THE CONCEPT Audichromos is an installation using code and a simple webcam. It lets you mix various instruments using only colors and also visualizes the users on a canvas. Our goal was to build something interactive, fun and easy that can be used by several people.
This project was built in only 2 stressfull but rewarding weeks, not during a whole semester like other projects in this portfolio.
1.1.1 My teammate Nico setting up our concept board.
↓ 2. Functionality
2.1
HOW IT WORKS Four colored balls are tracked by a webcam. If the webcam recognizes a ball, the program will instantly play the instrument connected to the color. Users can now mix their colored balls and create a new piece of music. The movement of the balls is also tracked by the webcam and is then translated to a visual grid, which mirrors the users movement.
2.1.1 The team testing the installation, trying to get the rhythm down.
The webcam recognizes the color red on our ball, begins tracking and displaying it on the visual grid, while the instrument associated with the color red starts playing.
↓ 3. Coding
3.1
WHY IT WORKS Our first step was making sure the code tracks each color correctly. Using the javascript library tracking.js to track the colors and getting the webcam to recognize each color correctly turned out to be a lot harder than expected.
Then we set up the code to play the correct instruments as soon as the webcam recognizes their color. Quickly adding more colors and instruments is also possible.
3.1.1 Setting the code up to track each color correctly - in this case red.
3.1.2 Connecting the instruments to their color. Red starts playing the bass.
3.1.3 Now we needed to upload the sounds we wanted to use for each color.
3.1.4 Testing our code, the yellow square is the pencil being tracked by a webcam.
↓ 4. Video
4.1
SEE FOR YOURSELF We also made a little making-of to show you how Audichromos was made and functions.
