Design Iterations - Face Swap Project

Face swap project - 2 

As mentioned in a previous post (see blog post Face Swap - 1) I am creating a face swap installation. Within that blog post I stated that there were three steps that needed to be completed in order to create the installation. The first was creating a live face detection fed. I have begun to start this task and have found an Open CV liabary on github by someone called  atduskgreg. Within this Open CV library there is was an example piece of code named face detection. This piece of code is the bases of my project. This is because the code uses face detection technology to detect faces within a photo. There is however one issue with the face detection and that is because it works on detecting typical features of the face such as the nose, mouth and the eyes if anything obstructs these feature, such as glasses then it does not detect the face. 

The above image shows the face detection working on a picture. 

The code for the face detection 

Although I have stated that I want the installation to detect faces in real time and not in pictures, this is a good start to the project as I have the library and the code in order to detect the faces. This means that I can now move forward with the project and begin to find ways to transfer this code from picture detection to real time camera detection. 

References 

Atduskgreg, 2014. Atduskgreg/OpenCV-Processing. GitHub, Available from: https://github.com/atduskgreg/opencv-processing [Accessed 26 November 2014].

Design Iterations - Face Swap Project

Face swap project - 1

I have decided to create a face swap as my installation for the brief. I have decided to do this because I believe that it is a project that will create an interesting installation at the end as well as it being a project that is attainable with my level of skill within processing. I believe that this project will also show off a number of different media theories such as the idea of a hyper reality and the fact that people are now struggling to distinguish between the real and simulated due to there online lives. This would be shown in this installation because some people are becoming so consumed by their online lives that their online lives are sometimes different to their real life, the idea that they are being someone that they are not. So creating a face swap where the user can essentially become someone else would represent this. 

As I have previously stated that I will be working in a iterative design process I thought that it would wise to create a step by step guide to what will have to be done in order to create this installation. 

1.) The first aspect of this project that will have to be completed is generating a live face detection fed through the camera. 

2.) The second part of this project will be finding a way to store/save the detected faces 

3.) The final part will be finding a way to use the stored faces and swap the faces around. 

Processing

Exploding Images 

In the most recent Processing workshop that I have had we learnt how to make a picture burst into many particles on the click of a mouse. The main reason for this workshop was to introduce us to the use of vectors and classes that previously I did not have much experience with. The code itself basically involves setting up a number of variables, loading the image and setting the size of the canvas to the size of the image. The code has been written so that gravity, position and velocity are linked together which means that when velocity is bound to Y, it has use of all of the forces. 

The Code

PImage img;

PVector grav;

ArrayList agents;

int p = 2;

float r,g,b;

void setup(){

  background(255);

  img = loadImage("apple.jpg");

  size(img.width,img.height);

  agents = imageToAgents();

}

void draw(){

  background(255);

  

  

  for (int i = 0; i < agents.size(); i++) {

     Agent tempA = (Agent)agents.get(i);

     if (mousePressed){

       tempA.update();

     }

     tempA.draw(); 

  }

}

ArrayList imageToAgents() {

  ArrayList agents = new ArrayList();

  img.loadPixels();

  for(int x = 0; x < img.width; x += p){

    for (int y = 0; y < img.height; y += p){

      int loc = x + (y * img.width);

      color c = img.pixels[loc];

      Agent pixel = new Agent(x,y,c);

      agents.add(pixel);      

    }

   }

 return agents;

}

class Agent {

    PVector pos,vel,grav,force;

    float x,y;

    color c;

    Agent(int x, int y, color c){

     this.x = x;

     this.y = y;

     this.c = c;

     grav = new PVector (0,random(0.5,1));

     pos = new PVector (x,y);

     force = new PVector();

     vel = new PVector(random(-9,9),random(-9,9));

    }

    

    void update(){

        force.set(grav);

        vel.add(force);

        vel.mult(0.99);

        pos.add(vel);

    }

    

    void draw() {

      fill(c);

      noStroke();

      rect(pos.x,pos.y,p,p); 

    }

}

Hyper Reality

Hyper Reality - Media Concept 

Hyper reality is a phase coined by Jean Baudrillard. The idea of a hyper reality is that where the age of information technology has become some awe consuming in western civilisation that new media has forced people in an induced reality called hyper reality (Buardillard 1970). As Hill and Fenner describes it "hyper reality is characterised by the collapse of the distinction between the real and the simulated" (2010 p.75). 

