Casting A Shadow
Scenes Behind Visualization & Simulation:
Motion Sensing, Imaging, & Spatial Reasoning
Nathaniel Bobbitt
to big sky
Visualization is a systematic arrangement of phenomena according to conceptual and physical factors.
Visualization relies upon a policy which minimizes lexical artifact,that is, the intrusion of commonplace speech upon:
Visualization remains a problem of description. The description can be considered according to:
The starting point of a visualization is an activity in some place. Let's dream up some toy worlds, with novel behavioral traits. This toy world is a breeding ground for the power of our observation. Observation here will yield interfaces which grasp how to isolate and amplify phenomena (intangible behaviors), related with human performance.
A pictorial visualization approach which relies upon rendering and graphic design is unable to address time variant and dynamic (energy) related aspects of:
Additionally, there is an artifact in pictorial visualization when considering
"human vision" and navigation. The artifact is that visual content
is understood in terms of spatial relations while ignoring certain temporal
and cognitive aspects of "human vision". Time variant activity and visual decision-making become acutely important when navigation and poplulation flow in an
architecture is considered. The association of visualization with pictorial rendering
takes the term "visualization" too literally. The consideration
of visual decision-making in terms of navigation and environmental factors
relies upon two factors:
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Pictorial Visualization
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This project will develop visualization interfaces which methodically investigate: Motion Studies (Human Productivity, Articulatory Inventories of Eye-Hand Motion, Task Realization), Sensorimotor Behavior, & Real-World Navigation according to:
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Physical Visualization |
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This visualization technique yields a physical playback interface,that is, the effect of:
What you Do is What you See.
The central point in this visualization is the Performer's Sensory Resources as they become engaged. The engagement of a performer's resources (sensory and energy) allows us to observe performer capability/disability, the activity of performance as an allocation of resources, the exchange between: energy (resources), control of the flow of energy, and guidance of sensory feedback.
Consequently, performance is modelled according to the accumulation of sensorimotor resources which yield an ability to engage, deliver, and allocate energy/sensorimotor resources within the context of human productivity and physical playback (feedback).
The effectiveness of any visualization is determined by the search of pivotal scenarios, that is, across the capture space and fundamental behaviors. Behaviors imply a course of action (locomotion, articulatory act, task realization) typical scenarios, and levels of energy outlay paired with human productivity, human communication.
The capture space allows us to assess the degree of data structure used: polystrata (Stephen Bird: Computational Phonology), or grammars (Syntactic Pattern Recognition). The capture is an analytic tool which helps us to classify the search and development of a phenomenon's range of behavior and other subtle traits which can be isolated and amplified: Isolated and amplified due to the complexity or degree of intangibility of elements within a behavior. Visualization has two aspects:
When reviewing a visualization the main components are:
A visualization provides us with the ability to isolate and amplify behaviors. Physical playback,that is, the isolation and amplification of sensorimotor behavior relies upon articulatory behavior according to the guidance of "control" mechanisms. Control mechanisms which guide the application of human energies.
Visual Content in Casting A Shadow
"Casting A Shadow" is a motion sensing dance project. It is based on a performer's sensory resources while navigating through an environment. The visual components of this dance project relies upon two keys:
This project looks at aiming as the basis for understanding visual content without relying upon plots of point sets. Aiming is used to develop visual content and one other factor:
The delivery of visual imagery according to the application of energy/sensorimotor resources within a continuous application of resources.
The completion of physical playback (during an aiming episode) is determined by:
When we consider aiming as a continuous behavior we can consider:
Welding and glass-blowing illustrate coordinated human energy according to vibrotactile or aerodynamic cues. While the case of dancer's reflect a tasked performance (navigate) where aiming is based on the coordination of imagery and navigational decision-making.
What we do, that is, what is seenis generated by what is done by dancer activity: sensorial or locomotive
Each visualization in this project amplifies what would be otherwise invisible (inaudible). The interpretation of intangible aspects of human performance will succeed or fail according to:
Let's start with motion. How to capture human motion? What in motion capture goes undetected?
We can better appreciate the pitfalls of camera based motion capture by considering the activity of hands:
Hands in a pocket hide the vibrotactile aspects within the activity of a pedestrain's rhythmic gait. An alternative motion-capture interface is required.
Generally, we can say that the intangible action (application of resources via excitation) in human performance is sensorimotor or cognitive. Of special interest is the role of sensorimotor resources in the case of aiming. This study will consider navigation as a problem of aiming:
The Glass Blower, The Flutist, The Welder, The Dancer these are not characters in some Hi-Tech operatic production. They represent a means to look at the dynamics of human energy which takes articulatory traits and arrives at a description/observation of human behavior based on control and the flow of energy (sensorimotor). These cases provide us with a way to capture & study motion which is intangible to camera based motion camera. Glass Blowers or Flutists/Welders or Dancers start us off with the visualization of streaming respiratory air to sustain certain shapes and effects.
