The Adventures of the Original Hamster

I’m really interested in stereoscopy, which you might have guessed, if you’ve ever seen me running around with my View-Master camera. In my opinion, View-Master is still a superior method for viewing stereoscopic images, but it’s only still images. That’s why I wanted to see if I could improve the design and make an interactive View-Master for animations.

This little hybrid between Mickey Mouse and Steve Mann enables you to control and view stereoscopic animations that are animated in real-time.

It’s an old View-Master viewer modified to have ChromaDepth lenses, some custom buttons, accelerometer, bluetooth radio and an Arduino to control it all. I thought about hiding the electronics with bigger ears, but decided not to, because I like the ghetto-cyborg look he’s got going on there.

So how does it work? You look through the viewer to the screen where you will see some 3-layer Månsteri-action in all of it’s stereoscopic glory. The great thing about ChromaDepth stereoscopy is that it works with basic colors. You don’t need two channels for the video to achieve a 3D-effect. On a dark background, everything that is blue will appear to be in the background and everything that is red will appear to be in the foreground. Colors in the spectrum between blue and red will appear to be somewhere in the middle. If you didn’t understand my explanation, look it up on the interwebs.

The accelerometer detects your motion and will move the character on the middle layer, giving the illusion that the character is trying to mimic your movement. You can control the content of the layers with the three buttons on the side of the viewer. Button three controls the background, button two the middle layer and button one controls the foreground. Check out the video and you’ll understand what I mean. If you have ChromaDepth glasses, put them on to see the 3d effect.

The Arduino sends the sensor data and the button states wirelessly via bluetooth to my computer. The information is parsed in Max/MSP, which in turn sends the data as OSC packets to Animata (my favourite software at the moment). Animata then animates everything in real-time and handles the hiding/revealing of different layers.

If you are interested, I have uploaded the Arduino and Max 5 source codes and also the Animata scene. It’s all very specific to my setup, but someone might find it useful. Download the source.

Pow! Sorry for the lack of updates. I moved to Montréal a month ago and I don’t have Interweb connection at home yet, so I haven’t really had the chance to write anything. Anyhow, Montréal is proving out to be a nice city. Pictures and more info some other day.

In the meantime, why don’t you listen to some of my Månsteri Mixtapes. They are now available for download over at the revamped music section http://originalhamsters.com/music/. If you are a promoter in Montréal and like my style, don’t be afraid to email me at matti (at) originalhamsters.com. I’m getting serious withdrawal symptoms from not having turntables around.

-Monsieur Pamplemousse Baguette

Next Saturday is Månsteri time once again.

No mix-cd, but I will record a mix and upload it somewhere.

Come to Kauppayhtiö today to hear me play. It’s Månsteri 5.0

Sorry, no mixtape this time, but I’m gonna have some live visuals again on the window of Kauppayhtiö. The store will be revamped pretty soon. I’m going to start printing the t-shirts myself and pretty soon you’ll get also posters, buttons and other Månsteri related stuff.

Meanwhile, you can get the Owl-poster from 3.0 via Deviantart

The first Månsteri radio show was on air on last Saturday. I had some special guests. Prozack Turner, Mark Stretch and DJ Flip from Foreign Legion visited the studio and they were also kind enough to do a freestyle session.

Download the first show here: http://www.sendspace.com/file/bf91il

Here’s only the freestyle part (Prozack Turner & Mark Stretch) + freestyle scratch session from DJ Flip: http://originalhamsters.com/music/fl_freestyle_monsteri.mp3

Radio Säteily starts once again. On air March 31st.
http://sateily.com/

I’m doing Månsteri radio show. Saturdays 6 PM to 8 PM
http://sateily.com/ohjelmat/monsteri.htm

Månsteri 3.0 @ Kauppayhtiö
Friday, Feb 15
22-02

Månsteri Mixtape 3.0 for sale on Friday

Here’s a pic from a reel I just got finished. The film had been sitting in a bag from last summer, just waiting for some new empty reels. Finally, I’ve found a good supplier for new high quality reels and got all the old films inserted to them. Check out the Fresa Volante View-Master reel mounts. I actually prefer these to the original Sawyers reels. They are as tough as the old ones but cheaper and they have a cool flying strawberry on them!

I’ll be scanning these new reels pretty soon and I’ll add the best of them to the Photography section. This picture was taken in Helsinki last summer. The 3d effect is pretty insane so make sure you freeview this image

There’s also been some updates on the site. Now I actually have some content on the site. Still needs a lot of work though, nothing yet on the Music section for example. One of the updates is the Månsteri t-shirts in the store.