The notes below are informal, unedited and anonymized remarks captured into a shared Google document during the students' presentations of Project 3, "Capture of a Place".
Wow, that’s a real difference between visible and UV. Why do you suppose the flowers are so dark in UV?
Would have recommended using people -- we’re able to distinguish that people look different under UV better than, e.g. rocks. Would be nice to see A/B comparisons of the UV and Visible.
This project seems to me like a good candidate for a wet/dry mix. Visible light vs. UV.
It would be interesting to see different options when rendering the final scans, and what choices could help exaggerate the differences between UV and regular models.
The Flower scans came out much better than I saw it last, maybe also presenting your ‘flower landscape’ may be good; I thought those were really engaging since it presented the existing world in a new fashion.
The flower scan was pretty cool. It would have been great if you could have had a larger variety of flowers (diff colors,etc)
It would be interesting to present standard monochromatic images along with the UV images in order to have a baseline for seeing the difference that the UV brings out.
a combination of image capture techniques side by side would be nice to see. The contrast between the yellow flowers and their dark ultraviolet counterparts was really nice.
For presentation purposes it would be best to start with the clincher of your project and then mention the definition of ultraviolet. Also, it wasn't really necessary to explain UV to us, since Golan had already done so in lecture..
Would really have loved to see an entire environment (world/place) in UV, something we could look around in and see the strange differences.
I wonder what would have happened if you mapped the UVs to a different color scheme, because it’s not obvious that you’re using UV from the images alone
Virtual environment Project in which the viewer “destroys” what they’re looking at while they’re using a google cardboard
Kind of like Snapchat with google cardboard. ‘Constructed’ environment has a good relationship with time since it is a unique ‘gift’ that’s given to you for a certain period of time.
I feel like the infinite plane/skybox is not ideal for your world. I think there should be a sense of being at a scene, and not the sense of being in this empty field with a few artifacts around you.
I’m not loving the “collagey” quality of the world -- it looks copy-pasted together, with inconsistent lighting and illumination. I wish it were more of a single coherent place rather than a copy-pasta-environment. It would be great if you had instead used a single “set”, scanned the objects in-place, then removed them, then scanned the environment.
I think the disappearing itself is very beautiful. It’s a pretty evocative idea. However, I think the content of the world didn’t really make sense with the fading away. For example, what is the meaning of the young woman fading away vs. the hurt homeless man? I think the objects in the space should have more of a conversation with the ephemeral/ non-temporary quality of the world. (+1)
“good looking lady” is this a VR experience for the male gaze? (+1)(+1)(+1) -- be careful, boys. Male gaze much?
would be nice to be able to see through walls, to see what’s beyond. See this project by Chris O’Shea: http://www.chrisoshea.org/out-of-bounds
Also see “Zerseher” by Joachim Sauter and Dirk Lusebrink, and “World Skin” by Maurice Benayoun & Jean-Baptiste Barriere. Relevant for projects in which the viewer deletes/destroys the image/world they're watching. Would be great if you could include some discussion of relevant prior art in your project documentation.
So, why a homeless person? (+1) -- what are you getting at? This needs conceptual tuning. What’s the project “about”?
I like how the fact that everything fades means that at some point, you’re stuck looking at something you might have wanted to avoid seeing.(+1)
What happens when everything disappears in the world? If you make everything disappear…
Interesting that the floor is what remains
###Smokey & Ryan - Any Given Tuesday Night
This is something that really leaves the viewer begging for more. After I experienced it I really wanted to go get up and walk around inside of it, looking for clues to solve a mystery or some shit
The quality of the scanning technology leads to bumpiness and textures that don’t perfectly align. Your choice of a horror style setting makes these technical limitations feel more natural.
Lovely DIY VR, great evocation of emotion and environment
see Blackout by Specular, a VR film that takes place in an NYC subway
I like how the photoscan artifacts make the place look moldy, which contributes to the overall atmosphere.
interesting how the shortcomings in the scanning technology guide our read of the scene (e.g. post-apocalyptic feel)
Great selection for a scene, it's very cinematic and the idea of using immersive sound is great. Does the room shake when the train comes by? (ye)
20 GB of photos… I feel ya. The quality of the scans turned out really great so it was definitely worth it. It was smart to take advantage of the bumpy eroded quality and use it to add to the realism.