Welders and Dancers coordinate hand motion (eye-hand performance). The glass blower, the flutist, the welder, and the dancer provide us with new cases of sustained forms of aiming. Aiming allows us to consider environmental space according to human factors of performance (doing something).
A key feature in aiming is energetic:
We aim to apply human resources-energy.
Aiming forces us to look at human performance behavior as dynamic events: a flow of resources sensory energy, attack envelopes, and control mechanism. It is through control mechanisms that the capture of motion includes:
The visual content of Casting A Shadow requires an ability to consider visual content (spatial, navigational) which renders energetic human activity according to Behavior or Analysis:
Also, the analysis of visual content is based on traversals of:
Let's looks at the "shaping of a task" by a human performer at several stages of the excitation process, that is, the allocation of sensorimotor resources. This dance project takes as its starting point the energies and sensory resources of the dancer in terms of excitation, the engagement, and the allocation of sensorimotor and cognitive resources.
The visual metaphor of "shaping a task" helps us to reason about human productivity. At first glance the shaping of a task relies upon articulatory aspects of manual: eye-hand coordinated gestures. The shaping of a task compartmentalizes a "tasking policy" and the "task realization." The "shaping of a task" takes on an iconic syntax, that is, a spatially determined or relational grammar, as in (Natural Visual Languages: Mayan Glyphs, Chinese Ideograms).
Iconic (Visual Language) furnish us with a syntax which helps us to visually map (encode and graduate selection options) several factors which are essential to a task:
All the energetic (respiratory, motoric, sensory) aspects of the performance remain invisible until there is a physical playback interface which displays:
Physical playback renders an "enclosed activity" of sensorimotor
behavior juxtaposed against what the audience can make out of what is happening
as imagery is generated "on-the fly" yet based upon the performer:
What you (the performer) see is what is done(the
performer)
Isolation and amplification insure a wide range of physical playback clips (zoom-in or isolated dynamic exchanges)
In this project a dancer's engagement of "eye-hand" sensorimotoric capabilities is engaged to demonstrate:
The excitation process in performer sensory resources is based upon the flow of performer energy (excitation) according to "control."
Performer articulatory/control resources are central to the creation of an active capture system. Motion capture involves documentation, animation, and a mapping of activity in a subject-environment, a state of energetic activity, or a time variant episode. Movement appears as the dynamics of real-world events based upon, color, sound, and sensorimotor resources. Motion capture is traditionally passive. The cases of camera based motion capture and audio recorders work on a principal of open-capture. Open-capture entails a capture of whatever passes infront of the device. An active motion capture requires enough excitatory activity so that the capture is triggered. In the case of excitation with detailed energetic & control parameters an active capture system is based on a discrete activity rather than the open-capture. Cell animation pays no attention to energetic or control dynamics as movement is articulated. Cell animation focuses more on apparent motion and relative relationships between objects or between objects and background scenery.
Without performer control our model would be unable to explore physical playback, that is, sensory feedback. Others have studied worker productivity using photography and film cameras. These studies were called time motion studies. Worker productivity looked at the output side of task realization. Performer excitation and control looks at the articulation and flow of input parameters prior to "produced object."
As a visual research project "Casting A Shadow" organizes vision with emphasis upon human performance:
This consideration of visual experience concentrates upon vision and aiming according to a sustained application process with sensory feedback as in the case of a welder's aiming:
Each case integrates manual dexterity and eye-hand activity. Each of these cases requires a flow of energetic resources which is continual rather than a sporadic episode. Aiming in our model looks at aiming beyond the single "one-shot version" of aiming used in archery and target acquisition. The cases of welding and glass blowing occur over a time envelop according to excitatory flow which is external (flame: welding) or internal in the case of (respiration: glass blowing). Aiming provides us with a means to look at behaviors which are gradual, able to be slowed down, and reveal a decomposition of more than a single step of articulatory (excitory) behavior.
What we do see in the case of aiming is more than a visual pointer behavior. The sort of aiming which we are considering is an application process, that is, the focusing of energy according to sensory resources energy activity. The mechanics of an application process is a matter of supply, a supply of resources. The supply and provision/replenishment of resources redefines the topic of energetic activity according to a supply-side input based model of motion and motion sensing. The reminder of this discussion uses the topics of visualization, simulation, and physical reference to arrive at a performance theory: of doing a routine activity well in transport from one situation to another.
The completion of this research effort is the collection of diagrams and other visual organizations based upon: