The platform “Prototyping Interfaces – Interactive Sketches with VVVV” consists of a book, which covers the applied handling of interactive sketches with the visual programming language VVVV within 280 pages and a website.

The book is divided into two main chapters, a theoretical and a practical part. The theoretical part concerns the definition and the meaning of the term “prototype” in the designprocess. The practical part of the book branches the basics of the visual programming language VVVV and how to control different electronic components with Arduino and VVVV. Beginning from the use of different sensors and actuators to modern tracking technologies like the xBox Kinect, different examples are explained within a wide range of tutorials.

The website completes the platform by providing the reader with all the patches of the examples in the book and further informations, like links to drivers or other external websites. Further the website allows people to ask questions regarding the examples and provides a “playground” sector, where the readers can show own projects, inspired by the book, or can write own tutorials and provide the source codes for the community. This way, the platform can evolve and develop itself further.

“Prototyping Interfaces” is addressed to designstudents, interactiondesigners and media artists. For more information, please refer to www.prototypinginterfaces.com

Partner:
Roman Grasy,
Markus Lorenz Schilling
and Mark Lukas

HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd
Bachelor semester 11/12

Support:
Prof. Hartmut Bohnacker
and Prof. Ralf Dringenberg

PenCon stands for “pen constructor” and is an alternative way to use a CAD application. We’ve tried to revive the feeling of drawing while using CAD software.

Those complex applications are used to create 2D and 3D constructions and models. We have set our task to find a more intuitive way to use CAD software, as well on software, as on hardware perspective.

The target audience are engineers, who primarily work in engineering and design. So we have tried to analyze the functions based on their needs, to find new approaches.

The drawing-board and a pencil have been the main tools for engineers back in the days, without computers. The range of tools was fairly comprehensible and straightforward to use. Today, with CAD, we have a lot more opportunities and a way more accurate method of constructing 3D models. The downside of this is, is that the hard- and software-interface became more complex at the same time.

With our concept, we have tried to solve this issue and bring back the feeling of real drawing to CAD.

To achieve that goal, we have decided to use a Cintiq Wacom tablet. It is controlled with a pen, with which you can draw directly on the tablet’s screen. Also, the pen offers some more functions and the tablet holds some more interface elements, such as buttons and sliders, which we can use for zooming and other important functions in CAD.

With this hardware interface we’ve been able to develop concepts to bring back the feeling of drawing and replace the mouse and keyboard with the pen and the tablet.

To evaluate our ideas we have built several little prototypes, with VVVV, for different usecases.

[[Show as slideshow]]Brainstorming and early prototypes

Partner:
Roman Grasy 

HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd
6. Semester
Support: Prof. Hans Krämer, Prof. Steffen Süpple

We have seen the opportunity to intensify the existing abstraction of real objects, through the haptic channel. This way, we are able to create new metaphors and make technology feel more human.

DataBot Mouse

DataBot Mouse is an experiment of giving data physical properties, to make the communication/interaction between man and data more human and easier to understand.

The mouse is able to communicate three different properties of data. It can show you the weight of files and folders, by braking with different force, according to the file-size. Or you can set a custom weight for files, just like the color marking function in MacOSX. So you can find important files more easily.
The third property, the mouse can show you, is the activity of files and folders. By “breathing” with different intervals, it shows how much a file was opened or how busy a folder has been recently.
You can switch between and adjust those features to make the mouse fit your needs.

The prototype mainly consists of a small servo-motor, inside an optical mouse, which brakes a little ball.
To test the prototype and experience the effects, we’ve developed a test laboratory, where you can try out all the functions of the mouse.

DataBot Harddrive

DataBot Harddrive gives data a physical size. The hard drive grows or shrinks, according to the used space on the medium.
During the file-transmission, it also visualizes the progress with a blinking light, which speed decreases till the transmission is finished. By checking the analog scale on the body, you can always see the current fill level.
If an error occurs when transferring a file, the DataBot communicates this by shaking and blinking red.

With DataBot Harddrive we’ve designed a product-family, containing the DataBot Tower, Flatland and Mini.

The construction consists of a 3D-printed case, a servo-motor and some red and blue LED’s.

