ReacTable: Tangible controller for sound

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pepezabala
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Joined: Mon Jun 07, 2004 4:29 pm
Location: In Berlin, finally

ReacTable: Tangible controller for sound

Post by pepezabala » Sat Dec 17, 2005 11:02 am

Hi,

I thought that some of you might find this interesting:

A friend of mine is working on the ReacTable-project. It is a "state-of-the-art multi-user electro-acoustic music instrument with a tabletop tangible user interface. Therefore this electronic instrument uses no mouse, no keyboard, no cables and no wearables."

It is mainly an application that works with a video- or webcam that registers movements of objects on a transparent table. Each object may represent a sound-generator, a filter or effect or whatever. Objects are connected by putting them close together on the table. You can find a description of the whole thing on their website.
They even have a video with Robert Moog playing on a prototype.

The reacTable application is now open-source and available for windows, osx and linux and can be downloaded from the site.

Theoretically it should be possible to build your own ReacTable-controller with nothing else than just a webcam, for the fancy optics that you can see in
this video you will obviously need a video-projector.

Looks promising, although - as far as I understood - it works with open sound control and can not to be used directly as a midi controller. But maybe its possible to write a patch in Max or PD to use it as one.

Instead of buying a Lemur you could just get some bricks from a toy shop, attach a video camera to your labtop and use the bricks as controlling-devices on a glass-table.

There is a niceoverview of tangible controller-interfaces on the website as well.

hoffman2k
Posts: 14718
Joined: Tue Jun 15, 2004 6:40 pm
Location: Belgium
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Post by hoffman2k » Sat Dec 17, 2005 11:12 am

:lol: :lol:

I'm so getting this

Get some girls up on stage to squeeze my balls :wink:
(pardon the pun)

Machinate
Posts: 11648
Joined: Thu Jun 24, 2004 2:15 pm
Location: Denmark

Post by Machinate » Sat Dec 17, 2005 12:46 pm

reaTable looks very cool, but if AudioPad came out first, then MIT should sue ;-)

One of them is a dirty rip-off, that's for sure!
mbp 2.66, osx 10.6.8, 8GB ram.

bazylp
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun Feb 27, 2005 9:58 am

Laser keyboard

Post by bazylp » Sat Dec 17, 2005 11:21 pm

What are your thoughts on using/adapting a laser keyboard (http://www.virtual-laser-keyboard.com/) to project an image of a user defined/designed controller onto a given surface?

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