Author: Christoph Bartneck

Interactive Vision Studio

At the Designed Intelligence Research Group of Department of Industrial Design at the Eindhoven University of Technology, we build an Interactive Vision Studio. We use a single camera and a single projector, which eliminates the need to align and synchronize multiple screens and cameras. Both, the camera and the projector have a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, which means that they have a 16:9 aspect ratio. Given the width of the projection screen of 6 meters, the screen should be 3.37 meters high to achieve the 16:9 aspect ratio. However, even tall people rarely exceed 2 meters in height. We therefore decided to exclude one third of the vertical dimension, which resulted in final dimensions for the screen of 592 cm x 222 cm. It follows that the projection will use 1920 x 720 pixels. The projector had to be placed at a distance of 12 meters from the screen to achieve this projection size. Continue reading “Interactive Vision Studio”

Call for Papers: NEW International Journal of Social Robotics

On behalf of the Editorial Board, we are very pleased to announce the launch of the International Journal of Social Robotics, Springer, with the goal of providing a common platform for researchers, scientists, artists and designers to share their findings. The journal will publish the latest developments in Social Robotics and its integration into our society, covering relevant advances in engineering, computing, psychology, arts, social sciences, and design philosophy. Continue reading “Call for Papers: NEW International Journal of Social Robotics”

Preparing Illustrator drawings for the Speedy 300 laser cutter

This tutorial will show you how to prepare your drawing for the laser cutter. I assume that you are using Illustrator CS3 to create your drawing. In addition to Illustrator, you also need to have Corel Draw, which you can download from the TU/e website. You may also to consider to work directly in Corel Draw, since it can also import EPS files, however, you may miss the creative power of Illustrator. Continue reading “Preparing Illustrator drawings for the Speedy 300 laser cutter”

The Golden Ratio Course

Stephen Wolfram’s book A New Kind of Science offers an interesting view on the phenomenon of complexity. In his book it is demonstrated how systems based on very simple rules can generate complex patterns that appear random in many ways. We will make a tour trough his examples, try to understand his claims and do some experiments ourselves.

We will deepen our understanding of complexity and ways to exploit it or master it. This module is not a substitution for the classical mathematical skills of symbolic manipulation in algebra and calculus. However, we shall use the computer-math tool Mathematica, which is a very powerful tool for all kinds of math, not only the cellular automata of Wolfram’s “A New Kind of Science”. Continue reading “The Golden Ratio Course”