Viral Communications Group - MIT Media Lab - Front Page The Marble Answering Machine, devised by Durrell Object-Based Media Group, MIT Media Laboratory Urp We introduce a system for urban planning - called Urp -that integrates functions addressing a broad range of the fields concerns into a single, physically based workbench setting. The I/O Bulb infrastructure on which the application is based allows physical architectural models placed on an ordinary table surface to cast shadows accurate for arbitrary times of day; to throw reflections off glass facade surfaces; to affect a real-time and visually coincident simulation of pedestrian-level windflow; and so on. We then use comparisons among Urp and several earlier I/O Bulb applications as the basis for an understanding of luminous-tangible interactions, which result whenever an interface distributes meaning and functionality between physical objects and visual information projectively coupled to those objects. Finally, we briefly discuss two issues common to all such systems, offering them as informal thought-tools for the design and analysis of luminous-tangible interfaces.
MIT Media Lab: Design Ecology / Information Ecology Tangible Media Group The I/O Bulb and the Luminous Room are the two central ideas in a project whose goal is the pervasive transformation of architectural space, so that every surface is rendered capable of displaying and collecting visual information. An I/O Bulb is the conceptual evolution of the ordinary lightbulb: one which not only projects high resolution information but also simultaneously collects live video of the region it’s projecting onto. A Luminous Room is the structure that results from seeding an enclosed space with a multiplicity of coordinated I/O Bulbs÷enough, specifically, so that every location is treated by at least one I/O Bulb.
Tangible Media Hiroshi Ishii, Sean Follmer, Daniel Leithinger, Samuel Luescher, Alex Olwal, Akimitsu Hogge and Jinha Lee Recent research in 3D user interfaces has pushed in two directions: immersive graphics and actuated tangible shape displays. We seek their hybrid by thinking about physical material density as a parameter in 3D rendering. We want to explore how digital models, handles, and controls can be rendered either as virtual 3D graphics or dynamic physical shapes, and move fluidly and quickly between these states, allowing physical affordances to be rendered only when needed. We were inspired by the different states of water: solid, gas, and liquid. We view digital computation and models as liquid, which can be vaporized into mid-air graphics, or solidified into dynamic physical shape.
Tangible Media Group The Furp (“Future of Urban Planning”) project exists as a first step toward disseminating the work undertaken in the Luminous Room project into the world at large. Specifically, we are engaged in a collaboration with MIT’s Department of Urban Studies; the first effort has been to develop a customized version of the Urp system (see Luminous Room) for use in a live classroom setting (Professor Eran Ben-Joseph’s 11-304J:Site and Urban Systems Planning). The system has recently made its in-class debut, and is now undergoing intensive week-by-week modifications and refinements in response to what’s being learned about its real-world usability and about requirements for additional, unforeseen features and functionality. Our short-term goal is to transform Urp from its state as a (successful) proof-of-concept system into a tool convenient and facile enough to permit ongoing and casual use in a classroom context.
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