This Laser Light Plane MT Table was developed as a part of my research with the Music Engineering Technology group at the University of Miami. The system leverages commercial, off-the-shelf technologies to make a robust multi-touch table interface and software development environment. For our inexpensive implementation, we used a technique called Laser Light Plane Illumination (LLP). A laser plane approximately one millimeter thick is created over a clear surface by surrounding the table with infrared lasers diffused by line generators. The infrared nature of the lasers ensures that this plane is not within the human visible spectrum,making it “invisible.” Fortunately, computer cameras do not have this limitation. When a finger breaks the plane over the clear surface, the infrared light is deflected down into a camera. This camera is fitted with a bandpass filter that renders the visible spectrum in such a way that is is sensitive exclusively to the wavelength of the infrared light. This deflected laser light is then interpreted by computer vision software as a touch. This has yielded a platform for which we can write applications for a number of audio research tasks, as well as applications for other disciplines and research problems. Current applications of the platform include interactive/generative music synthesis, a multi-touch pong game, gesture driven music composition, an audio mixing suite, and a musical-tactile rehabilitation program for subjects with Parkinson’s disease.
We present a system that leverages commercial, off-the-shelf technologies to make a robust multi-touch table interface and software development environment. For our inexpensive implementation, we used a technique called Laser Light Plane Illumination (LLP). A laser plane approximately one millimeter thick is created over a clear surface by surrounding the table with infrared lasers diffused by line generators. The infrared nature of the lasers ensures that this plane is not within the human visible spectrum,making it “invisible.” Fortunately, computer cameras do not have this limitation. When a finger breaks the plane over the clear surface, the infrared light is deflected down into a camera. This camera is fitted with a bandpass filter that renders the visible spectrum in such a way that is is sensitive exclusively to the wavelength of the infrared light. This deflected laser light is then interpreted by computer vision software as a touch. This has yielded a platform for which we can write applications for a number of audio research tasks, as well as applications for other disciplines and research problems. Current applications of the platform include interactive/generative music synthesis, a multi-touch pong game, gesture driven music composition, an audio mixing suite, and a musical-tactile rehabilitation program for subjects with Parkinson’s disease.
This four propellor helicopter – or quadcopter – is powered by an Arduino microcontroller. This was a project that I did for fun last year just to see if it was possible. The parts were chosen mostly from the suggestions of German sites (thank you, Google Translate). It features a lithium-polymer battery, an aluminum frame, a Seeeduino (I promise that spelling is correct) microcontroller, a five degree of freedom sensor, a secondary two-axis gyroscope, brushless motors, and an XBee radio.
The whole project was quite a learning process for me. I got to spend some time in the machine shop and even more time on Internet forums. I now have significant experience with interfacing microcontrollers to motors and sensors, XBee radio negotiation and communication, PID control loop theory, and miniature helicopter blade replacement. I also created a program for Mac OS X to receive the data from the XBee to display the quadcopter’s status in an easily readable format. Of course, that involved everyone’s favorite: socket programming.
After some hilarious, and some promising flights, I got the quadcopter to fly in a fairly stable manner. Unfortunately, I became too adventurous in my piloting and it currently has a broken front motor…
