Sending serial data from QC to Arduino is a little bit trickier, but I will definitely try to work on that also.

What do you need for this to work?

• The Kineme Serial patch for Quartz Composer. Available here: http://kineme.net/SerialIOPatch20080326beta (You will need to register and check the “I would like to beta test new and updated patches.” box in your user profile.)
• Download the Arduino code and .qtz file

Six Frames from Matti Niinimäki on Vimeo.

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.

What the hell is Apple doing? There are no FireWire ports on the new MacBooks! Essentially, that means that anyone doing any serious work in video or audio has no reason to buy a MacBook. Our university buys roughly 60 MacBooks per year for the students to buy at a cheap price, but now I don’t see any reason why our Audiovisual Media Culture program would buy any of these, since they are useless for video work.

And the new MacBook Pro only has one FW800 port. Again, making any musicians life a bitch since you will most likely need at least 2 FW ports, for an HD and an audio interface. Well, at least you can daisy chain FW devices. And another useless idea was introducing the DisplayPort. That means dropping the support for S-Video and composite adapters. So you’ll need more dongles to connect to different diplays or projectors. I would rather have a computer that is 2mm thicker than having to carry around five different dongles to display the image. Granted, it is smaller and cheaper to manufacture, but that should show up in the price or that would have allowed the space for another FW800 or USB port. Did I mention no E-SATA and no Blu-Ray?

I’m just hoping my current MBP will last through this generation and that Apple would change their course and actually start making laptops that are useful for audio and video professionals.

From Sinfest

Qstock festival in Oulu, Summer 2008.

Superia United meets Ruckazoid from Aku Meriläinen on Vimeo.

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

http://originalhamsters.com/blog/2008/05/06/using-sms-text-messages-with-quartz-composer/

I decided to go for a 4:3 format for my screen and bought a 10 x 820 x 620 mm acrylic screen from Foiltek. Acrylic that size cost me around 60 euros. Couldn’t find any place cheaper here in Finland. The edges of the acrylic weren’t clear so I sanded them with sandpaper. I started with 180 grit paper and worked my way up to 1000 grit paper. Then I finished the edges with some metal polish. They should be clear enough now. Here’s my screen.

In order for the FTIR tracking to work, you need a lot of LEDs that shine the IR light inside the acrylic screen. So basically you need too make LED strips that will be placed on the edges of the acrylic. Here’s a handy calculator for helping you design your LED array.

I decided to save a lot of time, by ordering the circuit boards for the LEDs from dshop.ch. Each of the boards will hold 2 x 7 LEDs and 2 x 15 ohm resistors I got a bunch of the boards with resistors already mounted, but not the LEDs. I ordered my LEDs from eBay. 120 for $48.

I’m using 4 of these boards on each of the longer sides of the acrylic. That’s 112 LEDs in total. This might be a little overkill, but. We’ll see once I get a power source for the strips and I can test it properly.

Next time: How to hack a webcam to see only IR light.