Really love how the audio and visual components of the piece complement and amplify each other.
Totally cinematic, lovely-filthy capture of a place -- really transports me there. Is this a Unity app you can make downloadable?
Fidelity to a feeling, rather than fidelity to a light field. Expressive rather than analytic
The flickering of the lights is a really lends to an eerie effect that complements the haptic feedback, sound, and overall scene visuals
I love the kitchen. I really want to experience it now and it’s sad you guys don’t have time for a real demo of the project :( but I like the visual quality of it still. This has potential to become a series of works (possibly a number of different spaces)
Given how strong a feeling the sound invokes in the viewer, going so far as to rumble their seats, it might be interesting to have the environment have a slight jitter or effect as well (What if you made this into a horror game where the pop-tart is the source of all evil?) (+1)
###Michelle Ma - Point Cloud Slitscanning (Explorations)
I would love to see a future version of this project that was a video version of the point cloud slit scan. What about a moving slit???
This is beautiful, but like many of the other slit scan examples we’ve looked at in class, the choice of content is key to making it more than just a pretty thing to look at. (+1)(+1) I agree, I wish this wasn't just your friends waving their arms. There exist people (dancers, acrobats, athletes, actors, mimes...) who are experts in moving in interesting ways.
This is beautiful. (+1) It looks so cool! Kudos for trawling through all of that data. +1
Please refer to Memo Akten’s Kinect Slit scanning (see Vimeo) as a prior reference.
reminds me of the manga Uzumaki (tw: very creepy) + 1
WOW. Would be interesting to do some very specific motion studies -- Eadward Muybridge like. Specifically circular movements, linear walking, jumping jacks, and then see these contrasted with the videos that produced them. Also, is it possible to propagate the slit-scans in time somehow (or use a moving slit?)
Very cool idea to do xyz silt scan! Would be cool to see it in real-time. It would be interesting to be able to play with time in some way I think a great future direction will be to play with point cloud visualizations and things to do with renders. Point clouds are so pretty to begin with (especially with such a good capture), how can we ramp it up?
It would look amazing on black ofBackground(0, 0, 0); (+1) -- would like to see the body forms isolated from the floor / lights.
Use ofxTimeline for better camera movements.
Give us a link to download this data!! the meshes also were compelling since they looked like landscapes from motion. But I agree that the point clouds look much better
somehow animating the points as well as// instead of the camera might be interesting
Peeking at your code you should switch from a ofMesh to a ofVboMesh (→ why?) -> Answer a ofVboMesh is loaded to the GPU once while an ofMesh is loaded to the GPU every frame. You will get better frame-rates during playback.
Very beautiful. I love the documentation and presentation of what is essentially an exploration of technology. It would be great if you can actually have movement here so we can see how the shapes alter.
Was the slit-scanning applied post-processing the data? It could be interesting to allow the user to play with the x/y/z aspect of the slit scan while interacting with the app - though that would make it more of a play with slit scan rather than a curated experience
The artifacts are as interesting as the process. Brava! As this was more of an exploration of the technology and of the aesthetics of form and movement over time, I wonder how you might be able to apply it in social situations to create purposeful change.
###Vidya & Liz - 360-Drone Experiments
Looks like you have a light leak of some sort - a mismatch from the lens to the camera, like a gap... The glare looks bad, it just hammers on the quality of the experience. Also, too bad you couldn’t just crop the final video to the single strip. Seeing the entire “app” (with the cylinder, strip, and donut) is confusing, because I’m not sure where to focus my attention.
Be sure to cite the source of your audio.. not sure about your music selection, honestly -- is this really the best of all possible tracks to use. Note that If you’re using copyrighted audio, your video might be taken down. (+1) It would be best to carefully choose some free/Creative-Commons audio from Archive.org.
