PDF: Introduction and Ideas [Slideshow]
SoundSpace is a tool for musicians to meet and create music while apart. Current tools (ex. garageband, webconferencing) ignore the importance of body movements, spatialized sound, or even the vibrations of a performer stomping on the ground. The importance of these ways of communication become clear when thinking of the way a lead violinist directs a string quarter solely through emphasized body movements. SoundSpace provides all of these sensory inputs while also adding the ability to record and playback sessions. This is great for rehearsal alone later or revisiting improvised sections that are otherwise difficult to repeat. It can also by used to turn on and off instruments or rearrange portions in the composition and lead to new ways of experimentation.
As a follow-up to Clearboard, Permea-b-oard latches on to the importance of the direct gaze, and continuity of space, but suggests that this does not only need to be for the sharing of 2D representation. A space is added at the bottom of the board for working with physical or digital 3D models. While physically located far apart, the interface creates the appearance of a shared space allowing for direct gesturing, eye-contact, and shared manipulation of an object.
MeetingMaker is a tool for meetings or charrettes where a lot of sketching happens that doesn’t get recorded or that happens on one end of the table and can’t be seen by people on the other end. This is often the case in meetings between architects and engineers. At the end of the meeting, people walk away with the sketches they made and important information gets lost.
It starts out with the idea of ‘Shared Design Space‘ where the entire surface of a table can be used to draw. Important images which have been pinned-up can be grabbed and moved to the table digitally using phicons for people to look at or sketch over. Updated drawings can be easily moved back to the pin-up wall. Personal sketches can be moved towards the center of the table to be enlarged and allow everyone to look at or sketch over together.
Project files from a network or server can also be pulled up directly on the table rather than needing to run back to a computer, plot, and bring back physically. These drawings are connected directly to the project’s 3D model and any sketching that happens over these drawings are directly imported into a layer on the computer model, relating the sketch to the overall building and precluding the need to find a sketch, scan it, import it, and retrace it into the 3D model later. While sketching the computer can be told to create alignments or snaps for more accurate drawing.
Finally, the audio of the meeting can be recorded and synchronized with the movement of images around the room allowing for review of the meeting later.