The store specializes on second hand vintage furniture from the 50′s to the 80′s. In addition to designing the website and brand, I’m also responsible for photographing the products.

Visit www.vintagegalleria.fi and spread the word.

Frontpage

Product page.

Business cards.

It has been a great experience working with the guys for the past two years. We got to do some cool projects together. It’s a shame our time together has come to an end, but I guess it’s good to recognize when it’s time to move on. I hope that some day in the future we can work together again.

16.01.2012

We got two new IR light bars from www.environmentallights.com. The Light bars proved to be very powerful. We are looking to improve the setup further by getting a different projection film, that will reflect the IR light less. The film we’ve been looking at is Optitrans which you can order from Modulor.de.

02.01.2012

We also tested Kinect to see if it would prove better than the IR camera setup we have. Unfortunately Kinect doesn’t see well through the semitransparent film we have on the window. Through a simple window glass it works perfectly. If You want to give it a try, check out Silvio Paganini’s Kinect+Flash+Tuio system: silviopaganini.posterous.com/openkinect-flash-tuio-udp-flash-bridge

08.12.2011

Here’s a diagram of our setup. Top to bottom:

1. We will have one regular camera monitoring the exterior space behind the window. This tracking will trigger the first level of interaction that should attract users to touch the window.
2. The IR-light source.
3. The IR-camera is positioned in the center of the interaction area to minimize distortion in touch tracking.
4. The projector.
6. Mac mini computer.

At Hand setup.

22.11.2011

I’ve added the previously mentioned controls to the Flash project. I’ve set up a settings XML-file that stores initial values for the life span of the cursors (0-1000ms) and the coordinates for a rectangle inside which the cursor interaction is tracked. There’s also a graphic interface layer for adjusting these settings during run time. The tracking area can be adjusted by dragging the blue handles in the corners.

In the image below, the bright white circles are cursors that match the following requirements:
A) Are inside the tracking area.
B) Have existed for the minimum lifespan time.

The big red circle is the average value of the accepted cursors. And the dim white circles are cursors that are ignored. I’m also keeping track of the number of display items for debugging purposes. This is to make sure that cursor objects are being removed from the system as they disappear from the touch surface.

Flash control layer. Click to enlarge.

9.11.2011

Further software and physical setup testing. I made a Flash file that uses TUIO OSC communication to listen to the ReacTIVision tracking software. There is still a fine line between getting sufficient tracking versus ending up with too much noise. I’m going to try two different approaches to the problem:

1. Adding a lifetime variable for each cursor object and removing cursors that only exist for a few milliseconds.
2. Since the interaction of the installation won’t be happening on the outer edges of the screen we could also ignore cursor action that occurs far from the center.

Another key revelation was that the IR-light needs to be pointing downwards from above the touch surface. This results in better contrast around the user’s fingers, as the palm of the hand remains in the shadow.

3.11.2011

We did some further testing. This time with the ReactTIVision software, a window glass with two different films and an IR-light. The results were promising. With some small tweaking we were able to get tracking results that would seem adequate for the level of interaction that will be required by the final installation.

It’s clear that the film on the window must be attached to the outside. Otherwise the camera will see the user’s entire hand instead of just the fingers. The IR-light proved to be efficient also. I’ll post it’s specs here later. Edit 22.11. I couldn’t find the precise specs for the light, but by the looks of it, it seems to be a PL0038-0-Indoor-Dome-IR-Light-Illuminator.

Test setup at Jaakko's office.

14.10.2011

We did some initial testing with the camera and the filter. We tried using the filter with a regular light bulb and an low-energy light-bulb. The low-energy light-bulb produced hardly any IR frequencies, where as the old fashioned light bulb proved to work as a decent IR light source with the IR pass filter in front of it.

27.9.2011

I got the IR pass filter from Partco. We need a small piece of it for the camera. It blocks all visible light and only lets infra red light in, so we can remove all interfering ambient light from the installation. I will use the rest of the filter to build an IR light source.

IR pass filter.

I used the Fire-i camera’s lens cap as a mount for the IR filter film. I cut out the plastic from the base of the lens cap, and glued a small piece of the filter on it. As You cut the filter film, be careful. It’s thick and hard so it cracks easily.

Screenshot from the camera with the IR filter in place.

Camera with the filter in place.

19.9.2011

I just received the camera we’ll be using. It’s a Unibrain B/W Fire-i Board Camera. The black and white camera is supposed to be more sensitive to IR light then the color version. We chose the 4.3mm Standard Lens (no IR coating) lens to go with it based on the size of the screen and the distance of our projection unit.

Screenshot from the camera. The bright spot is a TV remote I used for a quick IR light test.

Camera parts as delivered.

Assembled camera.

Virtual toilet wall

The idea is to promote toilet wall type discussions on Your mobile phone. When sitting on the toilet seat, doing their business, people often take out their mobile phone to make the time pass. So what better way to spend Your time than read what people have posted on the walls of this location and join in in the discussion.

The toilet wall theme is an important part of the application. That is what makes it different and fun. Toilet walls traditionally attract a very specific type of discussion. One which is temporally and geographically limited to short bursts that don’t beat around the bush.

Technically the toilet locations could be limited to 5 meters by 5 meters target areas, or what ever is a suitable range with GPS, inside which a unique discussions can be joined. So You can only see the messages by visiting the location. The locations should perhaps also be hidden, so that You can only discover if they even exist by visiting the location. The same way as in real life, You can’t know if there are writings on the wall unless You physically go check it out. The toilet theme should serve as enough incentive for people to know where to start looking and adding writings. And of course new locations can be created by any user.

Enter the URL address you want to check in the text field and press submit. The application will get the number of likes, shares and total activity for the address. The total box shows the combined number of likes, shares and comments for the URL.

The application is now available in the App Store:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/checklikes/id483579835?ls=1&mt=8

Version changes in 1.2:

-Enables checking Facebook addresses by page name and id. e.g. https://www.facebook.com/pagename and https://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=xxxx
-Adds an editable history list.

Version changes in 1.1:

-Fixed issue with https:// URL’s
-Preloader
-Updated visuals
-Separate output for comments

I originally meant to upload this on iStock, but it’s against their policy to provide Flash files that contact remote servers. You can download the FLA source file here.

And here’s the code. Sorry about the lines braking in the comments. If You want to copy the code, You’re better of downloading the source file. In this example I’m getting the number of likes for www.google.com and handling it as XML in Flash.