SMART CAMERA
A computer’s ability to recognise objects, patterns and gestures, has drastically improved over the past few years. Computer Vision techniques have evolved to become very sophisticated.
Even with the limited processing power available to us on a mobile phone, such software can identify real world objects with such fidelity that it can be used as a profitable navigational tool today.
This third prototype, the Smart Camera, is sensitive to two dimensional data matrices called
QR (Quick Response) codes. These black and white icons contain digital information that is instantly decoded the moment that the camera recognises them.
No user interaction is required to decode them.
Each icon contains a URL web address. This URL directs an attached mobile phone to retrieve the information stored there.
This information is stored digitally and could be communicated in a variety of different ways,
visually, aurally or haptically. The Smart Camera communicated it as spoken information.
This camera prototype was designed to be worn on the front of the person. It fixes onto the strap of a shoulder bag, which contains a video transmitter and a Bluetooth audio receiver.
The camera body itself, hung from an arrangement of bearings, ensuring that it remained upright, no matter what orientation of the person
Footage taken with the Smart Camera in the Vassall Centre
Optical methods aren’t just limited to the recognition of black and white data matrices. Our world is beginning to be visually recorded through tools such as Google Street View, Flickr and Photosynth. By taking a snap shot of our environment and comparing it with the images in these databases, computer vision software can calculate where the person is and hence access the wayfinding information relevant to that site.
3 prototypes
Talking Tactile Map
RFID Torch
Smart Camera
Helen Hamlyn Centre, 2008
Sponsored by the Audi Design Foundation