Are you flying through hallways? If so what is the advantage of using a drone over a dolly?
The glares and spots on the lens or mirror’s are easy fixes. The light leaks from the drone’s larger-than-360 camera could have been covered up easily, and prevented some of the issues.
Any chance of putting this in Youtube (or some other) 360 video player?
It would be interesting to play with that video more - stabilization removed from the drone’s shakes.
I like how you scaled down the hole in the center using matlab. It gives a nicer optical effect. +1+1
for the promo vid- start speeding the vid when the music speeds. Will probably be more compelling and exciting. Also, video of outdoors would be more aesthetically pleasing for the vid.
Flying drones indoors? That’s bold. Maybe change the music? (+1) (+1)
Could try it in monochrome perhaps or lowering the brightness. Seems to be too much light in the picture.
Looks like a water droplet. Maybe use that aesthetic and record something more natural(+1) It would look like a painting.
not sure what you did to the video? You unwrapped it and then put it back? Not well explained...
whoa – i love the effect of the video applied to different forms like a cylinder
Have you tried extruding the video into a physical form? Or have you tried using it with photogrammetry? The visual effects are quite interesting—I wonder how you could begin to develop the capture into a more animate, present form.
###Swetha & Nivetha - Pulse Scape
360 yt video, good job.
Looks like you both learned a lot. Capturing heartbeats, making 360 videos.
Watch your shadows from the camera operator! :)
Visualising a non visual personal effect like a heartbeat is a great idea. The blur effect was a little distracting for me. Maybe color or stretching could be used instead of blur.
I really liked your idea to of capturing the “danger” a woman feels at night. Would have liked to also see a data visualization to really see the profile of the spaces you walked through.
really nice job mimicking heartbeat in video edit but sort of distracting “documenting a woman’s heartbeat as she navigates space at night” really compelling idea.
that purse contraption is amazing. I think the blurring effect is very compelling!
there is a sense of looming danger but no real danger from the footage you showed ^- Lots of indications of narrative - characterization, journey; but no apparent narrative given? It can still be non-fiction and ‘real’ with some kind of motivation for the characters actions. Who is the voyeur and why are we watching THIS person on THIS night?
i appreciate your attention to sound (+1) Where did the audio of the heartbeat come from? Did you sync that later to your BPM recording?
i wonder if the viewer becomes a stalker in this scenario .. would be interesting to play with that line .. is the woman aware of the viewer following her?
I think it was interesting that you decided to associate heart beat to an effect of visual blurring, as if a quickening heartbeat leads to disorientation. In the case of walking alone at night, this could be the case, but a quickening heartbeat in another situation could be associated with anticipation and excitement, which visual blurring might not accurately capture.
have you seen that radiolab about heatbeats? http://www.radiolab.org/story/heartbeat/
I think you could push this idea even more.. Heartbeats at night, fear, movement. Seems like a rich space to explore further. Could do some simple color correction to make the video less DSLRy.
Covering up the person filming with the project title is quite clever!
I really appreciate the way in which the video is not a representation of the world, but rather puts you inside the head of the individual and their experience of the world, but I wonder whether the vouyeristic nature is juxtaposed to that and divides my attention between my experience of the world, and the character’s
Watching the video with the blur and the sound of the pulse actually started to make my heart beat with it. Such a weird feeling!
###Katie Rose Pipkin - Rover Materials Test
This reminds me of the Mouse and the Motorcycle movie. It’s an interesting first person venture. Your concept also reminds me of Marcel Duchamp’s With Hidden Noise, which is a box that has something in it that no one can see.
This looks like it is very interesting work, but your presentation of it is missing important information, for me. From what you showed, I don’t understand the goal you’re working towards, and how much of this is unfinished. An overview diagram or sketch would help a ton. A picture of this “box” you mention and what it might be like on the inside.
I would love to hear more about the inspiration. (In particular, the concept for a constructed universe.) Perhaps sharing a little information about the history of the project along with future goals would help.
Makes the world look like new terrain: reminded of space rovers but in a familiar space
Lots of difficult technical challenges solved here.(+1)(+1)(+1)
Relates a bit to the context of controlling a character in a videogame. I like the conceptual idea that the place is physical and near-by.
