Light Distance Away: Final Presentation[Yr3| InteractiveDev| Final Project]

Project done by: EmmaWei LinNatalieWan Hui

Slides Here

Context

In our current pandemic situation where loved ones cannot easily be with each other physically, our device (and setup) aims to stimulate your loved one’s walking movements in your room. It seeks to highlight distant bodies through the absence of the body. 

How the device works

Walking around the space, one’s footsteps are translated into a path of light in a distant room. In both rooms, a path generated by your loved one begins to form and a pair of shoes follow suit.  Watching the shoes move, the distant movement is transported by light to the room one is currently present in. The presence of another body either haunts or comforts us through its absence represented by the shoes. The physical distance between is shortened to a lighted path as both distant bodies now move together in their respective rooms.

Light Distance Away device (footwear)

Light Distance Away (footwear)

DEMO

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Light Distance Away: Mid-Fidelity Prototype [Yr3| InteractiveDev| Final Project]

This is our progress for our Semester Project, Light Distance Away.

Concept Sketch
Concept Sketch
Light Distance Away (footwear)
Light Distance Away (footwear)

Our goals for mid-fidelity stage 

    • Prototype 
      • Track light and draw lines and curve on processing
      • Project the line on the floor 
      • Stable LDR tracking system on motors that follows the lines projected
      • Setting up the area with pixy camera, arduino & projected at the ceiling

Following our low fidelity prototype, we needed to research on how our motor could follow the XY coordinates received. After some consideration, we thought about using light as our method of moving the motors of the automated footwear.

Luckily for us, we already had spent time creating a line in processing which had initially only been there for us to ensure our pathway was tracked. Yet, knowing light could be a viable option, we began to borrow top down projectors and then flipped our code’s background and line colour to display a light line that would draw as one walked around under the pixy camera. 

Thus, we began our prototypes and trials, but not before ensuring our pixy cameras were improved.

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Light Distance Away: Low Fidelity Prototype [Yr3| InteractiveDev| Final Project]

Project done by: EmmaWei LinNatalieWan Hui

Our semester project is called Light Distance Away. It aims to send comfort by the hint of another person’s presence despite them being absent through the use of our setup and device. A camera will track User 1’s movements when they are within the display area and a white line will be projected into User 2’s room based on User 1’s movements. User 2 will then be able to see the personless footwear moving based on the projected line in realtime, ironically creating a rather haunting feeling of an absent presence, while comforting the user with the reminder of this presence. The physical distance between is shortened to a lighted path as both distant bodies now move together in their respective rooms.

We started with 2 separate development paths after researching in depth of possible tracking methods: 

    1. Camera to track object 
    2. Motor to follow path

Continue reading “Light Distance Away: Low Fidelity Prototype [Yr3| InteractiveDev| Final Project]”