input:
- Infrared motion sensor/proximity sensor
- Webcam
Output:
- Projector
- Loudspeakears (if I am going to put sound)
- PVC screen for back projection

[system diagram.pdf]

b] For the installation I need a wiring board to coordinate the system with the all elements I mentioned above.
What hardware and software are needed in your final prototype version?
c] Basically I hope to found an interesting grid window where it is possible to put the system installation. If it not, I will do the same with another window even thought not on the calle.
I suppose to be able to build the same system as in the real life system and it should be possible if I have all of the components with me.

UNRESOLVED ISSUES
The mayor tricky is about the code (in Processing) to build the all system.
I still need to understand if I have to put some other instruments in order to project on the screen (what kind of screen?)
but anyway I am already trying to make a video of the garden using little animation of that misterious beings.

PLAY A WAVE

…it is coming!

By giovanna_nicosia | Posted in Blog, CONCEPT DESCRIPTIONS, PROGRESS POSTS, Secret Garden | Comments Off

TREE OF LIFE

27 February 2007 – 11:21 am

Tree of life by Benito Condemi de Felice and Pamela Moscarda

Aims
The project aims to tell visitors to the Venice Ghetto about Jewish culture and history in an interactive and ludic manner.

Experience
Visitors to the Ghetto receive a Bluetooth (short-range radio) headset which guides them around three interactive installations in the Campo del Ghetto Nuovo:
1) The Tree of Life itself, a tree in the square. Activated by photocell, the tree introduces the tour and explains the Venetian origin of the word ‘ghetto’

2) The Sottoportego, an arcaded porch. By standing on a ‘timeline’, the visitor activates a projection on the floor and an audio commentary, which illustrate the history of the Jewish diaspora

3) The Cabbalah Carpet, near the square’s wellhead. By walking on the carpet’s ‘Tree of Life’ pattern, the visitor activates an audio explanation of the meaning of the Cabbalah.

The emotional tone is serious but ludic.

This project concentrates on the Sottoportego.

Experience pdf
Flowchart pdf

Implementation
In a ‘real life’ version, the Sottoportego’s input devices are infrared or ultrasound distance sensors which detect the visitor’s position on the historical timeline. Its output devices are a ceiling-mounted projector which projects an animated map on the floor to show the diaspora in that historical period, and the Bluetooth headset which gives an accompanying audio commentary.
Input and outputs are mediated by a custom-programmed microprocessor.
In our prototype, pressure pads replace the distance sensors, and a laptop replaces the microprocessor.

Unresolved issues
1) How to send audio to the headset and program its sequence with our installation?
2) How to interface the distance sensors with our laptop?
3) What happens if more than one person stands on the timeline installation?

By pamela_moscarda | Posted in Blog, CONCEPT DESCRIPTIONS, Tree of Life | Comments Off

AEQUILIBRIUM by Margherita Urbani & Marco Zamarato

27 February 2007 – 1:30 am

AIMS
[a] AEQUILIBRIUM is an immersive environment where you can experience the equilibrium between the aquatic life of the venitian lagoon and external human influences. The installation is for everyone who walks through Pescheria.
[b] The biological cycle of the lagoon is affected by fishing (intensive or illegal), industrial fisheries, pollution, boats traffic and global warming. AEQUILIBRIUM gives information about these topics in the history of the Lagoon and make a prediction for the future based on the visitors’ behavior in the installation.
[c] AEQUILIBRIUM is located inside the little Rialto fish market (Pescheria) during afternoon and evening.

EXPERIENCE
[a] A projection inside Pescheria continually simulates an aquatic environment. As you enter the system and the fishes react to your presence modifying what is projected on the floor around you. According to your behavior the images around your feet become darker up to disappear and the fishes will run away scared of your presence. In this way you instantly perceive the impact of your actions and understand how to behave properly without damaging the system.
Around the projection area there are eight columns. The columns are divided in pairs and dedicated to four specific topics: fishing, pollution, global warming and disturbances. In each pairs the first column displays the historical data while the second displays a prediction according to the visitors’ behavior.

Number of visitors –> fishing –> affects the number of fishes in the Lagoon
Position of visitors (small or big groups) –> warming –> water starts to boil
Movements of visitors –> pollution –> the area around the visitor becomes darker
Noises –> disturbances (boat traffic, building sites) –> water starts to tremble

[b] We want to create a unique, mesmerising experience. The installation should be beatiful and fragile at the same time. A bit dark and a bit pulsing. Of course it is also a game but wheter you choose to play with it or to explore it in a more seroius way you should immediatly feel and see the weight of your actions.

