6.0 Pcomp MID.0

First post in a while, week 6 post, first mid term-related post for Physical Computing.

I ran into multiple issues before posting this, so really didn't have a lot to post nor did I have extra time to post either until now. Better late then never, I say to myself. Haha, sorry for the late post! Will try to catch up as much as I can with this post.

So here's my idea for this midterm:

As I presented in class, I'll be working on a continuos project, from Midterm to Final, aiming to achieving a long-waited goal for me; connecting the virtual and real world (in an intimate way).

I'm sure I've briefly mentioned here and there, but to officially present where I come from, I come from a Fine art -> Compositing -> FX background. So video is my comfortable ground, and so is the 3D - virtual world, along with using simulation software such as Houdini. I spent a lot of time in the Houdini software, and am pretty comfortable in it. I've made Pyro (fire, smoke), FLIP (water), RBD(Rigid Body Dynamics - hard surface breaking simulation), particle simulations, and so on. And with this capability in the digital world, I've always wanted to bring this amazing world of virtual creations into interacting with the physical world. The disconnection between the two world were devastating to me, since I loved both the worlds so much. The magic I find in touching books, smelling them, feeling them, I wish to draw these sensations into the digital elements as well. So, my journey began.

First, I went on a research to find the way to connect the Arduino to Houdini. And I found out two crucial information that led me to change my direction with this project:

1. Connecting Houdini with the Arduino is impractical.

There are not a lot of resources out there regarding connecting Houdini and Arduino, compared to what's out there to connect Arduino to Touch Designer or Unreal Engine. The essence of this issue is because Houdini is not a real time software. Although Houdini is the perfect tool you want to use when you want highly computational, complex and profound visuals with the most manipulation capability you can get, but when you want real-time, it becomes a whole other issue. (Also connecting Arduino and Houdini in the first place is also a long way around compared to Touch Designer. You need PySerial & installed Python to be the connecting gateway, and that's not even including the process I have to go through internally in Houdini to bring in the serial data - in simple terms, it needs extra work & time.)

Second fact:

2. The developers of Touch Designer were ex - Houdini employees who invented Touch Designer to create Houdini-like visuals in real time.

This is one of the main reasons I changed direction, and landed on Touch Designer for this project. It is much easier to bring in the serial data in Touch Designer since you just need the println() function in Arduino IDE to bring in the serial data, and it's also real time, so I don't have to worry about showcasing / rendering the visuals & interactivity. This program was built for this purpose in the first place. So in conclusion, I landed here to connect the Arduino to Touch Designer, and following a tutorial my friend shared with me, here are some basic (but fun) interaction I played with just a potentiometer-connected Arduino & my Samsung Laptop.

Next step up, connecting my heartbeat.

I realized that the scaling of this sphere reminded me of a heart & the heartbeat, and how it's soothing, calming and meditative. I've gotten a lot of feedback on my past work saying that my work are very meditative, especially when I'm explaining the thought behind my projects or when I'm involving audio expressions. So in a similar context, I plan to gravitate towards the heartbeat sensor, which conveniently the shop had equipped, and I plan to bring in some sort of audio expression as well, along with the Touch Designer interaction I have.

And that's where I wrap up for tonight, and see you in the next post.

Ciao!