data over time

First, a little history: When I was in my teens my friends and I used to play around on our computers with a program called "deluxe paint animation" which was, at the time, was a quite powerful graphics and animation tool for the PC.  Not only did it provide basic painting capabilities but it also included some cutting edge animation tools like motion tweening, morphing, and so on.  All of this ran at 320x200 pixels with an eyeball popping 256 color fixed palette.

The other day while cleaning out a closet my brother came across an old floppy disk which, according to the label, held part of an animation project made by one of our close friends.  As amazing as it was to find the disk, the file was corrupt and couldn't be read; all attempts to view the now 20 year old animation failed.  It was part one of a science fiction saga titled "Porth" that our friend Cory had made (when he was fifteen) by stretching the animation tool to the absolute limits. In addition to being an interesting technical challenge, it was worth putting some effort into saving this file for nostalgia alone.

Many years ago I wrote a Pascal library to decode PCX images, and I had a hunch that the ANM format might use a similar run-length encoding scheme.  Upon recieving the corrupted file from my brother I set about scouring the internet for details of the ANM file format which Delux Paint Animation used for storing animated sequences.

After digging through some long abandoned forums and various geocities-styled nooks of the web, I came across some crusty old C source that claimed to decode ANM files. I'm not fluent in C but I figured it was at least a place to start.  It was clear that my assumption about the encoding method was correct.  After a couple hours of head scratching I managed to decipher the code enough to figure out the details of the data format.  Rather than start with a file I knew to be corrupt, I used an old EA Sports ANM file that I found online to test my code before delving into the digital archaeology project that my brother had unearthed.

After a few hours of digging into the corrupt file with a hex editor, I had most of the original content playing back in all of it's pixelated glory. No crashes, just a handful of garbage frames introduced by reliance on a flimsy physical media never meant for long term archival data storage.

I was able to hack around the busted frames and managed to salvage most of the original file.  Unfortunately the animation encoding scheme works based on the delta between frames so there's still some visual corruption but I saved most of the content.  Here's the resurrected chapter of the Porth saga saved from a pile of corrupt bytes.

multi-touch projection table

A few weeks ago I spent some time building an FTIR multi-touch table.  I thought I'd post some pictures to share how it turned out and mention a few of the things I learned along the way.  It's still definitely a work in progress but I wanted to document it before I forget the details.  My motivation for doing this was to have access to a large scale multi-touch interface for design and prototyping purposes.  Plus it's fun to play with and I like to build stuff.

For this screen I decided to go with the FTIR method since it's compact and I think it will allow for some interesting physical configurations that other methods, not being as self-contained, wouldn't support.  It also seemed like a reasonably simple project and had low material costs which were both important factors as this would be simply used for prototyping things in my home workshop.

Here's how it turned out:

As far as materials go, I got a chunk of 3/8" thick cast acrylic from TAP plastics, a sheet of velum, ~100 infrared LEDs, a tube of clear silicone sealant and a PlayStation 3 USB camera.  Those items along with miscellaneous wood bits and some wire were all I needed for the project.

Things I Learned

Nothing about the project was terribly difficult, but there were some stumbling points that I could have avoided if I had known a few key things.  Maybe they will help you too!

Thing 1 - Acrylic Edges

The edge finish of the acrylic makes a big difference, the clearer the better.  Rough saw cut edges scatter the IR light and will really dim the touch points.  I used varying grits of sandpaper down to about 350, then I buffed it with a polishing wheel.  You'll want to end up with an edge you can see through like glass, and should look sort of like a "hall of mirrors" effect when you peer into it edge-wise.  It's hard to take a photo of this effect, but the following picture should illustrate what I mean.

Thing 2 - Visible Light Filter

From my initial readings online I tried using a piece of the film from an old floppy disc.  This works to reduce visible light, but also blocks significant amounts of the IR which makes the touch points very dim.  I tried a piece of exposed film negative which made a dramatic difference.  There's more visible light getting through but the signal to noise ratio is really good and I'm getting excellent tracking now.