[[Show as slideshow]]
Partner: Roman Grasy

HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd
6. Semester
Support: Prof. Hans Krämer, Prof. Steffen Süpple

This project was about developing new visuals for the 360° projection wall of the Cocoon Club in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The Visuals were implemented into Vertigo2, a visual VJ System based on vvvv. 20 different visuals were created during several workshops with Ivo Schüssler at the HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd. Each visual had different parameters which can be controlled in realtime using Vertigo2. Finally we performed our visuals on a MACH2 event at the Cocoon Club in Frankfurt.

HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd
6. Semster

Project guidance:
Sabrina Hauser & Andreas Brendle

Students:
Roman Grasy, Markus Lorenz Schilling, Jan Barth, Armin Kröner, Patric Sterrantino, Sofia Hnatiuk, Marcel Müller, Antonio Krämer Fernandez, David Abele, Phillipp Hogg, Adrian Abele

The digital library is a concept for a time when there are no analog media any more. When everything is digital, there is no emotional value for example a music album with a bocklet, pictures and a nice paper package. We tried to develop a system which combines the advantages of both worlds.

During the process we tried different navigation techniques and made little prototypes like this:

Replacing the mouseposition with the position of the fiducial marker with vvvv, makes it possible to navigate through the covers without the use of a mouse.

Partner: Anja Rapp and Christian Schaaf.

HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd
4. Semester / Invention Design
Support: Prof. Jörg Beck

CanGuide is an app to support the at home care for cancer patients. It has a variety of features which allow patients to track information and manage tasks that are essential to their health, but are not directly part of their medical care. This includes tracking of pain severity and length, times and kinds of medication taken, tracking emotional state through a diary feature and managing the preparation of appropriate meals through the recipe feature.

It allows patients to submit a summary of their tracked data to the doctor before the next visit, to help the doctor find the right medication.

The concept is based on cards which represent individual days. You can zoom into the cards to get to the detailed day calendar and the tracking function. The app also has a community part, where people can connect and exchange experiences.

[[Show as slideshow]]

Partner: Rachel Ilan Simpson and Jan Schlegel

HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd
4. Semester / Application Design II
Support: Roger Walk

Our task was to replace the ordinary process of ordering in a restaurant through a touchable projection on the table, using a novel laser projector.
A big problem for us was that the projection might disturb or confuse the user while they eat.
In our concept we proposed a good solution for this problem: We project the menu onto a foldable empty card. Thus, the guest can freely decide when and if he wants to have the projection or not. With a prototype, using Infrared LED’s, the software Reaktivision and processing, we demonstrated and tested the concept.

Partners: Anja Rapp and Frank Schäffer

HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd
3. Semester / Invention Design
Support: Prof. Jörg Beck

Our task was to choose a software, we think is in need of a redesign. We selected the last.fm desktop application, because we have used it ourselves. Last.fm is an online music radio, which learns what the user listens to. You can listen to the radio of certain artists, or to yours or other users library-radio. After a thoroughly exploration of the programm and its features, we made a complete redesign.

With our redesign, we tried to improve the discovering of new music through the application, because we think this is what last.fm is all about. To achieve that, we implemented visualisations of semantic similarity between artists, tags, and other users.

Partners: Roman Grasy and Frank Schäffer

HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd
3. Semester / Application Design
Support: Prof. Hans Krämer

In this project, we had to select a musical sequence, which should be compiled in a visual sequence after a structural analysis. The aim here was to break down the ordered structure of such a sequence and bring it in a new visual entity. We used the song “Organ donor” from DJ Shadow, because we recognized that this song is divided into three major parts, so we could create some kind of tension. The visualization was realized using Cinema 4d and After Effects. To experience the 3d effect, red-cyan glasses are required.

Partners: Olga Grischtschenko and Fabian Kreuzer

HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd
2. Semester / Entwerfen I
Support: Prof. Michael Götte and Benedikt Groß

For the 100th anniversary of the building of the HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd, we developed an interactive cube-puzzle during a weekend workshop. A wacom tablet was used to interact with the projection. The projections were made with vvvv. We tested our patches on a model of the building and showed it finaly at the 100 year celebration of the building.

Partners: Olga Grischtschenko and Carsten Henschel

HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd
3. Semester / weekendworkshop
Support: Christopher Plant and Thomas Ness