my contribution of week 7 (Interaction design + update storyboard)

Interaction design

The installation starts when the user/ audience see the soft toy that will be tied at the stair holder. If the user touch the soft toys, it will trigger the sound that been set in the software. After the soft toys, when the users start to walk on the stairway, the webcam will detect movement and it will trigger sound and projection that will project image/ scene from horror movie on the wall. Next, the user will hear sound without any image will pop up. On the 1^st floor, there will be webcam to detect the movement and when it do, it will play sound and projection play the scene from horror movie on the wall next to the door. When the users continue walking toward 2^nd floor, the users will hear sound because of the webcam detect movement. Then, when they continue walking, they will see on the 3^rd platform a soft toy on the lamp. However, the lamp will be light up because of the webcam detect the movement. The last interactive is when the user finally arrive at the 2^nd floor, the camera will detect movement and play the sound that been set in the software.

update storyboard

my contribution of week 6(storyboard)

in this storyboard, i explain the detail about our installation. it is easier for us to refer when we want to do the installation later.

my contribution of week 5 (layout)

my contribution of week 5 (equipment, budget and quantity)

my contribution of week 5 (gannt chart)

my contribution of week 4(Research on media that we want to use)

i start my research by watching horror movie and take note on the sound when there horror scene. most of the scene in the movie, there a lot of surprise element in it that the audience feel more horror while watching it. the background sound like piano also play an important role to make create horror ambiance sound.

this a few of sound that we might use in the installation
-whispering voice
-foot step
-screaming
-children laughing
-sound clip from The Ring movie
-sound of crack door
-man laughing

my contribution of week 3(Research, data collection, facts finding)

Insecure feeling leads to fear

You might get scared in the dark for some of these same reasons. You might be afraid that you will trip and fall and get hurt because you can't see where you are going. You might be afraid that something you can't see will jump out and startle you. It might just be fear of the unknown. It could be a combination of things. When you in dark, your ears might get a little bit more sensitive towards the surrounding, a normal sound such as aircond blow might be a different sound when you in dark and feel scared. However, this feeling not just happen when you in dark, it can be at anytime. This feeling can be trigger when you feel insecure out of nowhere. As soon as you are in the stage where you feel insecure, the feeling such as fear, scary, horror will appear automatically.

Base on this article,

“It's dark out, and you're home alone. The house is quiet other than the sound of the show you're watching on TV. You see it and hear it at the same time: The front door is suddenly thrown against the door frame.

Your breathing speeds up. Your heart races. Your muscles tighten.

A split second later, you know it's the wind. No one is trying to get into your home.

For a split second, you were so afraid that you reacted as if your life were in danger, your body initiating the fight-or-flight response that is critical to any animal's survival. But really, there was no danger at all”.

In this article, it shows that you afraid, you might jump to the conclusion that something in your house. This is happen because of most of the horror movies these days, there a lot of scene where the ghost will appear when the door was shut suddenly. This kind of situation is registered in our mind. However, not all people might jump to the same conclusion that there ghost of in their house; they might be scared if someone like a thief enters their house. The scared or fear feeling come when you feel insecure with something that unusual with your daily life routine.

Some people might get easily scared because of they have been seen, heard or otherwise experience something that frightening. It is the feeling one gets after coming to an awful realization or experiencing a deeply unpleasant occurrence. When they enter into the situation that same with their experience, it is easily for them to feel insecure. They will start to imagine thing that they seen or think there is something that they should be scare off.

Some of experience that most people scared of the dark is because watching horror movies. In most horror movie, the settings for the ghost or unusual things come out during night or in the dark. When you in the dark, you will imagine yourself like in the movie. Thinking that something will happen, such as a screaming from out of nowhere or a figure that you see at the corner of your eyes. This will lead to insecure feeling. You also might create an illusion when you in the dark base on the horror movie you watch.

For the conclusion, the fear, horror, scared feeling come from insecure feeling. You might feel the insecure feeling when you in dark or out of nowhere you hear loud noise or seeing thing that unusual.

references:

http://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/human-nature/other-emotions/fear.htm

http://www.nativeremedies.com/ailment/overcoming-fears-info.html

http://www.google.com.my/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:fear&sa=X&ei=eLqQTeHXNYy6vwP01sijDQ&sqi=2&ved=0CB0QkAE

http://www.fangoria.com/index.php?id=2720:what-is-scary-filmmaker-has-lots-of-answers&option=com_content&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=167

http://people.howstuffworks.com/scared-of-dark.htm

my contribution of week 2 (sketching)

after find out that it is quite easy to do the installation (before consulting with the lecturers), here some sketches for our installation. There are 2 location that we think it is suitable for our installation;

1st is the stairway next to the DM class.

in this sketch it will show where we want to put the camera, speaker, projector and etc.

the projector will be put outside to show the audience live what happen at the stairway area.


the 2nd location is in the toilet

the installation same with the 1st installation however the different is the location and place that we want to put the camera, light, speaker and etc.

inside the toilet

outside the toiler

my contribution of week 2 (reseacrh online about webcam)

before creating the installation, it is the best way to do the research first before the the sketching. However this step (research online) should be done after the brainstorming (mind map). It is easy to find the information that i need using internet. This is the some of information that i found that can be useful for my group installation.