Watch these videos to get a better idea:
> UVA Volume at Victoria and Albert Museum
> ART+COM 1
> ART+COM 2

IMPLEMENTATION
[a] The main purpose for the implementation is to preserve the flavour of the Pescheria. The installation need to exactly fit the Pescheria environment and need to be invisible during the morning and not to disturb the everyday market activity.
INPUTS:
- Microphones (to check noise)
- Webcams (to check position and movements, since we don’t want to modify the location with sensitive carpets)
- Photocells (to check number of visitors)
OUTPUTS:
- Projector (for the floor environment)
- LED walls (for columns data display)
- Loudspeakers (for general sound environment)

[b] For the real installation we need the previously listed items plus a computer and one or more wiring or arduino boards to control the photocells inputs and the LED walls outputs. Probably more than one projector will be necessary to cover the full Pescheria floor.
[c] For the prototype we are thinking to create a smaller sensitive carpets to simulate the Pescheria floor and a single LED wall to simulate one column. We will need a microphone, a projector, loudspeakers, LED wall (can be simulated with a second projector), wiring board (if we use LED wall).

UNRESOLVED ISSUES
We are now working on graphics and fishes simulation algorithm. For the moment the main unresolved issues are:
- how to get smarter fishes (control position, movements prediction, collisions)
- how to build a sensitive carpets (which technology to use and how to proceed)

> AEQUILIBRIUM presentation

> First fishes prototype

> Back to aequilibrium.

By Marco Zamarato | Posted in Aequilibrium, Blog, CONCEPT DESCRIPTIONS | Comments Off

TALKING BENCH by Alessandra Florian&Tamara Romeo

27 February 2007 – 12:23 am

1.PROJECT NAME
Talking bench

2.AIMS
a. Who is it for?
Talking bench is an informative bench for tourists.
In many case foregners come just for few days in Venice and have problems to orient themselves and to exactly know what they are watching (maybe they passing in front of a famous building but they don’t notice it).
This bench tries to gives useful information to orient people giving also history pills about where these people are.
b.What information does it give?
First it tells the name of the square where you are. After it starts giving information about the buildings near the bench and their history according to what you are watching.
c. Where is it?
Campo S. Stefano in Venice. This square is a passing place for a lot of tourists and offers different kind of possible information to tell (DIRECTIONS - Rialto, S.Marco, Accademia- FAMOUS BUILDINGS- Palazzo Pisani, Loredan, Chiesa di S.Stefano, Chiesa di S.Vidal…-).

3.EXPERIENCE
a. What happens?

The system gives audio recordings dealing with the square starting to the name of the pace, to names of buildings arriving to curiosities. It tells things according to the gaze of the viewer. In fact the bench can turns on itself and its motion allow people to see different buildings and in relation to what you are seeing the seating gives you the name and history of this particular place in that very moment you are watching it.
When the tourist sit on the bench it recognizes the nationality of him/her from a trasponder card programmed with this information. The card is gaven to tourists at their arriving in Venice.The device can now set the audio with the right language.After it starts to tell the name of the square and take the position in witch the bench stay.According to the angle covered by the bench it chooses the audio and play it.On the floor is putted a circular carpet divided into section corresponding to the different audio areas.Between two audio areas there is a silent area where people that don’t want to listen the audio can stay.People movements on the bench can also change the volume.
When the tourist is in the middle of an audio area the volume is at maximum but it decrease moving far away the center and slowly it fades out near the next audio area to give the feeling of the audio that is changing.
b. Emotional tone

Tourists can use the bench in their relaxing moments of their travelling day.
Bench’s sounds create an atmosphere that involve people into the history of the square giving a nice and unexpected experience of the place where they are.
At least the bench can be also a place where socialize. Each person can face the others and this could be a starting point for socialization.

4.IMPLEMENTATION
a. What are system inputs and outputs?
System’s inputs are basically the pressure maden when you sit down on the bench, person movements and the information contained in the transponder card.
Audiomessages, their changing and the volume increasing and decreasing are the outputs.
There’s also a fisical feedback given by the carpet on the floor that communicates to you through a bumb the audio that changes.
b. What hardware and software are needed in real life and witch ones in the prototype?
The system includes transponder card, a potentiometer to pick up the position angle, and speakers.
The final prototype will be a real chair in 1:1 scale with the carpet and the seating’s base, maden by us.
It will requires just the potentiometer and speakers.

5.UNRESOLVED ISSUES
One problem is the visual feedback in the bench’s carpet on the floor. Not all audio areas on the carpet take the same space because there are parts full of near buildings and with a lot of information and others empty because without relevant news.
It’s good to have a visual and fisical feedback on the floor but it causes many problems. We decide to cut off some buildings and put just few area without audio (there isn’t one for every pair of audio zones).

Another problem is related with the bench shape that we try to design but maybe could be improved by more expert industrial design students.

The system requires tags (the transponder card) to recognise languages, the diffusion of this cards between tourists maybe could represent a problem at beginning.

Talking Bench presentation

By alessandra_florian | Posted in Blog, CONCEPT DESCRIPTIONS, Venice 360º | Comments Off

Flyercafè

26 February 2007 – 9:39 pm

Flyer Café
by Davide Cocchi and Luca De Rosso

Aims
The system projects ‘flyer’ advertisements on a bar counter and allows customers to browse them and print them. It aims to combine, in an engaging and interactive way, the unregulated liveliness which characterizes fly-posted advertisements in city streets, with the congenial habits and gestures of Italian bar life. The site is Il Muro bar in the Rialto area of Venice.

