Want
The Jarvis Interface? There’s an App for that…
The most memorable scenes for me in the
movie adaptation of Iron Man were the
interactions between Tony Stark/Iron Man and Jarvis - the digital interface he uses,
as well as the force controlling the impressive holographic display in Tony’s
workshop that allows his character to create an interactive digital universe
that he seamlessly manipulates with hand gestures. It looked spectacular and
left me enthralled!
This captivating innovation that enables
physical interactions with virtual objects seen in movies like Iron Man and Minority Report isn’t merely a future imagined in Hollywood films.
A project from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has made this sci-fi
inspired technology a reality.
T(ether) is an experimental app created by
students, Matthew Blackshaw, Dávid Lakatos, Hiroshi Ishii, and Ken Perlin at
MIT’s Media Lab. It combines three amazing features: gestural interfaces,
augmented reality and collaborative workspaces.
T(ether) uses the iPad to view a shared
virtual space that allows the user to manipulate objects using a special motion-track glove. The glove is embedded with
sensors, which you hold in one hand, and in the other you hold the iPad, fit
with the motion capture camera, to see into the virtual world in front of you.
While tracking your head and hand movement, the app gives you a perspective of
the environment, augmented with the ability to collaboratively create and edit
three-dimensional objects. You can draw 3-D shapes, rotate, pinch,
zoom, and examine them in a multi-user environment. Two people looking
through their iPad’s can both reach in independently and manipulate the objects
on their screens simultaneously.
It is this collaborative aspect that provides
exciting possibilities for anyone who designs 3-D systems on a computer who could
benefit from the viewing and manipulation capabilities of T(ether) such as
animators, architects and industrial designers. 3-D data can be viewed and
edited in collaboration with others. Users can perform object manipulation
using a pinch-to-zoom style of movement. Just like the Jarvis interface.
You
can watch the spellbinding demo of T(ether) below:
A highly informative and interesting piece!
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful and spellbinding blog post. What a pleasure it is to know that Iron Man is only an iPad app away.
ReplyDeletelet the physics behind Iron Man become reality!
ReplyDelete