Dhruv Adhia – Hello Universe

Digital Video Illumination

// May 31st, 2011 // No Comments » // Networking, opencv, Technology, Thirdimension

Recently I got a wonderful opportunity to work with FreidchWood Theatres group at UBC to work in their latest innovation named “Digital Video Illumination”. The objective of this project is to create a modular framework for people from non-technical background to create content on the fly for 8-12 different project, and all of them synced together with monitoring system so that previewing and creation of content becomes easier. Currently we are going through Design and Research phase, I have started working on setting up basic framework. With all legalities dealt within upcoming months, this project will be open-sourced on Github. Yes Developing for the world and with the world. I must say I love open source communities and it is always a pleasure giving something valuable back to community. Sounds like some sort of tech governance, whatever it may be, its good.

I am working with Robert Gardiner the head the theatre mentioned above and here is a glimpse of what he thinks can be done. The applications of this project are quiet wide open interms of what you may do with it, every abstract innovation has it and I see this project along similar lines. Apart from theatres I can also think of huge installations for which it has good use. Especially when it will have added element of interactive with various sensors/cameras later on.

Peace 
Dhruv

Visiting MIT Media Labs

// January 6th, 2011 // 1 Comment » // antarikShamM, MIT, Technology, Thirdimension

I was recently given opportunity to visit MIT media labs and also present the work
we do at Dsign Labs. Nearly 80 prospective students and several industry guests
are allowed to visit the labs in a year. My visit was for 3.5 days and fortunately I could stay
at Seth Hunters place during my visit. Seth Hunter is 2nd year PHD student for
fluid interfaces group at Media labs.

Structuring of Media labs comes very close to SIAT research labs. The only difference
that I found between SIAT research labs and MIT media labs is that of focus.
While SIAT focuses more on content side, Media labs focuses more on interface side. Their internal
culture amongst faculty and student is similar to GNWC as well. At media labs they have
masters and PHD program in the field of media arts and sciences. That means it is
highly interdisciplinary course. Many of the known programs like processing, scratch,
open frameworks were the work of this lab.

They have several groups which focus on the given set of problems. For example,
Object Based Media group focuses on interface related to various objects in our
day to day life. Tangible media group focuses on everything that is tangible and how
that tangible thing can be used to represent relevant digital information.

Because of Seth Hunter, I got a very good tour of MIT media labs and Boston at large.I actually felt
at home as we do similar work at Dsign labs in the field of machine vision based interfaces.

I primarily met with 3 professors; Henry Holtzman of Information Ecology Group, Pattie
Maes of Fluid Intefaces group and Micheal Boey of Object Based Media Group. And all
were quite impressed with our work at Dsign labs. Some of them found our ways of
reaching out to people through interface a unique approach and strong philosophy.

Along with professors, I met around 15 students and they all spent a good deal of time
to explain me what they had worked on and about their current projects. From them, I came
to know about one more similarity with GNWC and that industry guests and affiliates. They very
much encourage a hacking and practical culture. They often have industry guests visiting and
sponsoring the projects. In this way students are not only able to think in terms of innovation but
also in terms of its usability in the relevant market and commercializing their products.

All in all I found I was back to GNWC and SIAT Research Labs in many ways.

Digital Monalisa – Sensification

// November 9th, 2010 // 8 Comments » // antarikShamM, Biomimicry, Fluid Interfaces, Nature, Networking, opencv, organic media, Technology, Thirdimension, Ubiquitous Computing

At Dsign Interactive labs, I am working on my latest creation, which we call “Monalisa.”
Past few months I worked on various computer vision related algorithms. They were to do with
color, object, tracking, gesture, emotion and speech recognition. There were various other small
algorithms like OCR, image analysis etc.

For Dsign 2.0, I am working on Monalisa software which will eventually combine all such algorithms
with Dsign Framework at the center and utilize it for practical purpose.

My personal intentions out here is not to prove that we are just evolved/programmed/tangible beings.
Its actually the other way round

I personally think that the beauty of AI lies at the application level and not at the conscious or intelligence level.