3 things to check for better motion detection
Written by Joe Janson,
Project lead at Omega Unfold Inc

Many things can go wrong during a motion detection process, resulting in misses and false positives. Because conditions change throughout the day, you need to optimize the setup in order to get reliable results. Here are the things to watch out for. Get the right camera for the job There is no substitute for good video source, there is no such thing as a software "enhance" feature that takes a crappy image and cleans it up. The resolution of the camera refers to the amount of pixels in an image. This can be represented as a width/height measure (640x480), a mega-pixel value (640x480 = 0.3 mega pixel), or number of lines in the case of analog cameras. A good image resolution is useful when you want to record images or video, but it has little impact on the quality of motion detection. The price of the camera is usually the better clue for the camera's quality; remember that a cheap camera can have a high resolution, but this does not mean that it will provide great colors and decent frame rate, nor that it will perform well under low light conditions. Bigger images put a larger load on the video capture, which may slow down the computer. You may need to experiment and tune the settings to find a balance. Many webcam do not have adjustable lens, have a simple lens that you need adjust manually to set the focus. A few high end webcams have auto-focus mechanical lens, which provide better images, but at a cost: if something moves out of focus, the camera will try to re-focus, which may trig the motion detection. Lighting is everything Again, there is no substitute for a good source image. Webcam behavior changes with lighting: When the scene goes darker, the camera compensates by increasing the voltage in the video sensor, making it more sensitive. The downside is that this voltage increase produces noise in the sensor, resulting in grainy images (see picture below for example). If a camera measures 1% noise from a well light room, the same camera may well measure 3% noise from the same dim light room. Another camera may behave differently. This lack of stability in light reading is a problem because it makes it harder to adjust the motion sensitivity. Darker scenes produce noisy images. A darker scene also means that camera may spend more exposition time for each frame, resulting in a lower frame rate acquisition. On the other side, it is possible to provide too much light, this can sometime happen for cameras looking outdoors. In this case, the image, or part of the image, will saturate to white, making it impossible to see anything. Higher quality cameras can deal with a wider range of lighting scheme. Cheap cameras will usually mis-behave in dark or too-bright environments. Here are a few important points that you should consider when setting up motion detection: Good motion detection results require contrast between moving subjects and the background. Less light means less contrast, resulting in misses. Moving shadows and lens flares can also produce important changes in contrast, generating false-positives. In a dark scene, if a moving subject passes between a light source and the camera, this produces major contrast, which results in reliable trigs. Place motion detection Hot Spots strategically This is where the Webcam Zone Trigger software gives you a huge advantage over standard motion detection software. You get to choose the size and position of the area to monitor by placing a motion detection Hot Spot object on the image. How to Use motion detection Hot Spots Place the Hot Spot over a stable area, where you expect there will not be irrelevant motion, or where there is less noise. The percentage next to the Hot Spot is the measured motion and noise. More motion means a higher percentage. Set the Spot's sensitivity to a slightly higher percentage threshold. Make sure the spot turns blue when the motion you expect occurs. If the Hot Spot is too sensitive, it will turn blue for no reason, slide the sensitivity to the right to make it less sensitive. If the spot does not turn blue upon motion, slide it more to the left until it does. More tips to get better results with Hot Spots: Use smaller hot spots. They will require less motion to trig, and you can tune them more precisely. Use Hot Spots as trip-wire. In a dark scene, place Hot Spots over a light source (see image above), this way if something moves between the light and the camera, this will produce optimal contrast. You can use many hot spots. You can overlap them. You can set a different sensitivity settings for each one

