Kyle McDonald is a new media artist who’s been a central figure in many of the interactive art projects we’ve seen over the last few years. He’s a disciple of the open source movement—in particular, the openFrameworks community—and has been leading the charge on research and development in the fields of 3D scanning, face tracking, Apple Store pranking, Twitter art projects and all kinds of other creative tech wizardry.Just recently he’s released documentation showing the creative fruit he bore while over in Japan doing a guest research project into projection mapping for YCAM InterLab, a place where artists/technologists can do joint research with the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media.In this, their Guest Research Project vol.1, he utilized his skills in the area of DIY 3D scanning to create a projector camera toolkit, ProCamToolkit, which aims to make “high level projector-camera calibration more accessible,” while also developing some installations. The toolkit can be downloaded from the YCAM InterLab Github.Some of the applications of the kit have included the following experimentations:mapamok—allows for faster projection mapping and can be used for interactive sound and visuals.3D Scanning + Projection—allows an object (here it’s a skull) to be scanned and then projected onto.shadowplay—Using the toolkit you can perfectly align multiple projectors so you can utilize augmented shadows.The resulting projects fall somewhere between “technical demos” and “art as work-in-progress”, but the real benefit of McDonald’s research will only be realized with time, as other artists and creative technologists in the openFrameworks community begin experimenting with and building on top of his tools.Find out more about the Guest Research Project vol.1.
Advertisement