I'm envisioning a musical instrument akin to a keyboard that retunes
itself.  Wendy Carlos made something like this, I think, but I want
something more versatile.  Monzo lattices, maybe, for selecting notes,
and then separate commands for transposing the whole system of notes
to different roots.
Monzo:
http://tonalsoft.com/enc/l/lattice.aspx

I'd also like to try an instrument that displays its frequencies
linearly instead of logarithmically.  I could do that without one of
these interfaces, but I'd like to try playing it with some kind of
multiple-touch screen.
A pedal or two might help with this as well.

-Chuckk


On 11/12/06, Hans-Christoph Steiner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


Actually, the most difficult thing to do is make it work well in the real
world.  Making it work isn't too difficult, there are lots of working
variations, including the Pd-powered reacTable.  But video tracking is
really limited.  You have to have completely steady lighting conditions
(notice the lights were turned off in that demo).

I used that exact table interface at NIME at IRCAM.  It is certainly nifty,
but it needs work to work in the real world.  The problem with video
tracking is that there is no way to to track your finger, instead it just
tracks shadows.  What happens is if the video tracking looses track of your
finger for one instant, then it thinks you picked up your finger and put it
back on the table. That can definitely screw up your actions.  And
unfortunately which ever video tracking system thing I have seen, that exact
thing happens quite frequently.

Then there are multitouch sensors, which probably more reliably track your
finger, but they are quite slow, so they work fine for moving sliders and
pressing buttons, but for drawing or musical control, they are quite
limited.

I think that using pressure sensors will probably be the better way, over
video tracking, but don't hold your breath either way.  Plus, more
importantly, I haven't seen any killer apps for this yet, that's key.  Sure,
its nifty to wiggle images around and zoom and navigate, but that's a really
simple app.  Try making photoshop with that, where the interface "just
disappears"  I don't think humans could remember enough gestures to map all
the functions in Photoshop, so a menu would probably be necessary.

If you want to see a real killer demo, check  out the 1968 demo of Doug
Engelbart's Augmentation Research Center.  That's a real demo.  They
basically showed up when many people were still using punchcards, and
interactive computing was just beginning to take hold.  They should a
actual, functional system with hyperlinks, a basic GUI, the mouse, video
conferencing, custom computer furniture, etc. when most people were excited
to be using the terminal:

http://sloan.stanford.edu/mousesite/1968Demo.html

I guess I am just sick of the amount of hype these days.  All these "media
labs" put so much energy into hype, instead of making better things.

There, that's my rant.

.hc

On Nov 8, 2006, at 1:02 PM, Kyle Klipowicz wrote:

I think that the most difficult (and useful) thing to do would be some sort
of book keeping to track individual fingers.  Maybe some sort of gloves or
fingertip sensors?  That would make things very flexible.

It sounds neat that you're doing an implementation.  Please post any
satisfying results to the list!

~Kyle

On 11/8/06, Thomas Grill <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> Am 08.11.2006 um 05:46 schrieb Kyle Klipowicz:
>
> I KNEW this had to have something to do with Jeff Han.  Brilliant
technology.  As I understand it, Apple Computer has gotten involved
financially with this.  I'd love to see it implemented!
>
>
>
> Actually this is fairly easy to implement. There are a number of
descriptions floating around in the net.
> Basically you need a transparent acrylic panel, IR emitters, a beamer and
a fast camera, minor drilling and assembling skills and a multi-blob video
tracker.
> I'm currently trying to build such a system.
>
>
> greetings,
> Thomas
>
>
>
> --
> Thomas Grill
> http://grrrr.org
>
>



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