References http://www.zonetrigger.com - Motion Detection software download site ___________________________________________________________________ WebCam Monitor 5.24 Frequently Asked Questions What can I do with WebCam Monitor? What is motion detection? Can I use more than one camera? Can I save the history of all alerts? Is it possible to start and stop recording on a schedule? Will major changes in lighting (such as turning lights on and off) affect motion detection? Does WebCam Monitor support proxy servers? Can I use WebCam Monitor to detect motion and record from multiple cameras at the same time? Can I use WebCam Monitor to view my webcam over the Internet? Which IP cameras can I use with WebCam Monitor? Q. What can I do with WebCam Monitor? WebCam Monitor turns your Windows PC and camera into a remote monitoring and video/audio recording system. It supports over 100 different models of IP cameras and almost any USB camera. WebCam Monitor can detect motion or noise, record video and audio, take snapshots, sound an alarm, send email alerts, and upload recordings to any server using the Internet. It can also broadcast a live audio/video feed from your camera or cameras that can be viewed from anywhere in the world. Q. What is motion detection? When WebCam Monitor detects motion or noise, it can automatically trigger actions called "Alerts", like recording audio and video, taking snapshots, and sending email messages. Q. Can I use more than one camera? Yes. You can use multiple cameras to monitor more effectively. WebCam Monitor will automatically cycle among all the cameras, monitoring each in turn. Q. Can I save the history of all alerts? WebCam monitor records all events in a log file. Each event is listed along with the date and time. This log file can be saved, and used for future reference and analysis. Q. Is it possible to start and stop recording on a schedule? You can set WebCam Monitor to start and stop automatic monitoring, on a daily or weekly basis. For instance, you could set the program to automatically monitor with your custom alerts between the hours of 7:00 pm and 9:00 am, Monday through Friday. Q. Will major changes in lighting (such as turning lights on and off) affect motion detection? Yes, if there are sudden changes in surrounding light (like switching the light on or off) then that will be detected as motion and will trigger the selected action. To avoid such false alarms, switch off monitoring before changing lighting conditions. Of course, for motion detection to work, there must be enough light for the camera to "see" the motion. Q. Does WebCam Monitor support proxy servers? Yes. WebCam Monitor can upload files to an FTP Server using a proxy connection. Q. Can I use WebCam Monitor to detect motion and record from multiple cameras at the same time? When you need to monitor, and record multiple cameras simultaneously you should consider using Security Monitor Pro. Q. Can I use WebCam Monitor to view my webcam over the Internet? WebCam Monitor can broadcast video from any camera, and audio from any microphone (including those that are part of USB or FireWire cameras) as a standard Windows Media stream. This stream can be viewed using any PC over the Internet. The details are explained in the article Configuring Your Camera and PC for Internet Streaming. Q. Which IP cameras can I use with WebCam Monitor? WebCam Monitor will automatically work with almost any USB or FireWire connected camera, and with many analog cameras using many video capture cards. The list below shows the IP (network) cameras and video servers which have been tested with WebCam Monitor and are known to work. If your network camera is not listed, please contact us and we will be happy to add support to our software. Reference: http://www.deskshare.com/faqproduct.aspx?ID=12 _________________________________________________________________________ DIY: Camera Trigger Camera triggers are devices that can connect to any camera with a stereo jack--typically only SLRs (single lens reflex cameras)--that can trigger the shutter without the user having to press the on-camera shutter release button. They can be useful to reduce camera shake (as the user does not have to interact directly with the camera to trigger the shutter) or to capture high-speed objects. There are three main types of camera triggers: a release cable, a remote camera trigger and a light/sound trigger. Release Cable Release cables are plugged directly into the camera's stereo jack and refer to any device that can trigger the camera's shutter without the user needing to press the shutter release button. Because of its simplicity, the release cable can be made of almost any spare household part with a button. For instance, homemade release cables can be constructed from a mouse with a studio jack soldered on or a microphone button from a hands-free cell phone headset. Choose a device with a cord length that matches your needs. For instance, if you are planning to use your release cable for lightning photography, you should use a long cable that will permit you to get away from the storm. On the other hand, if you are planning to use the camera trigger just to help reduce camera shake, you can utilize a much shorter cable. Remote Trigger Remote triggers consist of two parts: the remote control and the receiver. The receiver is plugged into the stereo jack just as a standard release cable would be, but the remote receiver will not include any attached cords. Instead, the shutter will be released when the receiver is triggered by your remote control. Any two components capable of communicating with each other can be converted into a remote trigger. For instance, a photo-sensitive cell can be triggered with a laser pointer or a radio trigger can be activated with a device that releases radio waves. A remote trigger can sometimes be less reliable than a physical release cable, as your receiver may be activated by other devices than just your remote control. For this reason, homemade remote triggers are usually discouraged. Light/Sound Trigger Light and sound triggers, like remote triggers, involve plugging a receiver into the stereo jack of your camera. However, unlike remote triggers, the light or sound trigger does not have a remote control. Instead, the trigger is activated by either a bright flash of light or a loud, sudden sound. These types of triggers are usual for high-speed photography where humans would not be fast or precise enough to press the shutter release at the right time. For instance, a light trigger can be used to automatically trip a camera's shutter when a lightning bolt appears, and a sound trigger can be used to open the shutter when a gun is fired. Both triggers will require some familiarity with electronics, and should not be attempted unless you are comfortable creating and programming your own electronic devices. reference: http://www.ehow.com/way_5853376_diy_-camera-trigger.html

Pulse Room
By Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

Whisper
By Jiacong Yan aka Jay Yan