material animation
Chair for Computer Aided Architectural Design www.caad.arch.ethz.ch
Material Animation Material Animation is a kinetic light installation, made from lasercut electroluminescent (EL) foils, which senses location, number and velocity of human occupants and responds through a multitude of wirelessly networked components to encourage further interaction with the environment. The experiment is situated in three rooms of an idle emergency bunker below ETH Zurich’s Science City Campus. Each room reflects a different theme and approach to physically animate the distinctive material properties at an architectural scale. EL foils are extremely thin, flexible and lightweight screens, which emit a homogeneous cold light across their surface without the need for additional infrastructure. The project was realized within 3 1/2 weeks by the 2010/11 MAS class at the Chair for CAAD, ETH Zurich, supervised and tutored by Manuel Kretzer and Ruairi Glynn and supported through Lumitec AG and Ulano Corp. It merges advanced techniques in parametric design, digital fabrication, physical computing, electronics and material science with theories and computational approaches to machine intelligence and sets them into a real world context.
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Vapor Vapor creates a fluid space consisting of eight floating elements that are expanding and contracting according to location and amount of users. The main focus was to emphasize the lightness of the material and maximize the three dimensional form which is created through the way that two electroluminescent A4 sheets are cut and combined.
Generative design processes and the use of parametric software led to an oval shape that allows top and bottom part to reveal and conceal independently from each other.
The servos allow for the expansion and contraction of the top and bottom layer and simultaneously raise the element in space.
The speed of movement and frequency of illumination are determined by a Java programmed behavior and the real time input of the sensor system which are then tuned to the overall performance of the other spaces.
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Each element is controlled and animated by two servo-driven pulleys which are mounted to the back wall of the room.
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electrolunimescent foil
rotary contact
hanging structure
Open Wires dc motor
Open Wires aims to create an environment based on lighted, ephemeral and unpredictable three dimensional shapes. open wires
The system consists of 31 EL strips that revolve and flicker in high speed. The strips are attached to the ceiling at two different heights. The first level is overhead, acting as a collective cloud system. The second position is lower and invites the visitors to touch and distort the ray trace.
hanging structure dc motor open wires
rotary contact
electrolunimescent foil
kinect camera computer arduino board power supply
kinect camera
computer
arduino board
power supply
Each element mainly consists of an electroluminescent foil, a square-shaped rotary contact and a DC motor. The motor is fixed to the acrylic structure of the system. Through a metal axis, the rotary contact and the EL foil are attached to the motor. Two fixed open wires power the foil through the rotary contact.
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The visual impact of Open Wires is affected by both the revolving speed of the motors and the on/off state of the EL strips. The combination of these two factors forms the unpredictable shapes in space.
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Insomnia Insomnia focuses on the flexibility, thinness and homogeneous illumination of the material. These properties are used to back light two separated optical animations based on moiré patterns. This effect appears when two transparent layers containing coherent opaque patterns are overlapped and moved against each other. Each structure consists of an EL layer, printed black and white pictures and a striped pattern which slides horizontally. The project was approached from three sides. First the flexibility and pliability of the material was explored. Second the optical illusion resulting from the moiré effect and how it tricks and stimulates human perception was analyzed and reproduced. Third a structural and mechanical system was developed that would incorporate and unify the various layers. The lightness of the first object, a hovering cylinder with a total thickness of only 6mm, results from the gauge of the EL foil (0.3mm) and it’s extreme transformability. The EL sheet is attached to the inside of a 5mm MDF frame and covered by the opaque and transparent layers. The structure can be entered from below and forms a 360° animated surface.
01: Main MDF structure t=5mm d =1000mm 02: EL sheet 285Ă—800, 4 pieces 03: Sheet of original picture OHP t=0.1mm 04: Slide sheet PVP t=0.4mm 05: Sheet of stripe pattern OHP t=0.1mm 06: Hanger parts MDF t=4mm 07: Gear: Acrylic plate t=2mm d=200mm 08: Servo motor power cable 09: EL sheet power cable 10: Servo motor 11: Gear: Acrylic plate t=2mm d=60mm 12: Belt parts: Acrylic t=2mm + steel pin l=30mm d=1.5mm 13: Main structure MDF t=6mm
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The second object uses a nine meter long continuous red EL tape of 2cm width which sits on the ground below the suspended cylinder. The form resembles a cloverleaf and houses a small letter based animation in each corner.