We at Dsign labs believe that we will create a dent in the universe through our approach of humanizing
interfaces that would better equip with human senses.

The project is under NDA.
But over time I will post some pics and videos as I have more freedom

Peace and lots of love,
Dhruv (Currently in love with Digital Monalisa)

Keynote presentation through Hand Gestures from Dhruv Adhia on Vimeo.

Ubiquitous University – “A creative and ever way of learning”

// October 25th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // antarikShamM, Fluid Interfaces, Technology, Thirdimension

We often like gaining information about places, cultures, food, technology etc.
We often also realize that there is no way in which I can gain knowledge in a seamless manner
and knowledge that matters. For example I come across a painting at  museum in Italy.
I love the painting and wish to gain information on authors bio-data and meaning behind the
painting. But as I don’t have any information, I ask people around and start ticking away buttons
on my iPhone to gain the information.

Now I have to be a good googler to get the information that I want. Information that matters pertaining to that painting. Now this certainly does seem to be a waste of time and especially the moment.

Imagine, if I could have wearable augmented reality glasses or some device that could do object recognition and can overlay information on the top of the physical object. The information can further be browsed with the help of gestures.

It could also be creative in some cases. For example, if you look at Mountains and natural elements of life then it might sing out an interesting poem for you.

In future, I see that education wont be just trapped inside a classroom. In fact practical learning will creatively be followed by respective theory introduced.

Humanizing Technology – An Evolution

// August 27th, 2010 // No Comments » // Technology, Thirdimension

Recently we at Dsign interactive Systems rolled out first touchless interactive product recommendation system at Pacific Centre in Downtown, Vancouver, Canada.

The system tracks human bodies and hands. It also does noise cancellation based on depth recognition and point cloud readings.

Here is the video

Future refinements,

We are working on creating a new framework which would allow us to easily tweak input as well as output based on client needs. Also for the system to be more intuitive.
We have already been working on natural gestures. Also we trying to work on the fact that user can move in space at a same time cancelling others people noise and making it one to one communication system.
As most of the clients need one to one communication system, however system can support many to one communication system.

An Evolution,

iBot – Virtual Social Robot for iPhone/iPad/iPod

// August 20th, 2010 // No Comments » // organic media, Technology, Thirdimension, Ubiquitous Computing

We recently at Dsign Interactive Systems + SquareCube LLC worked on interactive virtual social robot.
The robot reacts to touch drag gestures on the iPhone. It also reacts to accelerometer. In a way the robot
has a sense of where you are touching it and also gravity up to certain extent.

This is what we call “Bridging Humans and Virtual Agents” or “Humanizing Technology” in simple terms

In future versions we are planning to create a concept of time and space taking it to a level of creating
a virtual world for the robot. So that it can move around and do more Human actions. And we mean to
spread awareness in human actions by making spotty behave more humanly.

Coming from India and dealing with actions, the word that penetrates my mind, body and soul is “KARMA.”
I wrote Karma algorithm to reward and punish based on the actions of the user. This way we are trying to bridge the gap
between humans and virtual bot. Also we have named the bot “Spotty”

iPad version will be released soon too.

Here is the glimpse,

Credits:
Yangos Hadjiyannas – Creative Director
Mckane Lee – Digital Consultant and Animator
Dhruv Adhia – Technical Director and Programmer

Love & Peace,
Dhruv Adhia

Generative Art

// July 12th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // antarikShamM, Nature, Technology, Thirdimension

Here is the Generative art that I did for Vancouver Olymics as part of prototyping the concept that our team from GNWC had put forward.

Here is the video

Generative Art from Dhruv Adhia on Vimeo.

This was one of my part of the prototype for CODE live on the ground, Vancouver Olympics. It was for the Dharma project combining the elements to move from abstract to known as defined in our first brief concept.

I used Mandelbrots recurring equations concept, starting from simple circle which forms out of itself forming a bigger circle as a group of complex circles. I was also trying to capture the concept of stars and universe. Universes(group of circles) moving apart and stars(individual circles) bursting forming into new glowing ones.

