disturb media blog

I will go through a few of the more technical projects showcased at OFFF.

Aside from the technical talk by Aaron Koblin, Ricardo Cabello (mrdoob), Filip Visnjic (CAN) and Eduard Prats Molner, which Max will cover in more detail OFFF also had a brilliant exhibition called Mirrors. This gallery presented a large amount of brilliant works by Kyle McDonald, Zach Liberman, Theo Watson, Daito Manabe, Motoi Ishibashi, Aram Barthol, Marnix de Nijs, Seth Hunter, Eric Rosenbaum and Joshua Davis.

Daito Manabe and Motoi Ishibashi had two brilliant pieces: Points and Fade Out. Points uses a kinect to track the outline of the visitor. Points are computed from the outline and converted into optimal paths for the actuators/motors controlling a compressed air gun. The gun then 'draws' the outline of the tracked visitor on paper.

Fade Out is another brilliant way to digitally draw a portrait: it uses a laser which gradually illuminates a screen filled with phosphorescent paint. Personally, I enjoyed the sound of it and the ephemeral feel the fade out gives to this piece.

Recently I got interested in 3D scanning and 3D printing, as you might have noticed form my previous posts, so I was very pleased to see and experience the Janus machine at OFFFMatica. I was lucky enough to meet Kyle McDonald and talk to him about the project. Got very interesting insights and left inspired to learn more about computer vision, even if, I must admit, topics like AI and Machine learning scare me. The Janus machine uses a 3D scanning technique called structured light. Roughly speaking the idea is light is projected in patterns (a narrow band of vertical stripes for example) onto a subject. The pattern gets distorted on the subject and the 3d data is estimated by using the differences between the distorted and the original pattern. Kyle has an open source project on Google Code called structured-light.

The great things about conferences is you can meet and talk to the people you admire, receive great advices and get inspired. I had the pleasure to chat to Daito Manabe and Kyle McDonald on my 1st day at OFFF which was great. I really hoped to see the illusive mr.doob, but didn't have a chance. I've managed to catch Aaron Koblin for a few questions and a big thank you for the work he and mr.doob have done on the Rome project. I've learned a lot from it and they make it look so easy, but a lot of work went into that. Han Hoogerbrugge put this into words very well: "It's nice to see the people behind the other side of the computer screen".

OFFF 2011 was a great experience, and from the geeky point of view, it proved that the trend of art and technology blending is only going to grow. Makes me wonder how long until the boundary completely disappears.

The talks were brief, but very informative. I was amazed to see the speakers fit content so neatly in a very limited amount of time.

I was impressed by Stefanie Posavec's passion for gathering data and meticulous work. Strangely enough I've managed to see some of her works for the first time at the Pick Me Up exhibition in Somerset House. Coincidentally this event allowed me to learn more about her work.

Alastair Dant showcased very interesting interactive Flash projects build with his team at The Guardian. From World Cup football and balls to custom budget cuts, carbon footprint calculators, afghan war logs and election swingometers, Alaistair quickly covered different techniques in relation to the data portrayed in a very informative talk.

Brock Craft's discussion revolved around his project using the TFL's Cycle scheme API to plot the availability of bikes which part of these scheme through out London. A lot of helpful tips and insights, including details regarding regulations for requesting sensitive data.

The organizers saved the best for last, as Noah Iliinsky delivered a funny, yet very helpful guide on the DOs and DON'Ts in data visualisation. Speaking of DON'Ts, there was an interesting example of a 3D pie chart (from an Apple keynote) which was tilted at a convenient angle so a smaller percentage visually was perceived as larger. Noah was kind enough to a 50% discount code for the book he co-authored: Beautiful Visualization. The code is valid at the time of this post, but I am not sure for how long. The code is: AUTHD

Unfortunately I am not able to go into great detail about each of the talks, but do check out the event website for more details on the speakers and also keep an eye out. Some sessions were filmed so I would expect them to go online at some point in the future.