Technische Beschreibung
The developed technological solutions facilitates and emphasizes the main formal concept - multi-modal inter-translation of image, sound, space and movement, allowing control of (almost) every pixel, tone, and millisecond.
The use of database for description of scenes, object properties and relationships organises the playground, where the specific behaviors mediate the user's interaction. Objects carry their identity-type, accumulate 'infection' with other 'molecules', interaction history during the session.
Extensive use (and-abuse) of non-standard/multi-layer rendering effects e.g. multiple camera views translated to texture, Z-depth traces, etc.
The technological platform is based on mass-consumer-rate equipment with few specific add-ons. At the time of the production (2002/2003), the utilised computer parameters were 2.6 GHz processor, 1 GB RAM and a graphic card with 128 MB memory.
Self-(co-)developed technical solutions as VRML and C++ :
- overlay of abstract computer graphics on stereoscopic photos and movie files.
- Translation of object geometry, coordinates, movements from VRML to MIDI signals and vice versa (MIDI-to-VRML).
- Scene, Object and Animation Database.
- Touch-screen additional navigation/control interface (also written in VRML/MPEG-4).
The work structure and software components allow to expand (scale-up) the work up to a very large set-up, when the on-site accessible hardware resources allow that (e.g. HDTV resolution projectors, CAVE-like setup, more sound speakers, etc.)
Another direction is to implement it as 'VR-organ' for multimedia/VR 'orchestra' performances.
(more on the project's website: http://plus.x-i.net )
Hardware / Software
Hardware:
3 computers
[ 2 PCs (Windows) for graphics (dual-output nVidia chip graphic cards) and database
and 1 PC or Mac for sound ]
projection:
passive (polarisation glasses) with 2 LCD/DLP projectors or active (shutter glasses) projection - with single CRT projector
Touch-screen monitor
MIDI keyboard
data glove (P5 3D controller)
6DOF space-mouse and/or 1-2 joystick(s)
Software:
BS Contact MPEG-4 (extended VRML browser) for graphics /audio
Reaktor for additional audio processing
MySQL for database access (via custom written ODBC plugin in C++)
Interaction written in VRML script and Java.