BA (Hons) Digital Art and Technology

The video below shows the final version of my realtime project ‘Economy Run’. The final step is to dome correct the videos and change to resolution to match the dome.

To create the animations for my project I have used Blender. I had decided to use a similar idea to the prototype I created and create three different animations which will be triggered depending on whether the  exchange rate has either increased, decreased or stayed the same. I have decided to base the animations on a tunnel as I felt this would be an effective way of inducing vection in the done environment. When creating the animation in Blender I first modeled a straight tunnel and parented all the elements of the tunnel to a curve as shown below. The camera has also been parented to the centre curve so that it follow the path when animated. This model was also  used to represent when the exhange rate stayed the same.

Simply by  moving the points of this curve would adjust the whole model and allow me to create the animations for when the exchange rate increased and decresed. The image below is the model I have set up for when the exchange rate increases.

This is the model I have set up for when the exchange rate decreases.

After deciding to that I would use Processing for my Realtime project I have finally developed a working prototype. For this I have just used an RSS of weather data and used a sub-string method to extract the temperature figure. This feed only shows the temperature from the last five days which were 10, 13, 12, 14 and 11. So to test the programme I set up if statements to determine which one of the two videos is played. If the temperature is below 12 the white video is displayed and if the temperature is above 12 the black video is displayed.

if (temperature <= 12) {

playing = Movie1;

println(temperature);

}

if (temperature > 12) {

playing = Movie2;

println(temperature);

The video below shows this initial prototype version of my project. Depending on how I decide to use the stock market data the programme is likely to include a number of videos. The resolution of these videos would also need to change to fit the dome. The next step is to experiment with the stock market data.

1. Title

Economy Run

2. Project Summary

For my realtime project, I am going to create an immersive data visualisation that helps people understand the current trends of the stock market. I will use market data from the BBC News website and create an animation that visually represents this data. This animation will be used within a dome environment and will be designed to induce vection. Vection refers to the perception on self-motion induced by visual stimuli. This will give the viewer the feeling that they are on a ride through the data in real time.

3. Development

I plan to get my data from the BBC News website as it provides a range of different market data which is regularly updated on a day-to-day basis. I am currently thinking about using data from the FTSE 100. This is a share index composed of the 100 largest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange. This should give a good overview of the state of the economy for my visualisation.

To create the animation for the project I will use Blender. This is because I know the programme quite well and have previously created an animation for the dome using this software. To develop the real time aspect of the project I am currently looking at two options. The first option will involve using Unity to manipulate the animation in real time according to the stock market data. The second option will involve using Processing to read the data and trigger different animations.

4. Plan of Work

Before I start developing the project, I will do some research on current immersive experiences to help me fully utilise the environment for what I want to do. This will also include research into vection.

From this I will work on creating a basic prototype of the project. This will essentially be a fully functioning version of my idea without any of the graphical elements. This will involve me experimenting with the stock market data the help me discover the best way to go about implementing my idea.

I will then start to create the animation for the project in Blender. Once the animation is complete, I then intend to test it within the dome environment. Time remaining after this will be used to combine the different elements of the project together and for further testing.

Below is a Gantt chart to show my plan of work for this project.

5. Output

The aim of this project is to create an immersive data visualisation that represents the current state of the economy through real time data from the stock market. By making use of Plymouth University’s  Immersive Vision Theatre,  the visualisation will take the form of a simulation to give viewers a greater understanding of the data that it presents.

One of the main sources of inspiration I found for the project was Uniview. Uniview is educational software that uses data from the universe to create immersive visualisations as shown in the image below.

6. Criteria

The project matches up with the module assessment criteria by using a range of different technologies to transform our view of information through an immersive visualisation.

7. References

BBC News market data http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business/market_data/overview/

Uniview http://www.scalingtheuniverse.com

For this next workshop in the Realtime module we have been working with Max/MSP. This is an environment where you can create visual programs (patches) for audio, video and graphics. These programmes are created using a set of objects.

I had never really used Max previously but to experiment with this I came up with a patch that uses various objects to edit a piece of video. For example, this patch was able to adjust the colour balance of the video along with its brightness, contrast and saturation for example.