Interactive wall

Edalia

Hello

I want to make an active wall as part of an installation to go alongside a show I'm hoping to tour in a couple of years time.
Is this possible in Isadora? And if so what hardware is best for it and what direction should I go in?

I've done a lot of projection mapping and experimented with Wiimotes but don't have a lot of experience with interactivity yet.

My ideal situation is that people can touch the projections and they'll react with different pre-recorded animations and sounds triggered depending on where they press.

Apologies if this has been asked before. I searched on here and on the web and couldn't find out how to do it.
If it's quite difficult but possible then please just point me in the right direction. I'm giving myself a year or two to learn this along with experimenting with different animation software and techniques so I've got time to learn to get it right.

All the best

Edalia

dbini

@edalia - sorry for the late response - i only just noticed your question. i would say that this is quite a difficult task. Isadora can handle the playback, no problem, but getting accurate data for where the user touches a wall is going to be tough. skeleton tracking from a kinect might be an option. software like NIMate can track separate body parts and output x, y and z data for each part using OSC. you could get Isadora to process the data from a user's right hand (for example) and trigger playback when the depth exceeds a certain parameter, but users tend to have two hands, and what happens when you have multiple users? also, its going to be difficult to calibrate and not super-accurate or stable.

lasers might be an option. a grid of lasers and sensors up against the wall will give you a position trigger when intersections are broken - but resolution will be a controlling factor. (Isadora user CamilozK has built a laser harp and might be able to give you more info)

you also need to think about how you get the image onto the wall - if you are touring, are you going to have a space to install the work where you have control over lighting? if you project onto a physical wall, your users will create shadows. you can beat this by back-projecting, but then you need to tour a suitable screen and method of fixing it, and you will need space behind it for projection throw.

Skulpture

I am also so sorry that this has not been answered sooner. This type of stuff if right up my street.

Thank you to @dbini for getting the ball rolling with some fantastic suggestions.

The only thing I wanted to add was that some projectors have interactive features built into them too; generally IR technology. Such as: https://www.epson.co.uk/produc...

DillTheKraut

@Edalia maybe this is far from what you want. But we did a similar wall with a different approach.

If you can build the wall yourself, you could use capacitive color like in this project: https://www.bareconductive.com...

We didn't use Arduino but raspberries, sending osc commands to trigger a central Computer with Isadora, when there is an touched a part of the wall.

Best

Dill

Edit: Little hint on how to put the wire... Put little pins (nails) from behind through the wall to just end on the walls front and put the paint over it. You can then wire it from the backside of the wall.

kdobbe

If you are looking for a simple solution, I have simply placed a camera above or behind the user looking down and aimed at various areas of the wall with defined "trigger areas". The disadvantage is the body of the user can get in the way of the line of site for trigger; but in general it is an easy approach. Here is a link to a music wall I put up at a University 14 years ago... it still runs 7-days a week and auto-starts/shutsdown.

Cheers

nick

The price of LIDAR units has gone down significantly - https://www.robotshop.com/uk/y... - you could mount one of these above the wall and detect people reaching out - not reliably down to fingers at a distance, but would expect to hand or arm size - could do some tests and post the results if you are in interested.

Edalia

@dillthekraut That looks brilliant.
All these suggestions look great. It took a while for responses to come so I didn't realise anyone had responded but I've just finished touring my last project and started on the one with the interactive walls. I've got a lot of tech and experimentation to begin but this is a fantastic starting point. I got a kinnect for £8 and a webcam and am away from home for 2 months so I'll have a play with those then try out the Pi/Arduino/touchboard suggestions in the new year. I'll share my progress.