'Model Pickup' is an interactive application developed with openFrameworks, by Ryan Foster and a small team of developers from space150. The interactive application runs 24/7 at Forever21's Time Square store, drawing hordes of passerbys to stand under the glow of their gigantic LED billboard. The crowds watch in awe as 50-ft tall, digital models engage in seemingly personal interactions with individuals below. Models interact in variety of playful ways: drawing artistic sketches of people below, snapping polaroid shots of groups and individuals below, 'zooming-in' on pedestrians with a magnifying glass in a detective-like manner.
Perhaps the most exciting and sought after interaction is to be 'picked-up' by the model and plucked from the crowd. A luckily plucked individual might have their 10s of fame and end up being put on a double decker bus in London, near a pyramid in Egypt, or maybe just stowed away in the model's purse for later. Day after day, crowds gather to stare at the model interactions almost incessantly to see how they might be engaged next.
This installation uses computer vision and greenscreen tracking technology.
Also developed in openFrameworks, the multifacted canopy LED display runs two interactive applications. The underside of the display runs a computer vision application that tracks passerbys underneath, emitting camera flashes above the person and simulating a responsive paparazzi-like experience. The side panel LED displays in the canopy area also run a seperate application that serves a music visualizer. The audio output of the store's speaker system is synchronized to the application to provide music visualization effects. Although, originally implemented in flash, the application was later reimplemented as a native c/c++ application. A brief glimpse of these interactions can be seen below.
The rockstar experience is another interactive application developed by a small team of developers from space150, including Ryan Foster. The main interactive components are written in Cing, a powerful, soon to be released, c++ framework with processing compatibility. The rockstar experience extracts images of peoples' heads from multiple angles, and super-imposes them onto rockstars in a music video.
Individuals who are ready to rock enter into a photobooth installation to engage in the interaction. A step-by-step process of child-like ease is initiated which extracts an image of the partipant's head from multiple angles. Users have the option to retake their picture, add additional band members, and finalize the band which begins the head replacement and rockstar music video rendering process. Within a brief time period, the rendered videos with replaced faces are played nearby in-store, as well as on the larger digital LED billboard outside in Times Square.
From the interactive photobooth, to browsing and sharing rendered videos on the iPad and web, there are many components written in a variety of languages to make the magical rockstar experience come to life.
