Theory

Our theory class


- Posted using Mobypicture.com

Some tests with EEG

Today we did some tests with EEG equipment at the University. More information soon.

WiiMotionPlusArduino

I started to get lost in all those different types of gyros and accelerometers you can find on SparksFun. It takes quite serious research to build an IMU in this way. Although its very interesting I'm afraid we don't have the time for this. I also found some projects of people who connected the Wii Motion Plus to the Arduino, but those slipped my attention. After a tip of Frans I took a closer look to those projects. I think its actualy worthwhile to experiment on this.


http://randomhacksofboredom.blogspot.com/2009/06/wii-motion-plus-arduino-love.html
http://hackaday.com/2009/06/23/wii-motionplus-arduino/

The Mystery of IMU

To measure the movement of the singers head we had the idea to use a Wiimote controller. The Wiimote is cheap and easy to use on a Mac for example by using Osculator to communicate with the Wiimote and the computer. Once the movement data is in the computer you can easily route it via OSC to other applications. In our case we use Isadora. The problem with the Wiimote is that it contains linear accelerometers that measure acceleration along the axes, but no gyroscopes. So it is impossible to measure linear movement along the axes. Recently Nintendo released the Motion Plus extension which ads the gyroscopes to the Wiimote. Only there seems to be no software written yet to measure this data.
So what to do now? Jan Klug gave us the names of possible sensor hardware which we can use. During the research throughout the web I discovered that the device we are looking for has actualy a name. It is called a Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU). For now I have two solutions. The first one is to buy a complete but quite expensive system with the Orient3D sensor of Infusion Systems, or the make one myself with Arduino and connected accelerometers and gyroscopes. The last one is pretty hard and time consuming but way more cheaper. You can buy the sensors online at SparksFun. I found some people who are quite active with this.


www.nearfuturelaboratory.com
http://diydrones.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWDXsKlHvIs

Some sketches for the Opera

Some ideas for the stage design of the Nyman opera. The the one at the top is the most recent one. We think this one should be it. This because of the use of space, and the mix-up of the musicians with the singers and the stage. The walls behind the singers will be used for projections. And Wil of the Grand Theatre will do the light design. Now we are working on techniques to use movement and brain activity measurements of the singers to manipulate the images. Next Tuesday we have an appointment at the RUG to take a closer look at the scan equipment. After that we will meet the person who is going to build the stage design.

The man who mistook his wife for a hat by Michael Nyman

As Ruben already mentioned in his blog, Snow was asked to develop a video concept for this opera. The play is inspired by the book with the similar name written by Oliver Sacks. The story investigates the world of a person with visual agnosia. Such persons see all the visual world of shapes, lines, colours, patterns, movement. But are unable to recognise what they see and have an emotional connection with it. Their world is no longer meaningful or familiar, but strange, abstract and chaotic. We are researching the possibilities to you use EEG scans to measure the brainwaves of the singers, but also for example  to track the head movement. The data we, in a way, want to use to manipulate the video image. We have just started the research so...to be continued.

Blog

Today I will start my blog. With this blog I like to share my thoughts, work and ideas with fellow students, teachers, and people with same interest and vision. Lets make it an inspiring place for everybody.

Adri