Thoughts Shape Recognition and Immersion

Today on October 4^th I took a tour of the Visualization Design Institute (VDI) at Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning. VDI is a government funded applied research facility located on campus. Their website is http://visualization.ca/. We got a glimpse of advance facial recognition software. Song Ho Ahn was the developer of this technology. He did the primary programming in C+ for the software. He developed his own GUI since he has a degree of Engineering in Electrical and Control Engineering from Hong-Ik University, Seoul, South Korea. The program used camera to gather data from the users face. It would then match up with a 3d human model to certain areas of the persons face. In real time the person could move his head and the 3d model would duplicates the movement in a life like motion. The camera sensor focused on the eyes and mouth to perceive movement.

From a multimedia pioneer point of view it was quite inspirational. Though its still a current work in progress you can see many useful applications for it. Such as character animation in movies and games. As well it could be used to detect facial features for security or identifying criminals.

There is other facial recognition software out there too. The site http://www.face-rec.org/research-groups/ list different research groups across the world who is also working on facial recognition. Another similar field is image recognition. You use the computer to analyze an image of a person to find similarities of other people’s pictures. The following is a link of a video showing this type of software in action. http://youtube.com/watch?v=aVGovK_J4c4 There is also an interesting website called My Heritage. http://www.myheritage.com/FP/Company/tryFaceRecognition.php It uses image facial recognition to match an uploaded picture of your self to a celebrity. You can also use it to compare family gemology in pictures. Or find out what parent you have more physical traits from.

Also on our tour we took a look at their Immersion studio. It uses 3 projectors to project on a movie on 3 screens. The two side screens are angled to give a greater sense of immersion. The sounds system was really quite impressive too. The movie was a 3d animation of a space station and a look into the human body. We were given touch tablets and were able to click on images on the tablet’s LCD screen to make a choice that impacted the movie itself.

It definitely created a more immersive movie watching experience. I could see how the movie industry could use this type of technology to get more people into theatres. It went beyond something like the IMAX experience. http://www.imax.com/ImaxWeb/imaxExperience.do?param_section=whatImax&param_subMenuSelect=whatImaxSelect. IMAX uses a massive screen and an amazing sound system to attract more viewers.

I think it would help combat movie piracy. It could also be used in the game industry to create a more immersive experience. The 3d environment would be all around you instead of just the screen in front of the player. It would be awesome if they could perfect it so you can be completed surrounded by one screen that interact to your movement. Taking both the motion recognition and immersion technology and putting it all together for the ultimate experience.

Thoughts on GestureTek Inc™

Yesterday I journeyed down to a place called Gesture Tek. It is located downtown Toronto. As ventured up to the 7th floor and into their offices I noticed the professionalism of the company. To get to the show floor you must go through the main office area which is filled with white cubicles. Upon entering the show floor you notice a lot of large screens spread though out the area. Located on the ceiling are large projectors projecting the images onto the screens. Vincent John Vincent is the President and Co-Founder of GestureTek Inc™. He was kind enough to be our host for the class tour.

My first impressions of the place were positive. At first I thought the technology would be out dated because it has been around since 1986 when they started the company. People have been experimenting with that stuff for while. I could easily see how Gesture Tek as been a pioneer in the field since the beginning. They have a lot of patents based on motion technology. They have been able to adapt by adopted new technologies like flash into new concepts.

They continue to advance in the field and break new ground. One of their new products is using cell phone camera technology and creating games and applications with it. They use the camera to detect motion. With that the user is able to move the phone and the character on the screen will move based on tilt. They also have a map application where the user tilts the phone to easier navigate through a virtual map. They have been able to get the major phone distributer in Japan to incorporate it into all their cell phone product lines.

For me as a multimedia pioneer they have set a great example of what it is to be a true pioneer in multimedia. They way they have created a new interactive medium with motion and video. And are able to capitalize on the idea and incorporate other new technologies as they come along. They are even letting our class use some of their software to create some flash based applications.

Another product of theirs is their portal motion detector. It uses 2 cameras to create a virtual matrix to figure out a person hand location x and y coordinates. It then uses a projector that displays the image on a screen you to interact without needing a mouse. They have sold these in museums and trade shows.

You can see from their many prototypes that they have enhanced their products. From a large room with cameras to detect motion till portable machines that do the same. They also have this interactive table where you can play pong on it and other activities. It is able to detect multiple points of detection at the same time so more the one person can use it. Gesture Tek definitely gives you the feel of what the process is like to invent something.

--Links--

Here are some interesting links that relate gesture technology and Gesture Tek.

The Nintendo wii using its wii fit board to detect motion for fitness training. http://wii.ign.com/articles/804/804113p1.html

The Sony Playstation uses its eye toy game to detect motion. A technology Gesture Tec help developed for them. http://ps2.ign.com/objects/715/715377.html

Gesture Tec primary website.http://gesturetek.com/

A Link about why we need gesture technology.

http://ict.ewi.tudelft.nl/index.php?option=com_sections&id=56&Itemid=120

The definition of gesture technology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesture_recognition

My First Thought

While i am sitting in class i decided to start a blog. Since I'm currently in multimedia I reckon I'll post some blogs about various technologies and other things too.