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Disturbance Disturbance generates a vividly vibrating structure that appears and disappears and invites the users to pass through and linger among it’s suspended tentacles.
The piece consists of 64 thin electroluminescent strips which are evenly spread along a circular disk that is fixed to the ceiling of the space. While lit, they form a cylindrical surface that blurs and shivers when it’s being hit by the fast spinning propeller that sits in the center of the disk.
Depending on the proximity and location of approaching people light patterns gradually appear and disappear along the round surface. As with the other installations, the piece is networked and adopts it’s behavior to situations happening in the different rooms.
Electroluminescence (EL) is an optical phenomenon in which light is emitted by a material in response to a strong electric field. EL foils, which were used in this project, are extremely thin, flexible and lightweight screens. They can essentially be described as flat light bulb sandwiches consisting of layers of conductive and non-conductive plastic and a layer of phosphor. Light is produced when an electric current is passed through a semiconductor with tiny holes. As the excited electrons pass over these holes, they release their energy as photons, which results in a steady glow of the material.
light emission PE or PC film
transparent electrode ITO or organic layer
multiple layers of dielectric insulator encapsulated inorganic pigments as light-emitter back electrode
Compared to other lighting technologies electroluminescent lights require very little alternating current but a relatively high voltage (between 60 and 600 volts). In contrast to neon lamps, filament lamps or LEDs, electroluminescent light is non-directional, so the brightness of the surface appears consistent from any viewing angle. The emitted light is perfectly homogeneous and visible from a great distance. Because EL sheets are self-contained, there is no further infrastructure needed for installation.
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Electroluminescence
110 V / 440 Hz
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Control System The four installations are situated in three interconnected rooms of an old bunker below ETH Zurich’s Science City Campus. Each room is equipped with one Microsoft Kinect Sensor which is usually used to control the Xbox 360 console using gestures and spoken commands. The device features an RGB camera, depth sensor and multi-array microphone which provide fullbody 3D motion capture, facial recognition and voice recognition capabilities. For this project the information is focused on the amount of people, their location, movement and speed, and if more than two people are in the same room, also the area of space they occupy. client-02
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Each installation is further linked to a personal computer running a real time Java applet which communicates every second wirelessly with a remote server that is responsible for data distribution and choreographed performance of the spaces. After the information is compiled individual data packages are sent back to each room for further interpretation on the local PC. This exchange of data packages is used to organize the dynamic variation of elementary responses. Since the
It is a special design property of the installation that this behavioral dynamics is not programmed deterministically. Instead, a probabilistic model according to the Markov theory has been implemented, which allows for a clear separation of software logics and behavioral logics. The Markov mechanism provides a suitable means to model the memory and the sequential relations of actions of the room in response to measured changes of the environment. It is precisely the separation that allows for a long-term structural learning of the installation. The behavior of the rooms is organized in two layers. The first layer of behavior is dependent on the current state of the room which is determined by the amount of people in it, whereas the next layer of behavior is related to the average speed of the people. Different behaviors are designed to encourage people to further engage with the installation while getting a real time feedback on their actions within the space. State
Average Speed
Behavior
Satisfied
Low
Breathing regulary
Mid
Breathing iregulary
High
Individuals break out
Low
Breathing faster
Mid
Groups starts to misbehave
High
All acting random
Low
Hyperventilating
Mid
Lights freeze
High
Gets bored and shut down
Aggressive
Crazy
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choreography of actions is dependent on the behavior of visiting people, the reaction of the kinetic elements arranged within the three rooms also appear as some kind of behavior.
