My Personal Planet #1 - test 2

My Personal Planet #1 - test 2, originally uploaded by mdshaub.

My second attempt at making a planet from the same source video from PointGrey. This one has a little stubbier buildings, more foreground, and a better blurring of the center of the image. That turned out pretty well considering I had to cover up the car that shot the video sequence.

If I shot my own footage, I guess I'd have more sky above.

My Personal Planet #1

My Personal Planet #1
Originally uploaded by mdshaub

Well, sort of a departure, but not really spending enough time on electronics recently to make much progress. This is a fun little distraction, not so unlike the Peter Pan series of photos.

Inspired by the small planets found here on Flickr and elsewhere. They reminded me of the Little Prince and I certainly wanted one of my own. I happened upon a sample panoramic video from PointGrey Research (ptgrey.com) and had to try this out.

I'll likely try a version where the buildings aren't so exaggerated next. Maybe shoot some of my own photos/video too.

Processing Research

Some attempts to make grass blowing in the wind yielded interesting results and a little confusion/bewilderment/frustration. Pretty normal.

I found some examples that may help:
3D Grass

Swirling Noise

Trees not Grass

Fluid Dynamics

Pollen Sand Storm

WindChimes Project

Last weekend on a long drive I willed a new idea into existence. I'll try to make a high-tech version of some wind chimes. The project should be more ambient than very literal, both visual and auditory. I'd like to say that the final piece should help connect someone to the outdoors even when they must be inside. It might be more thought provoking to do that through a medium that seems so opposite, so disconnected from nature, and that I like very much.

We'll see how it goes, what form it takes, and if it's one thing or many, separate or interconnected.

Fireflies and Code

I'm back to doing some work in Processing, not to draw trees but bugs. A long story could be told about how I heard a story on Radiolab about Emergence, specifically a story about lightning bugs in South Asia that blink in sync, which led to my receiving a book for Christmas called Emergence, which helped inspire some new art work.

This is the first successful sketch I've written that really does the synchronization I heard about by the lightning bugs. You can interact with the little guys a bit, moving the mouse near them makes them stop blinking, getting out of sync, and they'll try to move away from you a bit as well.










(click the image to see the sketch)

The plan is to work out the "bugs" in the programming, and then build a nice little swarm of electronic lightning bugs that will have the same behavior, and be reactive to people around them as well.

Welcome Visitors

I just realized that Ladyada mentioned my project on her blog.

I much appreciate that, and those of you who have stopped by all the way from Arizona, Missouri, and Maryland. I'm in Los Angeles, so it was nice to see some local attention too.

Please leave a comment if something strikes you. I'll try to keep adding progress so check back once in a while too.

Thanks!

I've also been spotted on Make's website.
Thanks to the visitors from overseas incl: Italy, Russia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Kuwait, Bolivia, Japan, India, UK, and Brazil.

Research

No Research! Really!

no, not really. Just none documented, and nicely displayed. Yet.