DMX Controlled Scenic Automation

SwiftScene DMX Control is a safe, simple, and low-cost solution to automated scenery marketed to educational level and low-income theaters. The module is an 18” x 18” electrical enclosure that attaches to the underside of a stage platform and is fully controlled wirelessly via a light board. This is a scaled down prototype meant as a proof of concept and product viability. It is capable of rotational motion and limited linear motion. This prototype meets expectations of traveling at 1 ft/s with acceleration and deceleration at 0.5 ft/s2, but speed and acceleration can be varied based on desired functionality. An actual product will be able to carry a higher load and perform closer to ideal specifications

Biologically-inspired robots for stage performance

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2010.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 46-47).Stage performances present many challenges and opportunities in the field of robotics. Onstage robots not only have to function flawlessly, they must interact convincingly with their human counterparts and adhere to a rigid timeline. The scope of this work is to create set pieces that look and behave like organic entities for the production of Tod Machover's new opera, Death and the Powers. With a set of design rules and techniques, I have developed the mechanical and control systems, including their interactive behavior, for several performance-ready robots. A six-legged walking robot and transformable robot were first built to verify the adopted design methodology prior to the prototyping of onstage robots. In addition, the robots were certified as performance-ready according to four criteria: the visual appearance, the overall functionality, the quality of movement, and the fluency of human-robot interaction. Two robots were successfully built and tested for use in the opera of Death and the Powers.by Wei Dong.S.M

Designing performance systems for audience inclusion

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 154-168).We define the concept of the Hyperaudience and a unique approach towards designing real-time interactive performance systems: the design of these systems encourages audience participation and augments the experience of audience members through interconnected networks. In doing so, it embraces concepts found in ubiquitous computing, affective computing, interactive arts, music, theatrical tradition, and pervasive gaming. In addition, five new systems are demonstrated to develop a framework for thinking about audience participation and orchestrating social co-presence in and beyond the performance space. Finally, the principles and challenges that shaped the design of these five systems are defined by measuring, comparing, and evaluating their expressiveness and communicability.by Akito Van Troyer.S.M

CREATING TOUCHPANEL GRAPHICS FOR CONTROL SYSTEMS

More often than system designers would like to admit, a discrepancy lies between the implementation of audiovisual control systems and their apparent ease of use to a novice or casual user. System designers and programmers are often hampered by the software tools provided by industry manufacturers and cannot reliably create desirable graphical interfaces that match the level of systems they are asked to program and install. Popular consumer trends in portable touchscreen devices, pioneered on devices such as the Apple iPhone, light a way forward into a new era of elegantly solving the audiovisual control system graphical user interface problem. Since expensive specialized hardware can be replaced by readily available consumer devices and a wide variety of tools exists with which to create content, possible alternatives to the current methods of designing the graphical user interface for the audiovisual system are ripe for discovery. Using the latest release of Autodesk Maya 2011, with features such as Python and Pymel, we have developed scripts to generate graphical user interface content for use with audiovisual control systems hardware. Also explored is the potential for a standalone development environment such that audiovisual designers and programmers are not required to operate Maya or adjust scripts to generate content. Given this new level of control over the graphical user interface, coupled with the flexibility of the control system central processor programming, a truly powerful, intuitive, and groundbreaking control interface can finally be realized

Virtual Reality Games for Motor Rehabilitation

This paper presents a fuzzy logic based method to track user satisfaction without the need for devices to monitor users physiological conditions. User satisfaction is the key to any product’s acceptance; computer applications and video games provide a unique opportunity to provide a tailored environment for each user to better suit their needs. We have implemented a non-adaptive fuzzy logic model of emotion, based on the emotional component of the Fuzzy Logic Adaptive Model of Emotion (FLAME) proposed by El-Nasr, to estimate player emotion in UnrealTournament 2004. In this paper we describe the implementation of this system and present the results of one of several play tests. Our research contradicts the current literature that suggests physiological measurements are needed. We show that it is possible to use a software only method to estimate user emotion

Space Time Exploration of Musical Instruments

Musical instruments are tools used to generate sounds for musical expression. Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) musical instruments create sounds that may be spatially disjointed from the instrument controls. Spatial audio processing can be used to position the Extended Reality (XR) musical instruments and their corresponding sounds in the same space. This dissertation investigates novel ways of combining spatial reverb models to improve the naturalness of XR musical instruments. Seven spatial reverb systems, combinations of a shoebox spatial reverb model, a raytracing spatial reverb model, and measured directional room impulse response convolution reverb, were compared in a pilot study. A novel hybrid system of synthetic early reflections and directional room impulse responses was preferred for naturalness when tested over headphones with three instruments created by the author: AR electric guitar, AR drumset, and VR Singing Kite. This research culminated in a concert, Spherical Sound Search, which showcased the preferred hybrid system, the three XR musical instruments, and four re-contextualized spatial audio effects (spatial looping, spatial delay, spatial feedback, and spatial compression). The three pieces in the concert explored different aspects of XR modalities and presented the novel system with spatial audio effects to a larger audience by rendering to an octophonic loudspeaker layout

Design and Implementation of a Live Feed System for WPI\u27s Little Theatre

Design and Implementation of a Live Feed System for WPI\u27s Little Theatre documents an IQP for the WPI Drama/Theatre division of the Department of Humanities and Arts, and Masque. We developed and implemented a Live Feed system for the Little Theatre and expanded our technical theatre definition to include Live Feed. This document contains plans and design ideas for academic theatre students to incorporate Live Feed into their shows