Assignment: Midterm Project 1: Group project proposal
Collaborators: nathanyan, dolan
Assignment: Midterm Project 1: Group project proposal
Collaborators:
Assignment: Midterm Project 1: Group project proposal
Collaborators:
Heather Dolan
Nathan Yan
David Rolnitzky
The problem:
Today there are a proliferation of personal artifacts scattered throughout both the web and in physical space. People store images on a computer or in shoe boxes, and articles of significance collected over time are strewn around homes, separate from the images to which they are related. These images and articles are rarely associated outside the owner's mind. Our hypothesis is that personal artifacts that are combined with images help us to recall experiences and share them with others.
A solution:
We propose a tool that facilitates remembrance and storytelling through the use of images, personal mementos, and a tangible user interface. The proposed tool, at a high level, consists of a receptacle, tokens, a display mechanism, and digital media. Personal artifacts are transformed into tokens through a simple association process. These tokens can then be placed within the receptacle, which triggers the display of associated images on a display surface. While both the tokens and images already have meaning to their owners, by using these physical tokens as gateways to digital archives, we suggest that the value of both items increases as the combination of the two result in better recall and sharing of an experience. The tool also encourages more interaction with personal mementos, which are increasingly left out of experience recollection as they move further into the digital domain. Tickets, itineraries, and even postcards often exist only in a digital form. Physical mementos also trigger memories in a natural way. For instance, a person sees a vial of sand they collected on vacation in Hawaii and remembers their vacation. This trigger can further facilitate recall by encouraging the user to view the images they captured on that vacation using the sand.
Previous approaches:
There are currently other available offerings for digital image display, digital scrap booking, and image organization, but these offerings don't incorporate the additional vector of physical interaction. Today, physical scrap books must be taken off the shelf and looked at page by page. Digital images on a computer must be browsed on a computer. The tool provides a more immersive experience by allowing people to share their memories in a tactile way with a larger variety of viewing options.
Our approach:
We have explored three possible concepts that allow us to realize our goal of recollection and storytelling:
This first tool concept has the form factor of a book with a side "tray" that holds tokens (personal mementos) from an individual's personal experience. Placing a token into the tray retrieves associated images and displays them on pages of the "book". In addition to associating these images with the personal object(s), the book will allow additional annotation by the user (e.g., writing, audio input, scanning newspaper clippings or other artifacts), that would provide a complete story from that personal experience. To make associations between images and tokens place a memento in the tray. One or more people then drag images to the tray. This concept is intended to facilitate interaction and sharing among an individual or a small number of people.
"Fish Bowl of Memories" Concept:
The second tool concept consists of two pieces: a glass "bowl" and a decanter. The user places a token (personal memento) into the bowl and proceeds to virtually "pour" the "contents" of the decanter into the bowl over the token. Audio feedback will represent "pouring". Once the decanter is "poured", the bowl displays/projects the images associated with the object within the bowl. The association process involves people dragging images into the bowl with a momento placed in it. The user can "de-associate" images by pulling or pouring them out of the bowl. This concept is also intended to facilitate viewing and sharing among an individual or a small number of people.
Exploratory direction: Modeling images (or other digital media) as "living" entities, such as fish in a fish bowl? Viewing repeatedly makes the memory fish bigger? Pouring certain types of "food" will cause memory fish to "surface" and appear on the display like living memories?
"Story Room" Concept:
The user places their tokens (personal mementos) into a box located inside a room. Once tokens are placed in the box, the associated images are projected onto the walls/floor/ceiling of the room immersing the viewers in the photographed experience. This concept is intended for an individual or many people. The room size serves as a limitation.
Exploratory direction: Rather than associating sets of dissociate images, the scene can instead be rendered in form of a 360-degree panorama (this would necessitate the individual captured sufficient images to create a panoramic image, or perhaps these could be pulled from a certain location using others' photos?). The room becomes a virtual environment which can be explored. For example, the primary image(s) create a panorama of a town square, where certain buildings can be accessed, bringing up the users' images taken from within that building.
