Where to shop for sensors in the EU?
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So... I will be part of a team designing a "runway" show that will feature real time manipulation of lights, projections and soundscapes originating from performer's movenement, position in space and time, etc... This means I am in the market for sensors and currently the only resource I can find online is I-Cubex who are US-based (meaning a substantial import tariff here in Greece) and also I don't really see much updating going on in their website which kind of makes me wonder how relevant they still are (maybe it's silly, I know). Do you know of any EU based resource? Thnx!
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@the_navigator
I'm currently building my own movement (xyz rotation/acceleration/gyro) sensors using Arduino Pro Nicla Sense ME boards, LiPo batteries, 3D printed cases and some custom code, (which will be publicly available once it is ready)
sensing performers' position in space is probably best done with a camera or depth camera. -
Wow... that's quite the challenge for me, I am a trained mechanical engineer but I don't think that I have the expertise and time to do it like that. Also my coding skills are limited to object oriented stuff. But cool!
Yes, for positioning I am also considering a depth sensing camera, unfortunately not many designs out there with continued support, especially in Mac OS which is my preferred platform.
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@the_navigator
if i can do it, i'm sure you can. (i'm not writing the code, i'm collaborating with a software dev team and an engineer from Bosch Sensortec to sort out that side of things) I learned how to print the cases and solder the components at the local Fab Lab. -
Ok! Coding is the scariest indeed. The rest, I admit feel more feasible for me too.
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pm me if you find yourself following this route - i can send you my case plans and the code. it should be ready this week or next.
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https://www.interface-z.fr/index.php
I am afraid the website is only in French
or:
https://www.digikey.gr/en/products/result?s=N4IgTCBcDaIM4FMB2cD2AnEBdAvkA
or German only:
https://www.conrad.de/de/search.html?search=sensor&categoryId=c14741
Best
Jean-François
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@the_navigator digikey for components - mouser cor conrad if you need to.
You can track a performer very well across a stage with proper lighting and a good IR camera, that will give you lense support and a myriad of other features. Depth cameras are good for a limited number of things on a stage due to their restrictive performance and FOV. Machine vision or even security cameras will do most things you think you need. You dont get skeleton tracking but in reality doing that on stage is so restrictive you may not want to put your performers through it - taking away their autonomy to serve a naff machine.
Everything here is done without depth cameras - as tracking as it gets:
just to be sure I had nothing to do with this work.http://www.fredrodrigues.net/
https://github.com/fred-dev
OSX 13.6.4 (22G513) MBP 2019 16" 2.3 GHz 8-Core i9, Radeon Pro 5500M 8 GB, 32g RAM
Windows 10 7700K, GTX 1080ti, 32g RAM, 2tb raided SSD -
Yes, yes... clearly, spatial tracking is also possible this way and skeletal tracking is not in my intentions anyway, I don't want to create an avatar of them or anything.
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Hi,
To experiment with data and movement I mostly use smartphones, there are a lot of sensors in them and if you use an app like zigsim you can send all the data to the computer using OSC data.
For example I connected my smartphone to one arm and the smartphone of the performer to the other arm and than used the data in isadora.
Then after experimenting, you know what kind of data you would need and than you can look for that specific sensor.
For example if you find out acceleration is the most interesting one. you can use an acceleration sensor, connect it to an arduino and send that data to isadora. I'm currently using ESP32 boards and send OSC data over the network. Its not a lot of programming you just read the data from the sensor and send it over the network using OSC.
