Mobilize your personal static electricity for a hands-free 3D gestural interface

Posted by a totally wowed Bettina Tizzy

Students at Northeastern University in Boston have created an interactive interface that harnesses electrostatics to give you 3D control just by waving your hand in front of a computer. No camera, no markers, no physical controllers: it recognizes xyz coordinates, and even works with modeling and music programs. As you move your hand in three-dimensional space, the information is transmitted to the computer.

3D Computer Interface from Free Flow on Vimeo.

Peter Kirn of Create Digital Motion contacted a member of the student team, Justin Schunick, to learn more. Per Justin: "The interface uses an array of copper electrodes to sense a certain change in the electric field created by the device. The black material covering the electrodes shows how the interface can be hidden beneath surfaces to create a completely invisible interface. It is simple black felt you can buy at any fabric store. The total cost of this prototype was around $60.00 USD."

Speaking for myself, and considering my fitness level after nearly 2 1/2 years of participating in virtual worlds, I would welcome any technology that encourages whole body movement while working in 3D environments.

You can read the original story about this exciting development here.

New Real Life - Second Life physical interface

Last night, musician and technologist Komuso Tokugawa attended a Second Life-related event at the bar BarTube in Tokyo. While there, he met with several people who are collaborating on a Havok 4 sim owned by Softbank (the company that acquired failing Vodafone and turned it around), to work with prototypes and try out new ideas.

According to Komuso, Tori Teatime and a couple of other people from the Softbank-sponsored sim have developed a mechanism that allows for an interesting new physical interface between Real Life and Second Life.

One person would stand there in the bar tilting a 3-axis accelerometer that was hooked up to a modified client to send control data via chat.



Now here's where it gets interesting... the accelerometer had a built in tilt sensor, and as he tilted it, so did a box full of avatars - some of them quite large - that was being held by a robot in-world.



You can visit that robot in Second Life (teleport directly from here), but somebody in Real Life needs to be tilting that accelerometer to make it all happen. Now that the Second Life client is opensource, we can expect more of these exciting developments. More pics and info on Komuso's blog.

Komuso, by the way, is the musician and particle master who - together with MoShang Zhao - gave us the real time-Internet/SL music jam SynaesthAsia, undoubtedly one of the best events I've ever attended in Second Life. Here's a great video of it by multi-talented Osprey Therian.