Jacques Foottit

Jacques Foottit #bestofcolab. Interactive Projection Surface in action at Colab Open Studio.

Jacques Foottit #bestofcolab. Updated Infra-Red Trackable piece that should allow position and orientation tracking.

The new version of the tracker with it’s top cover on. I created this cover to allow the tracker to be used comfortably and hide some of the ‘ugliness’ of the circuitry. It also allowed me to create a ‘pad’ area to guide the user to press towards the back of the tracker rather than in the middle of the central front part. At this stage the tracker cover does not support holding a miniature, but I’m looking into that as another attachment or possible future development.

Development of the second version of my infra red trackable piece. This one features two IR Leds, with different resistors so that they operate a different brightness level. This should allow me to determine the orientation as well as the position of the tracker. The battery and switching system is the same as the previous version, but now the LEDs are mounted on the sides of the piece, which also allows the top of the tracker to be used for attaching miniatures etc...

Recently I’ve been researching breath sensors for a project involving fibre optic hair extensions. I’ve been looking at how emotion is felt ‘in the body’ and also expressed by the body. Breath rate is something that is very much a part of embodied emotion, but also blurs the boundary line of the body. I was interested to find this commercial wearable breath monitor - as well as how it is marketed as a way to help you ‘control’ your emotions.

First play test of the interactive tabletop.

Some digital painting using the IR trackables.

With some quick, manual calibration I was able to get the projector output to line up very well with the infra-red trackables. This allowed for a very simple ‘paint’ program where users could paint on the table with the trackables. For this first session I used randomly generating colours to allow variation in the colour. Still, people had fun with the interface and enjoyed the tactile nature of the input method.

Since the wireless power transfer is quite tricky by itself, I quickly put together a battery-powered solution for the infra-red trackable objects. I also modified a webcam (removing it’s IR cut filter) to allow it to act as an infra-red camera. I then mounted a IR pass filter over the webcam lens and mounted my IR webcam on to the projector. With this system in place it was fairly quick and easy to get the object tracking working for the first play test session at the game developers meetup.

Some initial prototyping heading towards a test for wireless power transfer. The idea is to use resonant linked coils to allow for wide coverage area with different size and shaped coils while still permitting efficient power transfer. This requires the receivers to be resonant at a particular frequency so it could be quite tricky to get it working well. At this stage I’ve only considered driving a single IR Led for tracking purposes - additional complexity to the circuit could make it difficult to keep the size down.

Final outcome from this round of experimenting. We ended up threading the fibre optic through the hair after putting it in a plait. The result was really nice, although a bit uncomfortable!

Experimenting with fibre optic as a form of ‘hair prosthetic’.

3D rendering of my CAD design so far for a wirelessly powered infra-red LED base to attach to miniatures for IR tracking. This could enable a robust tracking system to allow for projected overlays during tabletop gaming without the overlays confusing the unit tracking.

Doing some research into wireless power transfer. I think this could be used to great effect for my projection augmented tabletop game concept.

The concept of storytelling in games is not new to me - in fact I often gravitate towards games with a strong narrative element. What seems to be more unique about D&D is the connection you can develop with your character. The process of designing your character is fairly involved, and you can play with the same character for years. Sure, there are games like World of Warcraft that can also involve long-term play with a single character, but even that doesn’t seem to have the same connection between the player and the avatar (admittedly coming from an outsider who hasn’t really played WoW for any period of time). I’m curious to what extent having a physical, tangible figurine that represents your character may support that connection process. In my mind, I would want to have a physical object that is as customised as my stats-on-paper character. The physicality of games like Warhammer 40K was what appealed to me more than anything else. Perhaps there is more for me to explore here...

Jacques Foottit - playing around with an old overhead projector, I discovered a fascinating phenomenon with the light. #bestofcolab 

While researching inflatable structures for a concept I have related to an interactive playground project, I came across this inflatable sculptural piece. I think there is some great potential for these kind of structures for temporary moveable structures, particularly when looking at illumination.