I wonder if you could use this enough that it felt like an extra limb. I’ve heard that some people with prosthetic limbs have this experience. A prosthetic removed in space is a fascinating idea.
The juxtaposition of a fairly modern/high tech possibility of building your own robot video car with the old style analogue tv - disjoints the project from a particular place and time
Love the aesthetic it reminds me of my childhood, with the old tv on the ground and the tiny shiny toy, its like when i was a child i would be concerned to what my toys could see, and i would make sure that they had a view of something. This gives a toy eyes. But I wish there was a focus on your own goals with this project, because i dont think what i see in it is close to what you wanted it to convey.
The landscape needs to become an environment towards play - exploration, discovery, experimentation.(+1)
I really like the effect of dissociating line of sight and exploration -- in this case, not even knowing what the rover looks like. Does it even matter? Does knowing what our own eyes look like affect what and how we see? Probably not. (+1)
This reminds me a lot of Braitenberg vehicles, but without the autonomy. I wonder how you could make one of these into a b.v. and what kind of personality you could program into it (and in turn, why you would program it with a certain personality). Would this personality change depending on how you interact with it? Or if you are able to control it with a controller, perhaps the more you abuse it (the more you bump it into a wall), the more it “decides” to ignore your commands and develop its own internal models and behaviors (+1)
###Melody Ting - Schenley Park from a kite?
It’s great that you took advantage of the autumn view and clear skies. It’s kind of like a landscape painting with wind as a medium.
GREAT. You’ve stumbled into uncharted territory. Wow. Keep going.
These images are stunning. (+ 1) I would love to see a huge scale version of this that was captured over a large geographical space. Maybe instead of a kite you could use a balloon with fins or something similar.(+1)
I can’t stop staring at that collage(+1)
How can you control the distortion? Is it a rolling shutter?
i like how you used digital painting techniques and didn’t try to do everything computationally. also nice that you left the rectangular boundaries of the images.
The images are pretty compelling themselves. It’s very compelling. I like the idea that this is the image of the world from the sky. Like Slit scanning the earth.
Wow. The artifacts created with the camera are so wonderfully beautiful.
i think your strength here is in your eye and visual sense- these could be considered broken by a lot of people, but you have chosen to work within their space.
The collage of the clear image with the distortions of the wind is fascinating - in some ways it’s not just a landscape of the physical world we normally see, but also of the wind currents. Might be interesting to pair it with DOF information to see the artistic effects composed with the actual wind current data
The distortion of place over such a large area reminds me a lot of psychogeographic maps, which are used to convey anti-functional information such as the feeling that an environment lends to a person.
Could be nicer on a black background. Very cool that the movement of the images, the effect, parallels the idea of a flying kite. Nice balance between the idea of flying and the effect. (+1)
###Miles Peyton - Language of Ants
This graphical style and color really captures my imagination.
I’m floored. WTF -- in a good way.
This project pretty much defines the term “experimental”. Good job!
Impressively imaginative, absolutely unique.
There do exist some techniques for using a camera to capture video from a screen; you need a fancy video camera with the ability to set the precise timing of the shutter.
I need context beyond the story. I have no idea what I’m looking at. The colors are nice.
Would like to see some tutorials of all the things you used. The software sounds very interesting and you used them in an interesting context. (Face Shift sounds cool!)
Why is there bouncing? (Mocap. Got it.)
Fever dream that im looking at selfie video by young man with a kid voice.
A lot of the decisions in the delivery I do not understand, like the bugs (bugs?) on the character. Related to the story? If they are, what is the relation between the storyteller and the story, then?
Did not know that that was a trampoline until you explained it. The rhythm is jarring and uncomfortable. I am not sure how the trampoline gets you to a final ‘storyteller’ state.
I would love to hear more about your choice to include the trampoline.
