Keywords:
Public Installation, Tangible Interface, Digital Art, Design Implementation, Mixed Reality
Technology:
AR Toolkit, IO Coupling Display, Visual C++, OpenGL
Related Link:
http://www.sciart.or.kr: official exhibition site
CONCEPT of “BEING MONDRIAN”
Being Mondrian is a public installation which enables people to draw Mondrian-like paintings. People can draw black lines and colored rectangles via simple interaction using novel tangible interfaces.
We witnessed tangibility offered participants the sensation of doing ‘something’ actively and performed as mediators between reality and virtuality; a mouse may not give participants the same experience with the tangible interface, “Drawing Kit”. IO-coupling display, “Mondrian Stage” enhanced the audiences’ immersion to a process of painting.
HOW IT WORKS
We contrived a set of interactive drawing system composed of “Drawing Kit” and the “Mondrian Stage”: a drawer puts the Kit and the Stage reflects the result of the interaction between her and the Kit.
Mondrian Stage, basically a translucent acrylic 1m*1m board, enables a participant to locate the tangible interface on it. It also functions as an interactive canvas representing her action with the interface.
Drawing Kit is a set of tangible interfaces, i.e. a package of two frames and different colored chips made of acryl. One has four blank spots where colored chips can be inserted in. The other has two blank spots for chips, whose colors are blue, red, yellow, and white.
Being Mondrian = Mondrian Stage + Drawing Kit
Drawing Kit = Frames + Chips
These colors are chosen according to our precedent analysis of Mondrian’s works. Each colored chip has a distinct marker on its rear side. Then connected computer recognizes the position of the frame and the colors of chips through tracking the markers via a camera. The technology to detect the different objects (chips of four colors) is ‘ARToolkit’, which tracks the markers and generate virtual objects.
To create her artwork, the drawer starts to choose either four-spot-frame or two-spot-frame. Then she picks up the chips fit to the frame and put them onto the spots of the frame. Now the tangible drawing interface is completed and ready to be located on the Stage.