Thing 3 - Camera Position

Even though CCV has calibration for the camera, it doesn't seem to handle keystone distortion well at all.  I was unable to get good registration if the PS3 camera wasn't lined up very precisely with the screen.  I find it hard to imagine that I'm the only one who had trouble with this, maybe I'm just doing something wrong in CCV?  Anyhow, it was frustrating enough that I made my own calibration utility that sits as a shim between CCV and my own projects, correcting the TUIO coordinates on the fly.

building a bench - part 2

It's always nerve wracking to post something as "part 1" because of all the expectations for the follow-up, but now the pressure is off because here's part 2! My decision to change the design from flat bar to square tube ended up working out well.  I feel like the bulk of the square tube is a better visual balance to the extremely sturdy bench top.  Also it forced me to keep practicing at welding and figure out how to make nice 90 degree corners consistently.

The legs started with a trip to a steel yard (a place I have never before found a need to visit).  I left with a couple of four foot sections of square tube and a feeling that I was really over-building the legs.  Not being accustomed to working with metal, I chose 3/16" wall thickness for the square tube which I now realize is completely overkill.  After buying the metal I cut the smaller leg pieces using a horizontal band saw.  I think I'd just do the cuts by hand with a grinder and cut-off wheel next time, it was kind of a pain to reconfigure the band saw for the 45 degree cuts.  It's a learning process..


The practice joints I welded came out better than I was expecting so I moved on to the actual leg pieces without too much fear of wasted stock.  The process of making the two legs went reasonably smoothly.  It took quite a bit longer than I would have liked, but that's often the case when working with unfamiliar tools.  The legs are screwed into the bottom of the bench via some angle iron brackets (shown here as I prepared to weld them in place).

All in all, I'm really happy with the results.  The first leg ended up about 1/4 inch narrower at the top due to heat shrinkage on the inside of the miter joint (that's my theory anyway) but it's not noticeable so I don't mind.  The important part is that I got them both level so the bench sits without rocking.

My guess is that the finished piece weighs in around 80 pounds and you could probably park a bus on it, but it looks great and is just what I wanted.

bench2.jpg

building a bench - part 1

I've been meaning to build a bench for quite some time.  First it was going to be entirely made from maple but then TechShop imploded and I lost my access to a wood shop.  Since then the design has changed several times.  Upon enrolling in welding and metal working classes at the local community college, I changed the frame to be mostly square tube steel.

planed wood close-up

Then I realized that unless I wanted to waste a lot of money on materials while learning how to weld nice 90 degree corners, I should reconsider the frame.  The second and third design borrow heavily from an article about a reclaimed fence post bench

The second design relied on making sixteen precise bends in some flat bar stock.  Let's just say I ended up with some oddly bent flat bar and no bench legs.  The third and final design is once again going to rely on square tubing and right angles, but will require much less precision and should work just fine.

Despite the learning experiences and road blocks of the legs, the bench seat is looking great.  It's made up of seven two by fours that I bought at the Rebuilding Center.  They are old wall studs (really old.. one had a square nail in it and they actually measure 2" by 4") set on edge and laminated together with excessive amounts of wood glue and lots of clamping.

After I had a solid slab of wood I hand-planed it flat and have applied many coats of tongue oil finish.  It's silky smooth to the touch now and is looking fantastic.  For the metal work and assembly, I've taken the plunge and signed up for a full membership at ADX so I'll be doing the welding and finish work there soon.

slicing things up

I've been playing with this idea for a while and finally spent a few grueling hours with an exact-o knife in order to knock out a little proof of concept before I spend the time and money having a bunch of material cut out via CNC or something.  This process involves sampling "slices" of a depth map at fixed intervals and using each slice to create a vector profile.  The resulting output is a set of long vector shapes that collectively approximate the original model and can be rendered in any size and from any material (well, any flat material).

This set of images shows the initial depth map, an example of the vector output from my processing sketch, and a paper prototype.

The first few paper prototypes look good and I'm confident this process will scale up very well.  Imagine a 20 foot wide 3d wall-scape made from stained birch plywood strips, connected vertically by steel rod.  If you're looking for some stunning artwork for your home or business then look no further!

This whole idea started with a topological map of mount St. Helens I found online.  Soon after that I started looking for methods of generating depth maps so I could use any arbitrary 3d geometry.  As luck would have it, rather than having to familiarize myself Blender I found a tutorial video for faking depth of field in SketchUp which works great as a way of creating depth maps.