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Serial communication is introduced to send signals from the remote network to decentralized Arduino Microcontrollers which in turn control servo and DC motors to move the physical server elements and transistor/ relay circuits to switch EL foils on and off.
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1 12V diode
DC
relay
GND
GND EL
resistor
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resistor
NPN transistor
GND
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Customized electronic circuits are controlling each of the installations and corresponding individual components. Servo and DC motors are integrated to create movement, EL drivers are used to power the electroluminescent lamps. Different types of drivers are needed, depending on the surface area of each EL sheet and the desired brightness. The driver takes a low DC input voltage (12 V in this case) and provides an AC output voltage of approximately 140 volts.
For Disturbance and Open Wires several small DC transistor circuits are used to allow the high voltage AC supply - which is produced by the EL driver - to be controlled by a low voltage DC circuit driven by an Arduino Microcontroller. An array of 31 miniature DC motors is operated using simple transistor circuits attached to the Arduino. In Vapor an array of servo motors with pulleys for raising the top and bottom layers of each piece are regulated by an Arduino through timed high pulses of between 0.5 and 2.5 microseconds determining each servo’s individual orientation between 0-180 degrees. Relay Circuits are used to control larger EL drivers, which can power an area up to 1000cm². Insomnia uses the largest EL driver for an area of roughly 9000cm². This driver runs independently from the system on an internal default program. A single pulse frequency from the Arduino sent in parrallel to a bank of servo motors uniformly controls their movement allowing them to generate higher torque than they are individually able to achieve.
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Electronics
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Manuel Kretzer is an architect and designer from Germany and founder of Responsive Design Studio (www.responsivedesign.de). He is responsible for coordinating and leading the MAS class’s digital design and production modules. His research aims at the notion of a soft and responsive architecture examined through algorithmic design and digital fabrication strategies with a specific focus on new (smart) material performance, bio inspired structures and evolutionary computation. Ruairi Glynn is an Installation Artist, a Curator and Writer. He teaches between the disciplines of Architecture & Interaction Design at the Bartlett, UCL & Central Saint Martins, UAL. He has exhibited his own work internationally and has organised the Digital Architecture London conference and FABRICATE which was held in London in April 2011. He’s co-author of Digital Architecture: Passages Through Hinterlands and writes regularily on his blog www.interactivearchitecture.org.
The 2011 MAS class: Agata Muszynska is an architect, born in Warsaw, Poland. She has studied at Warsaw Technical University and at University of Detroit Mercy, US. Aleksandar Lalovic studied architecture at the University of Belgrade, where he obtained his Bachelor (2007) and more recently Masters Diploma in 2009. Hideaki Takenaga has Completed his Master course in architecture at Yamaguchi University, School of perceptual sciences and design engineering, Japan in 2005. Jesper Thøger Christensen is a student of architecture and engineering from the department of Architecture, Design & Media Technology, Aalborg University, Denmark. Jorge Orozco is a Mexican architect who holds a Master degree from the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (UPC-IAAC). Magda Osinska studied Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology, where she took part in a student exchange with the UDM-University of Detroit Mercy in Detroit MI, USA. Mihye An is from South Korea, with backgrounds in B.S. in Industrial Design (Digital Media Track) and M.S. in Culture Technology. Nikola Marincic studied architecture at the University of Belgrade in Serbia and graduated in 2009 with honours.
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Chair for Computer Aided Architectural Design www.mas.caad.arch.ethz.ch mas1011www.caad.arch.ethz.ch
www.vimeo.com/materiability
Thanks to: Departement Architektur ETH CAAD Raplab DArch isg DArch Ruairi Glynn, Stephen Gage Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL Florian Wille, Luke Franzke, Karmen Franinovic ZHDK - Zurich University of the Arts John Sarik Columbia Laboratory for Unconventional Electronics Emil Enz Lumitec AG Romano Kirschbaumer, Jorge Ellert Ulano Corp. Andreas Schlegel oscP5 library Max Rheiner Simple OpenNI library Klaus Wassermann B‘ Coat library
Manuel Kretzer, 2011