MAT 594 - 2008S
Andres Burbano - Research for *Comptics*
*Comptics* is a simple project that want to follow the path of the class in a very literal way. The idea is to make by hand one of those ancient tools for visualization, like the *Camera Obscura* or the *Camera Lucida* and built a piece integrating that device with a basic artificial vision system.
Inspired by magazines of popular culture which were part of the day-to-day life some decades ago here in U.S.A; the idea is to follow those old instructions on how to construct such devices and then adapt a basic artificial vision system to that device and create an interactive experience.
For a short while I have been looking some old magazines on "How to Built ..." optical, drawing and another devices that work with lenses, projections, lights and so on. I got shocked for the accuracy of those documents and I guess even today it is possible to built some stuff based on such instructions.
To mention only a couple of things, I got the instructions to make: Color Wheels, Light Projectors, Polarimeters, Dummy Cameras, Projects with Fresnel Lenses, Cameras Obscuras, Cameras Lucidas, Etc. So, based on the ideas of the Archeology of Media by Zielinski or Huhtamo, I would like to create a simple piece were new and old technologies can generate together an interactive experience.
I was searching for the optics and lenses in on-line stores like Edmund Optics or Anchor Optics and the basic materials are available and affordable. On the other hand for the computational part, I think on using OpenFrameWorks in order to explore its possibilities using Open CV and a prototype certainly can be made using processing.
Edmund Optics - Camera Lucida.