Touching Beams of Light: An Otherworldly Laser Interaction Prototype

NOW THIS IS SOMETHING NEW! (re-blog from Create Digital Motion)



Touching Beams of Light: An Otherworldly Laser Interaction Prototype:
Laser interaction prototype from jayson on Vimeo.
Interaction design isn’t just input. Output can transform a simple demo into something that seems to bend reality.
Melbourne-based artist Jayson Haebich sends over a laser interaction prototype he’s creating. The results seem like science fiction, as though he’s opening jump gates with his fingers.
It’s almost exclusively for aesthetic effect, but that sense of light, sound, and space coming together and then being gently pulled apart is more than enough. Technical details:

The software used to control the laser was created using OpenFrameworks and C++ by Jayson Haebich and uses an Xbox kinect to do 3d tracking. The software creates the lasers beams by sending vectors to the laser via a DAC. The lasers position is then calibrated to the 3-Dimensional field of data viewed from the kinect, which is used to detect when intersections between users and the laser beams occur. These interactions then trigger effects such as colour changes or causing the beams to move which gives users the feeling of being able to touch the laser beams.

Jason, when you get further with this, you can bet we’ll want to see it.
http://jaysonh.com/laser.html