The World Is Your Palette: MIT's I/O Brush Hints At The Future Of Design Tools
Interface design and the tools we use to interact with our computers have moved forward in recent years, and continue to do so. It is no longer a case of having simply to interact with our computers through a keyboard and mouse.
While those tools remain the center of our everyday use, alternative, more intuitive means of creating images and data are surfacing on a regular basis.
Let's face it, there is nothing natural about manipulating images by moving a mouse around your desk. Those working in visual communications often make use of graphic tablets, with or without a built in display that creates an experience closer to working with a pen and paper, but the similarities only stretch so far.
To some extent this bridges the gap between the visual and material worlds, just as the latest experiments in touch screen technology leave behind our preconceptions of what it means to interact with a computer.
But what if the tools we used could directly interact with the world around us?
Imagine, for example, a paint brush with the ability to 'sample' colours and textures from the real world, and then paint them directly onto a screen. This is exactly what two MIT scientists did, and the result is an experiment that could well lead the way in terms of the future of design tools.
''I/O Brush is a new drawing tool to explore colors, textures, and movements found in everyday materials by "picking up" and drawing with them.
I/O Brush looks like a regular physical paintbrush but has a small video camera with lights and touch sensors embedded inside. Outside of the drawing canvas, the brush can pick up color, texture, and movement of a brushed surface.
On the canvas, artists can draw with the special "ink" they just picked up from their immediate environment.
''
In the following short video, originally broadcast by the Science Channel, we hear about the ideas behind this groundbreaking invention.
While in it's present form the I/O Brush is primarily a proof of concept, and a great way for children to engage with digital imaging in a whole new way, the promise that the I/O Brush holds for the future is not to be underestimated.
Were the same technologies applied on a much smaller scale, which seems well within the realms of possibility, the resulting tools could revolutionize the relationship between the concrete and abstract worlds in the design process.
Computers are becoming a ubiquitous part of our lives, and as they do so, they are moving away from our traditional perception of the beige box, monitor and keyboard, and becoming increasingly organic, natural, intuitive and ergonomic. Tools like the I/O Brush are helping this process along.
I/O Brush in action
In this next video clip, taken from MIT's own I/O Cam website, we get to see the tool in action, capturing and outputting a range of textures, short bursts of video and colours sampled from the world around the users.
The potential for an entirely new medium, or even media, to evolve from this new base line is exciting indeed. As the technology further develops, the addition of further video capabilities, for instance might create a whole new dimension to film-making, just as I/O Brush promises to transform the way that digital artists create still images.
The virtual and the concrete worlds just moved a little closer together.
posted by
Michael Pick
on Friday, January 12 2007
Tuesday, January 15 2008
URL of this article:
http://masterview.ikonosnewmedia.com/2007/01/12/the_world_is_your_palette.htm
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