d i g i t e c t u r e

Jeff Han is bringing the future of immersive visual interface and a close-up of the here and now technological reality of the year 2006. For Architects and designers this interface is what we have wanted from the digital age since its clunky beginnings that began with keyboard computer aided drafting and design in the 1980s. From this juncture the ‘mouse’ and stylus digitizer brought us one step closer to replacing large format paper and ink drafting and design. That reality was soon rendered into a scale less medium of the monitor and then the LCD screen. Now we are moving back to that dream of interaction that is part physical and part mental. Welcome to the dawn of “Multi-Touch Interaction Research” which is a research project that is moving into implementation stages from Jeff Han, a research scientist at New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Science.

The following excerpt is from a presentation given at the Technology Entertainment Design conference, in Monterey, California.

The digital landscape of information textures is no less than an important element to this site of a new kind of thought in digitecture.

The development will be a breakthrough for digital modeling, information management, and of course digital design.

Jeff Han’s Website: Click

A new kind of birth of a kind of upon the world of digital modeling. A whole slew of a different kind of new breed for 3D modeling that is breaking ground in how the future may look.

The new species of modeling is a push in thinking about how more fluid modeling tasks can become. One such program in development is Teddy – 3D sketch modeling. This newbreed in the approach of sketching interpretive marks to generate form is a welcome change to polygon and point pushing that is the mode of operandi for most 3D modeling programs.

A video below describes the interface and logic of Teddy: Freeform 3D sketching by by Takeo Igarashi which was given birth in 1999.

With this program you can draw shapes with outlines that are transformed into organic loose three-dimensional shapes. Its a very basic idea that beautifully gives form to simplistic gestural lines. It includes techniques to rotate forms, cut, extrude and even save the form out to wavefront (obj) for use in other programs.

The render style of Teddy reminds you of sketching with pen and paper. Best of all, this program is free. It runs under the java. There is a basic html version that is very helpful but does not allow you to save. A newer version of this software is available, “Smooth Teddy.” It allows you to paint your forms.

I think this kind of gestural movements are a look at the future of modeling where form begins to move at the speed of thought.

You can find out more about Teddy here: Takeo Igarashi

The gallery for Simulated::Materials can be viewed by clicking below:

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New work

The images above are from some of my latest explorations in material simulation and ecosystem simulation.

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digital image sampling in the 21st Century





Digital sampling processes has received a new tool that can now be added to any digital tool kit that provides new freedom and creative exploration in regards to image processing. Welcome to the dawn of image data sampling in the new digital form. The product is called imageSynth and it is made by a company called Luxology. Luxology is the creative force behind the digital modeling, painting, and rendering suite known as Modo. An essential part of the suite is a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop CS and CS2 and future incarnations that allows one to take one or more source images and recompute a new work that is a synthesis of the source components. The program does this through an innovative technology known as “chunks”. You digitally carve up an image into large or smaller chunks that can be automatically used to rebuild a result that is a non-repetitive mixture suitable for background or texture tiling. Backgrounds that do not repeat could be used in any digital content creation program that manipulates moving digital images such as Sony’s Vegas or Adobe’s After Effects. Textures that do not tile can be used by 3D artist to create and manipulate material images for textures such as concrete or grass.

The product is highly stable and a joy to use, it is a beautiful tool for the synthesis of content that can be built from other sources. Luxology describes imageSynth as advanced software that takes advantage of the image editing capabilities of its host program, Adobe Photoshop. The program can then create seamless textures that are input back into Photoshop as a new layer. This new layer of synthesis can be high resolution in comparison to lower resolution source images. The software is able to produce this kind of compositing through advanced image synthesis algorithms.

The software comes included in the Modo suite or as standalone plug-in for Adobe Photoshop.

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What does this mean?

This actually brings about a whole new paradigm shift in the application of digital sampling devices.

Now any small patch of an image or texture can be re-formed through the use of “chunks” to “re-sample” and “re-composite” a new work that exceeds the source in resolution and composition.

I am not sure what this means for all those texture previews of commercial textures, because even a low resolution sample can be put through synthesis and become a viable “ready-made” in comparison to a “for purchase” version.

New and uncharted territory without boundaries is the destination that we are boldly heading into. This new space is one that many are not at all quite aware of yet. It is not one that I am “against” or are “for” but one whose ramifications and final end-run is not quite understood at this moment in time.

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