IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES, CIID IDP 2019
FACULTY: Joshua Walton, James Tichneor
TEAM: Gaana Srinivas, Pooja Pawwar
PROJECT DURATION: 1 week
Brief
The team decided to explore the delight of micro-interactions in the context of virtual/ augmented/ mixed reality.
Concept
Obsolete, but not forgotten- our team found the beginnings of good micro-interactions in the tactility of an abandoned cassette corder. This used to be tech years back. It was plasticky and things sometimes needed a good whack to get working again. Tech used to be messy, and we used to love its quirks! Augmented reality is rarely messy. 3D objects rendered in conventional reality are often unnaturally pristine surfaces, at odds with the world around them. We decided to position the two different technologies, form two different generations, juxtaposing two very different experiences, together. The clunky buttons of the forgotten cassette corder would control the virtual video player.
Process
We created a few rapid prototypes to test the analogue-to-virtual experience, focusing on the micro-interactions.
For proof of concept, we connected the cassette corder buttons to the Makey-Makey with copper tape, which we in-turn connected to the laptop. This way we could assign the cassette corder buttons to directly perform actions on the laptop.
Through incremental prototyping, we increased the number of actions performed by the cassette corder and decided to shift all the wiring internally. Using copper wire and some foam, we created multiple contact switches that would perform an action when a button was pressed.
On the software side, we used YUXI- a mixed reality toolkit by Sensory.cc to kickstart our journey on Vuforia. We modelled a sphere and used the YUXI sample code to map its 'Z' value to move when a button on the cassette corder was pressed. We gained confidence and gradually created an entire virtual video experience.
Finding the right place to incorporate the fiducial was crucial to the entire experience. We quickly iterated a few options and finally decided to place it on the cassette tray.
The video was given some analogue characteristics– like static before it was switched on, in order to bring some of the messiness of technology from a bygone era into a ‘modern’ experience. The video was deliberately chosen to contrast as strongly as possible with the cassette corder.
You can read the Medium article here.