This idea of a hyper reality could be an interesting idea to use for the interative information design project. This is because this idea of a "hyper reality" is the idea that where the rise in new media and social media has become so pivotal to a persons life they are becoming consumed by these platforms and are making people being "no longer distinguish between real life and the online world, according to a major new survey." (Warman 2014). This can be seen in people using social media to create a life that they don't have or want to have, becuase this idea of the hyper reality collapses the boundaries between the real and the simulated so they in creating an online life for some people it becomes a reality. 

Hyper reality can be used a media concept within the installation project in many way. Becuase even a simple installation such as a user manipulating an object on a screen can be seen as a hyper reality because there is a collapse between the real and the simulated. 

Reference List 

Baudrillard, J., 1970. The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications.

Hill, S. and Fenner, B., 2010. Media and Cultural Theory. Ventus Publishing. Available from: http://bookboon.com/en/media-and-cultural-theory-ebook#download [Accessed 19 December 2014].

Warman, M., 2014. Real world v online world: teens do not distinguis. The Telegraph, 27 April 2014, Available from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10791922/Real-world-v-online-world-teens-do-not-distinguish.html [Accessed 3 November 2014].

Design Iterations - Installation Brief

Installation Brief 

As mentioned in previous posts we have been set a brief to create an interactive installation created through processing that will be placed within Weymouth House. The brief states that the we have to create a piece of interactive information design to be shared in a public space. This piece of information design is meant to convey or example and concept which could be perceived as key to 21st century media experience. The brief does stipulate that the work that is produce can either be a literal piece of information design or we can choose to create a more abstract, artistic, piece. The brief states that we are to use camera based interaction. 

Looking at this brief I am going to have to begin think about media concepts that could make interesting information graphics. Some of these concepts that could work could be the increasing spread and importance of the internet to peoples lives or the idea of a hyper-reality. However these topics maybe hard to convey into a camera based interactive piece.

Ultimately I will spend the next number of weeks looking at different media concepts and find one which can be convey through an interactive information graphic. It is likely that I will be creating a more abstract piece of work, due to the fact that from the poster brief I have found that for something to be noticed within the fast paced area that is weymouth house, that it does have to be very eye catching and interesting. This means that if I go down the more artistic and abstract route I can create something eye catching that will gain attention from the audience. 

Processing

Digital Clock 

Over the weekend I extended onto a previous piece of work (see blog post 24/10/14) the basic premise of how a digital clock would work in processing. This was completed using "strings". Strings are defined as a sequence of characters. These characters can be coded in such a way that a certain character, i.e. 1, 2, 3, etc, would appear every second or amount of time that has been specified. To achieve this I created values such as second, minute, hour and organised them as ca be seen below. 

  String[]snowden={"S","N","O","W","D","E","N"};

  String ye=str(year());

  String mo=str(month());

  String d=str(day());

  String h=str(hour());

  String m=str(minute());

  String s=str(second());  

  String time=ye+"/"+mo+"/"+d+" "+h+":"+m+":"+s;

What this does is it determines what order the characters shall be displayed in. The bottom string determines this and the inclusions of characters such as "/" and ":", mean that it will be displayed professionally like 29/10/14 11:20:30. The below image shows this. 

One issue that this does seem to have however is that the previous number does take some time to fade out, which does leave the second part to become quite unreadable. This is something that I am going to have to look at and change because the whole part of this is clock is that you can garner information from it, and if it is not able to be read then the whole thing is slightly pointless. 

Design Iterations - Poster Brief

Evaluation 

Having completed the poster brief I have gained some very valuable information about the area which I will later be placing an interactive installation within. The first piece of information that I have learned about the area is that it is a very fast moving place where a majority of people are simply moving through and not standing around. This means that any installation that I make will have to be eye catching and interesting to make people want to stay and use it. The second thing that I found out about the area is that people that are sitting around are generally not aware of their surroundings. This is because from observing people in the area, those hat were sitting were either to engaged with a conversation with friends to pay any attention to what was going on in the surroundings or were by themselves and using a phone, tablet, etc. This means that either I will not target the people sitting down with my installation as they are generally involved in other activities or I will have to ensure that my installation does look eye catching and interesting so that they engage with the work. Finally I have also discovered that as it gets closer to the hour mark within Weymouth House the volume of people within it does go up however so does the number of people rushing through the space. This can be seen with our poster as the number of people that were glancing at the poster or taking time to read it did go down in the 5 minutes before and after the hour mark. This leads me to believe that the closer to the hour mark the less people my piece of work will attract, this is simply because the people that are moving through the space have places to go and are therefore not interested in their surroundings. 

From this experience I have gained a sense of how important it is to study the area that you are placing work within, as people simply do not act the way that you would expect them to. This is means that studying the area is key when making any piece of work because you can make an informed decision about what will work within the area and what won't.