EW's Blog

     This is a very good book if someone want to learn 3D UI. Link (If you cannot access, search the name of book on Drexel library website). Here are the chapters of the book.           It gives definitions to the terms that involve in 3D UI and 3D UI design. Such as, the definition of 3D UI, any UI that involves 3D interaction is 3D UI.       I like the Hardware section of the book, it says any 3D user interface requires display device or output device. Like screen(visual display), speaker(auditory) and keyboard(haptic). For my project, I have 2 main display devices, AR(visual display) and the fabric sensor(Haptic, partially visual). Maybe speaker can be include as well.   

     Professor Diefenbach mentioned I should talk a loot 3D interface instead of just focusing design interface on a flat 2D surface in Wednesday meeting.     Then, I came out some ideas of wrap something with the fabric sensor. First, I think the water bottle might be a good choice to wrap with the sensor. Assume the paper that has brand on is the sensor, I use it to wrap the bottle, and assign the input on it. It will just not be a simple water bottle, it becomes "smarter".     The second idea is use it on a cube. Cube has 6 faces, and it can be break to shape like this. I think a lot people are familiar with this shape. Assume the shape of the sensor is similar to the shape of their image. The user can choose to use it as a flat interface, fold it into a cube and use it or maybe use the sensor to wrap a cube object. And each face has it is own input layout, it can be use for control many things.  I taped my sensors on my storage box, ...

 The Three-Dimensional User Interface     I just found this paper today, I just briefly read the paper and I found out it pretty interesting.  The paper mainly talks about the basic elements of 3D interaction behavior of 3D user interface which are manipulation, navigation and system control.  And it mentions how to reduce user's cognitive load.     The section that caught my attention is the section that talks about the advantages and disadvantages of 3D UI compare to 2D UI. Advantages: Scenario Context, Information Architecture and Layout, Information Visualization, Interaction Experience, Offer New Different Structures and Do Something which 2D Couldn't Realize . One of the disadvantages of 3D UI comapre to 2D UI: "However, 3D UI also has some own shortcomings which is inevitable, such as got lost in a complex map in the 3D scenario which can bring disorientation, spending more time to learn the navigation, slow study being the cost of ri...

     SketchUP is pretty good tool make 3D model and make a concept scene. The figures I used in my concept scene is from the default SketchUp library, you can easily find it.     The player will hold their phone or table and use camera to detect the image which is the sensor.     This one is use for museum or some textile artworks that are kind expensive and should not touch. Since it is kind hard to combine the old textile artwork with the sensor, it will be easier to create a small replica of the tapestry which the user can play it and touch it to know the feel of the material of real artwork.  

        In order to pass the data between phone and PC, I think I will use Open Sound Control(OSC) to do it. There is a convenient assets in  Unity which is extOSC.      The tutorial I have is start with FaceOSC (Git), it can track people's face and use it to do many things. Like use movement of face to control the gameobject.        First, I install extOSC in my Unity and add a OSC receiver script into a empty gameobject named OSC Manager. It will automatically get your local host IP and local port which is very convenient, save time to find it in the internet setting. The IP address and local port are very important, because if it does not match to your other software, it cannot receive any data from them.       Second, once you downloaded the FaceOSC you need to open the setting file and find the port number, then you change the port number in Unity to the number in the FaceOSC setting file....

  Art Inheritance: An Education Course on Traditional Pattern Morphological Generation in Architecture Design Based on Digital Sculpturism     I found a paper that talks about appalling Chinese traditional pattern into modern architecture design. I feel the idea of this paper is quite similar to my idea of my thesis project. We both use Chinese traditional pattern and apply them into our design.      First, they extract the patterns form a complex image and break them into few small parts. Then they use these small pattern to create their own design. When the new pattern is used in the architecture design, it still remains the beauty of the origin pattern and the special meaning.     Also, the paper analysis Chinese traditional patterns and they divide it into three types. Individual style, continuous style and appropriate style. And the paper includes skeleton analysis as well. " No matter what kind of style the patterns are, they are ...

Embroidery     One thing can  complement the design of the sensor, I think is embroidery. It is also one of the Chinese traditional folk art.    If there are empty spaces on the sensor pad, we can knit some beautiful patterns on it to fill up the space.    And there are some research using conductive yards to create pattern.     I am not sure if my sensor is using embroidery technology or not, I probably need to talk to Richard about this.

 Development Progress     The Chinese Zodiac pattern carries specials meaning and it is well known by the people of world. So I tried to design my first Chinese Zodiac sensor layout. And thank Zimo to draw this picture for me.!        The rat is formed by 4 separate shape, and each purple shape is touch area of the sensor. And the input can be customized by the user as well. For example, I can use the two shapes(Control 2 and 3) to move the character to left or right and use Control 1 and 4 for special commend, like use item or special move.      To create correspond actions, I input this mouse pattern into Unity and I animated it with 2D skeleton animation. The 2D skeleton animation is pretty easy to use and it is very good to animate sperate shapes.     But there was a problem when I tried to put my character movement script into my rat. When I played the scene, the rat did not move for unknown reason. Then I think ...

 A Cool AR Project By Adrien M& Claire B     This one is really cool, I think some people may see this when they search AR art or AR exhibition. Click the first image, it can brings you to their website.     The interaction between virtual objects and real world object is fascinating, and the animation of two person is really real. The pause between each step  when the man is walking down from the stair, hair of women and the raid form the sky.