There’s a lot going on at the same time and in some ways I wonder if some of the wow factor is lost by constantly being pulled in a different direction - would be very interested to see what I get out of it on repeat viewings
The voice seems well suited and at the same time, I am wondering who this kid is, because of the title I keep thinking ‘ant’ so I get an impression that there is an ant perched and narrating on his arm
Everything you chose to include (the bouncing, the weird thing on the chest, the BG, etc) seems to far away from each other but makes so much sense. I found myself accepting what was happening quicker than I should have. It would be cool if the story is generative but ends with the same line (about the ants). (smokey: I have a lot of research papers on generative stories I can give you)
Kind of scares me(+1)
The narrative is beautiful, uncanny with voice and motion, but if you take time to listen it’s very poetic and surreal.
i love love love this !!
###Ben Snell - Lidar Street Photography (ongoing)
This project is interesting, beautiful, and potentially useful. Great job! Terrific investigation. “The observer and observed became intertwined”
I look forward to reading some of the technical details of the project! Can you shorten intervals? How dense can this information get? (+1) Or go the opposite direction - make them more sparse. maybe the intervals can be linked to a heart beat or steps or something like that.
Really great personal rig setups. Your captures a really clear and really say a lot about people moving in parallel, which is an everyday occurrence but we don’t get to characterize those fleeting moments too frequently.
Is there a way to make this interactive - there were a lot of times as it moved through space that I got a sense of a place, but I wanted to check it out how the shape looked in a different angle or context over time
so beautiful (+1)(+1)(+1)
the little square bit size piece you showed is stunning, it took my breath away
I love the stealth mode you went into (+1) when making this project, the concern you have for scanning people without them knowing is really special and i like that you felt conscious about that.
Want to see an animated flythrough. Such great data. You’re ready to out some vector displacement effects on it and make a music video. The project is very evocative (+1)
###Irene Alvarado & Will Miao - Seeing people in your eyes
Now that I think about it, I wonder about the necessity of detecting the irises automatically. If you allow the easement of this being a project done on canned (pre-recorded) video, why not just use hand-markup to locate the eyes? Really, it’s not that bad! Make a piece of software to assist with eye location annotation ..
Good preliminary setup. Strong foundation for further research.
Are there photos available out in the world that you could use to look at the reflections? That could add some really interesting meaning behind the images. Alternatively what you chose the for the person to be looking at has the potential for huge conseptual power.
i don’t fully understand why you want to hide the camera in the first place
I love the idea you mentioned of 360 video and 2 sets of eyes - where do eyes look/what do they see when they’re in relation to another set of eyes. Really love to see where it goes (+1)
To ‘get rid’ of a camera, why not telephoto lens? Or other methods to ‘hide’ the camera?(+1)
There are some very very tiny high quality cameras...
Wow -- your eye captures are AMAZING. Wonderfully evocative images. I know you’re trying to remove the camera from the equation, but I think there’s something incredibly meaningful about seeing the source of observation in the observer. After all, the act of observation is inextricably linked in space and time with the observer (yeah physics!).
###Claire Henschker - Thermal Imprint Texturing
The heat imprints sort of give lifeless objects some sort of life, demonstrating that there is some residual connection of person and object.
Could try printing hands on furniture… could look cool since they might be very recognizable. (+1) Nice little touches like the iphone on the couch and the sweaters. Details that position the person in a space even though its all virtual.
I feel like this needs another pass, one more iteration, but this is a GREAT start.
I like the idea of public spaces, but given how long you said the imprints last I wonder whether you’d be able to get as much interesting information amidst all of the noise.
I wonder if there is a clever way to use the Agisoft ‘markers’ to allow for photogrammetry.
I think the chair was pretty successful because it was really obvious where the butt was. The coach wasn’t as compelling to me since I couldn’t see the human form as much. It has potential to be a pretty interesting set of gifs.
Kind of romantic considering it’s a butt, but the simplicity of the static environment juxtaposed with fading prints is kind of glitchy and fascinating. Would be interesting to map people’s movement based on their heat tracks.
Beginning of something really cool - could put together a whole room to tell a story. Def a story telling tool. Reminded me of : http://www.sundtrak.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/sex-dust-car.jpg
