Archive for the 'Videos' Category

A History of the World

Published on January 19, 2010 in 3D, Flash and Videos. 2 Comments

I just returned from a trip round SE Asia to see my last project launch. Called ‘A History of the World in 100 Objects‘, it’s a joint venture between BBC Radio 4 and the British Museum to chart human history in a new way. I developed the concept for the Flash 3D object explorer with the guys at GT and built it using Flash 10’s native 3D capabilities. Users are able to explorer objects from throughout human history in a sort of 3D timeline and even make history by adding their own. Here’s the TV advert for the series:

Since it is expected to grow to up to 10,000 objects over the next 5 years, I used all the tricks in the book to optimise loading, rendering and memory management – which will bore most people to tears, so that’s for another time. Check out the Flash site itself here.

Mind control

Published on December 3, 2009 in Flash, Games, Videos and apps. 0 Comments

Here’s one of my old games being controlled with brainwaves in a homebrew EEG device cobbled together by Italian Hacker Mastro Gippo:

Multitouch for the masses

Published on June 10, 2009 in Multitouch, Videos and Webcam. 0 Comments

Just spotted a video on James Alliban’s blog of how to make your own cheap multitouch table. It’s a lot easier if you’re not initially bothered with projecting your image back into the table – otherwise you’ll need a projector (which I don’t have) and a camera capable of infrared (which some webcams may already do without requiring modification). I for one, will be having a go…

20th anniversary of Tiananmen Square massacre

Published on June 4, 2009 in Politics and Videos. 0 Comments

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. I found this somewhat amusing video of undercover Chinese police subtly trying to prevent a British journalist filming a report there.

Wii Paint

Published on May 11, 2008 in AS3, Flash, Videos and Wii. 2 Comments

After getting my Wii remote hooked up with the WiiFlash Server, I knocked up this quick Flash demo which draws the blobs of infrared light the Wii remote detects (it can track up to 4 blobs at once), just like the Wii console's sensitivity setting dialog does. I just gave each blob a different colour and clear the graphics on pressing the 'A' button.

Here's the code to get it working - requires WiiFlash Server:

import org.wiiflash.Wiimote;
import org.wiiflash.IR;
import org.wiiflash.events.ButtonEvent;
import org.wiiflash.events.WiimoteEvent;
import flash.events.*;

var myWiimote:Wiimote = new Wiimote();
myWiimote.connect();myWiimote.addEventListener(WiimoteEvent.UPDATE, onUpdated);
myWiimote.addEventListener(ButtonEvent.A_PRESS, onAPressed);

function onUpdated (pEvt:WiimoteEvent):void {
var ir:IR = pEvt.target.ir;
var irWidth:Number = 400;
var irHeight:Number = 400;
var irSize:Number = 4;
if (ir.p1) drawCircle(ir.x1*irWidth, ir.y1*irHeight, ir.size1*irSize, 0xff0000);
if (ir.p2) drawCircle(ir.x2*irWidth, ir.y2*irHeight, ir.size2*irSize, 0x00ff00);
if (ir.p3) drawCircle(ir.x3*irWidth, ir.y3*irHeight, ir.size3*irSize, 0x0000ff);
if (ir.p4) drawCircle(ir.x4*irWidth, ir.y4*irHeight, ir.size4*irSize, 0xffff00);
}

function onAPressed (pEvt:ButtonEvent):void {
graphics.clear();
pEvt.target.rumbleTimeout = 50;
}

function drawCircle (x:Number, y:Number, size:Number, colour:Number=0xffffff):void {
graphics.beginFill(colour, .2);
graphics.drawCircle(x,y,size);
}