How wonderful to see math being involved in this wonderfuly driven dynamically moving art.
Created using processing library inside Eclipse
Music courtesy : Karunesh – Call of the Tribes

And here is some inspiration to take from master himself.

Benoit Mandelbrot: Fractals and the art of roughness talk on TED

Organic Interaction

// June 27th, 2010 // No Comments » // antarikShamM, Biomimicry, organic media, Technology, Thirdimension

My pursuit for happiness found in nature continues. I am learning how is it connected to technology or how technology can be tied in the ways nature is? Biomimicry is already on its way. The people at biomimicry institute believe that all the problems that are technical and design challenged are already solved in nature. We just need to know how to translate them to human made technologies. This reminds me of how nature is not just “Nature”, nurturing all of us? Its a intellectual treasure. Answer to most of technical designs are already out there is what I believe too.

For example, let us consider the example of Object Oriented programming in the field of computer science. It consists of 5 things basically,

1) Classes and objects
2) Data encapsulation
3) Data Abstraction
4) Polymorphism
5) Inheritance

All of these are basically found in nature. Everything in nature is in some form of inheritance. Some might have single name but multiple forms. Considering the human body as a form of nature, look how many forms humans have? Infinite?

Also look at the way I interact with daily objects and natural life around me. Its like “I don’t have to think at all”, data abstraction isn’t it? And that’s because everything in nature is encapsulated in the form of objects which has behaviours and properties.

Though, what I wanted to discuss in this post was about what are different aspects of natural interactivity compared to that of today’s cutting edge technology.

Today’s technology, is about seamless interaction which provides information on time. Today’s technology is immersing out like mobile web. Information connected on the go.

But what about nature? For example without the help of any technology, if I plan to go for hiking or travelling across the mountain. It takes effort, adventure, thrilling moments to experience, learn, feel and understand that very interaction. Its result is gradual. Why? I don’t know why. But it reminds me that “Process” is more important than results. I also learn that smiling through struggle = Process

So let us now analyse, what did I learn from that natural interaction. I did not only learn, but also felt which was a bigger learning for me. I learnt about the process and learning about the process. I learnt Struggle is a form of smile . Isn’t that interaction worth while having?

Here is some inspiration to take,

Operating networked devices through natural gestures

// June 23rd, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Networking, opencv, Technology, Thirdimension

Recently I performed a little experiment in combing couple of libraries. My first experiment involves a networked implementation of different applications (device IDs interms of hardware) in time and space. I used MPE and OF to do that and running java server in the back. I wish to combine this with natural gestures to create a small experiment similar to GSpeak which was done at MIT. My intentions are to get rid of gloves. Purely natural gestures without any color caps or gloves. Computer vision has surely come to a point where it can do accurate computation based on patters and depth of any given matter(object).

Demoes

Networking in Time and Space

Networking in Time and space from Dhruv Adhia on Vimeo.

Natural gestures through finger and hand detection

Manipulation of virtual elements through natural gestures from Dhruv Adhia on Vimeo.

To end with a quote from Albert Einstein on the definition of time

“Time is the interval between two thoughts”. I could notice this through the experiment that I did.

Lets say first OSC message represent 1st thought and 2nd osc message represents the second. What if I closed the application before second osc message executes? The other two screens will freeze leaving only partial space into existence. The actual definition of time no more exists.

Fluid Interfaces

// June 19th, 2010 // No Comments » // Fluid Interfaces, Technology

There has recently been remarkable advancements in the fluidity with which interaction occurs. Especially at MIT media labs and going through Pranav Mistry’s Sixth Sense wearable device. I saw wearable device in the same way as other table top devices.

So I was wondering that there is something in common with these devices. I came up with following concept of layers. There are basically three layers to be found in such devices

1) Projection layer
2) Processing layer
3) Interaction layer

Currently I am working on PEACE project as you would know and I am using these layer concepts to create more of fluid experience while interacting. Even though I am using just breathe as input/output system. I think the layers would help me better create engaging user experience.

Additionally these layers are like opening up technologies to understand more about interactions going on in the system. And with clever reshuffling of the layers, one might create engaging user interactions.