Experience
The system has two types of user: the advertiser, and the customer (the reader of the flyer).

Advertisers can compose, on their computers or mobile phones, simple postcard-like flyers. These can be transmitted, either in or near the bar premises, to the bar’s Flyer Café system by Bluetooth,. Each flyer can be given a broad category: concerts, apartments for rent, etc.

The emotional tone of this transaction is efficient simplicity.

Customers’ experience is similar to that of a normal visit to a bar. Assuming that they know what they seek, they say for example to the barista, ‘Hi!, Give me a tea with lemon in a ‘concerts’ cup’. When the cup is placed on the bar counter, images of all flyers in this category appear, like floating postcards, on the counter and begin to approach the cup.

Customers can drag and read all the flyers. To enlarge one, they rotate a cup on it. To print one, they place onto its image an apparently standard paper-napkin dispenser; a concealed printer in the dispenser disgorges a napkin printer with the flyer’s image.

The emotional tone is informal and playful. The flyers are intentionally not presented in an orderly way. Instead, customers must drag them and ward them off to find what they seek. They learn to use the system by experimenting with its behaviour, not from a manual.

This project concentrates on the customers’ experience.

Implementation
For the advertiser, the input devices are Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones, laptops, PDAs, etc.

For the customer, the inputs are the cup type (for the category) and rotation, and the position of their hands, the cup and the dispenser; this information is detected and interpreted by an image-recognition system installed under the counter. The output devices are the counter (an active luminescent screen or a translucent surface for back projection), and the napkin dispenser. Inputs and outputs are mediated by software on a computer.

For the ‘real life’ version, the image-recognition system must be able to distinguish: 1) cup positions, categories (by colour or pattern) and rotation, 2) finger positions, and 3) dispenser positions. Active luminescent screens might also avoid the heat build-up and maintenance problems of projection.

For our prototype version, image recognition only distinguishes the position of pattern-marked cups and fingers; we have modified ready-made reacTIVIsion recognition software, and hope to use a higher-resolution camera than we have at present. Images are projected upwards onto a translucent counter. And the dispensers have no printer. But we hope to demonstrate communication between a phone and the projection system.

Unresolved issues
1) Animation of flyer images.
2) Possible sophistication of image recognition, and the need to pattern-mark fingers for the prototype.
3) Software and input devices for inputting flyer images from the advertisers.

>> video

By Luca | Posted in Blog, CONCEPT DESCRIPTIONS, Flyer Café | Comments Off

WAV

26 February 2007 – 5:06 pm

Wav by Francesco Fraioli & Nicola Plaisant

Aims
a.This installation is for everyday users of the vaporetto service in venice, and also for casual tourists.
b.It gives information about both vaporetto and people approaching to the stop.
c.It is in the vaporetto stop of Ca’ Rezzonico, and in the calle lunga San Barnaba from campo S.Barnaba to Ca’ Rezzonico.

Experience
a.In the vaporetto stop you’ll have a music that become louder with the approaching of the vaporetto. The behaviour of the people that have to take the ship modify the sound adding instruments to the music. If there’re people in time the music will be tuned, if they’re late the music will be disturbed.
In the calle you’ll have several small leds modules, that tells graphically the vaporetto approaching. If you’re in time, thanks to your ticket’s rfid tag, the nearest display will lights also a green led. If you are late, the led will be red.
b.The emotional tone is really informal, because the main purpose is to give a quality to the place and to the actions related to the vaporetto stop. We want to create an opportunity for the people to communicate each other.

flowchart_int.pdf

presentation.swf

Implementation
a.Inputs: vaporetto approach, people approach.
Outputs: music, graphic.
b.Real life installation: hardware>rfid tags, leds or oleds, computer, speakers, wi-fi or gps antennas for ship approaching. Software>processing-like program, computing distances and speeds.
c.Prototype: hardware> wiring boards for manage inputs and outputs, leds or projections, scale model for assembly a set. Software>processing (programming), max-jitter/pd (programming, implementation of graphic and sound), ableton live (music edit), flash (presentation).

WAV system

Unresolved Issues
a.Representing both directions of vaporetto n.1. b.Light feedback on leds modules: how big? Shape? Color? c.How protoype the model, how to give the real feeling?

By nicola_plaisant | Posted in Blog, CONCEPT DESCRIPTIONS, WAV | Comments Off

Tree of life - Design Crit

26 February 2007 – 2:22 pm

Tree of life is an interactive tour in the ghetto of Venice.
It’s compound of 3 different experiences on the subject of the place, the jewishian people and the religion.

Design crit presentation _ Team BP

By pamela_moscarda | Posted in Blog, CONCEPT DESCRIPTIONS, PROGRESS POSTS, Tree of Life, Uncategorized | Comments Off