Augmented Reality is nothing new, but till now it was mostly a nerdy webcam demo thing. But when you use a mobile phone like the iPhone, where you can move the camera and the display in one device, the user experience could really become enjoyable. Just think of all the possible applications with this technology. ARToolworks developed a version of the free ARToolKit (a software library for building Augmented Reality applications) for the iPhone. In this video they show us a preview, unfortunatly they only managed to get 10 frames per second. But maybe with some help from Apple they could boost the speed over 20 fps.
Warning, mute the sound of the video right away! Believe me!
This new music video for ‘House of Cards’ by Radiohead is quite different. This video wasn’t shot with video cameras or even lights, but with a laser device and some sort of scanner which delivered 3D data.
Two technologies were used to capture 3D images: Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR. Geometric Informatics scanning systems produce structured light to capture 3D images at close proximity, while a Velodyne Lidar system that uses multiple lasers is used to capture large environments such as landscapes. In this video, 64 lasers rotating and shooting in a 360 degree radius 900 times per minute produced all the exterior scenes.
So far so good, the cool thing is that is an open source project on Google Code. Even the 3D data was composited with Processing, an open source programming language and environment, to make the final video. You can also download that data and make your own remix and submit it to the YouTube ‘House of Cards’ group. Here is an interactive Flash 3D data visualisation to get you excited.
The Kinetic sculpture at the BMW Museum in Munich is build with 714 suspended metal balls. The sculpture moves through a cycle of free abstractions and typical BMW vehicle forms.
Karsten Schmidt (a.k.a. Toxi) was commissioned by PRINT Magazine to create his own generative letterforms for the August 2008 cover. He used the Gray-Scott reaction diffusion model in a Processing sketch (an open source programming language) to generate a 3D typographical model. That 3D file was then printed with a 3D printer and photographed for the cover. You can read a short interview with him at the PRINT Magazine website. In this Flickr set you can find more photos and images of the whole process.
Here is a video of an early Processing sketch, the 2D frames where later stacked to a 3D model.
This is short clip from a live set by Etienne de Crécy, a French house producer, during the Transmusicales festival in Rennes, France, last year. 10 years ago he was quite popular with his Super Discount album, but apparently the French filtered house is still not dead … But the only reason to watch this clip is his stage show, or to be more precise the projections. He stands inside some sort of half transparent Rubik’s Cube on which some very nice animations are shown. Exyzt, an architectural collective form Paris, was responsible for this unique light show. (Their website doesn’t seem to be available now.)
So watch it now and don’t forget to turn down the sound!
play > smart is a small website to promote the smart in Japan. You can customize your own car and the drive it in simple game. You can even printout a paper model of your design. The game itself is quite simple, you just have to follow the numbers. In the end you’ll get a drawing, almost like those GPS ones. Worth checking out.
Magnetic Movie is a film by Semiconductor. They made magnetic fields visible in a very nice way, 3D CGI at its best, while scientists from NASA’s Space Sciences Laboratory excitedly describe their discoveries. Watch it!
EDIT: To set things straight, this video is a 3D CGI visualisation of how magnetic fields could look like. It is not real, just a mix of video footage with computer generated imagery.
Paper Wars is small exhibition of the Death Machines series of paper reproductions of classic weapons systems, organized by PostlerFerguson. PostlerFerguson started with their AK-47 Paper Gun Model Kit and expanded the series with 4 more weapons. Now they asked some other designers to work with that AK-47 kit as a starting point for a new design.
I’m really against guns, but the fact that this Oerlikon 35mm anti-aircraft gun is made with paper, is quite impressive.
