Brainstorm

Hi,

Ok, I begin:) I didn't have any major reason with the module (still an experiment). If anybody wants it to use or customize I'm sure she/he'll leave me a comment. It's rather a small fun. I've a bunch of idea about this:

• show a bug logo to report a bug
• show a company logo to load the 'About US' page
• if you have a geek face (rectangle head and big black glasses) than it could be a pattern also, and geeks are redirected to (ex) the Star Trek pages
• if a child wears a Guns & Roses shirt the site loads a video clip (and delete user account when the pattern is a Britney S. shirt)

Ok, maybe the last ones are a little bit crazy.

What do you think?

Hey Itarato -

You've got my vote! very cool.

Why? Because content management is not just for websites - it's also for physical installations (e.g. museum exhibits, interactive displays in retail stores or banks, interactive maps on city streets or in parks). Keyboard and mouse interaction is rarely the right solution in these situations, and touchscreen is a VERY imperfect substitute. Optical recognition is potentially a home-run.

To give an example of a development that would be very powerful: can you think of a way to recognize the posture of a person? Say if a person points, the mouse moves in that direction, or holds arms straight out to the side for a mouse click. (and frankly, this could be useful for other devices: replace wii controllers if you can get sophisticated enough... or let someone gesture at their iPhone without needing to touch the screen...).

So there's one direction. Keep creating stuff because it's cool, and keep putting it out to the community. Most of it will find a reason for being there. And don't listen to the critics; no one is to blame for not seeing unusual possibilities, but it would be a shame if they killed your urge to be wacky!

My colleagues and I will be interested to see what else you come up with! Maybe we need a group for wacky developments? I'll look into it....

Kay

Hi Kay,

Thanks for your words:) The discussion is renamed to Brainstorm. As you said it needs evolving so what would be better than getting ideas. The original goal with this technology was the so called augmented reality: http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/#/augmented_reality I was amazed first time I saw, then secondly when I managed to build my one (tutorial on the project's page). But still thinking that 3D is not for Drupal. At least as I see now. I'm really excited about how far they can get with the pattern recognition. As far as I know now it can recognize static patterns (mostly between the black border). In practice we can add as many patterns to the flash as we want, so a new way would be to take difference between patterns (different Drupal actions, etc.). For face recognition (even more, gesture recognition) it needs some smart brain to implement algorithms. I'm sure its not too far to get that.

Maybe for brainstorming 2 section would make sense: real claims for this project and crazy ideas about how we can use this technology.

Each idea would be welcomed:)

Peter

A good use of a webcam trigger can be seen here.
Admittedly not running on drupal, but the concept remains the same.

Hey Guys, this thing is great!
I would find a hundred of use-cases for this.
Imagine a community that is restricted and you receive a physical letter with the patterncard. So you just have to show the card to your computer and you get access! You would definitely feel VIPed! This is soo cool!
You can preregister users with certain patterns and sort them into roles beforehand.
Please! Keep on working on this. This is fantastic!
BUT - I am having the same issue stated in the other post, the webcam screen stays blank and loads forever. Could this have something to do with current Flash-Player? Because Flash 10 is known to causing trouble.
I am really looking forward to any news of this!
Thanx for contributing!

Hi,

I'm really glad to hear that. I checked the module, and for me it works. Which should be great but I can't reproduce the bug. Though, I saw it once. But after I found something else using my webcam (like another website) it got fixed. Now I'm using FlashPlayer version 9 in my browser. FP10 can be a problem of course. I hope I can fix it soon.

Bests,
Peter

Wow! absolutely amazing :)

If this module would provide motion detection instead of just pattern recognition -> then we could use it for a security system. Basically setup your webcam (or multiple webcams) -> then when it detects motion have the action send you a text message/ email. Would be even cooler if it started snapping digital pictures at a customizable rate after motion was detected.

In the future -> when motion pattern recognition hits open source -> you should be able to use this module to detect specific motions -> then conduct different actions for different motions. Could be for drupal-based video games or a cool new way of browsing & building websites. Then all we need is audio pattern recognition & voice-to-text/ voice-to-commands -> then we are set!

In the meantime building a drupal based security system would be a good way to get some steam rolling underneath this project. Just need general motion detection.

Motion detection and pattern recognition are two sides of the same coin. A baseline image of a room could be set as a pattern that could be recognized. Any deviation from the baseline pattern would mean there had been a change in the room. Security systems in retail stores use this principle to detect items being removed from shelves.

Thanks DrewMathers for the starting point. This feature has such great potential -> that I have decided to turn it into a Drupal Feature - "Security Webcam" http://drupal.org/sandbox/TimelessDomain/1081452

Using it for ID-card login would be great. A workflow would be to:

1. create a content profile which will have the cck-fields for identification
2. create a serial field for a student number
3. Insert a qr_code field to render the student number as a qr-code, perhaps (the best would be to create something with public key encryption for the id, as outlined in this abandoned project: cheapid). Perhaps creating a unique OpenSSH public/private key for each user account and signing the number with the private key. Of course a photocopy would circumvent this, but that would at least require physical access to the card.
4. print an id-card for lamination, or perhaps even proper production (fillpdf takes cck fields and maps them to pdf-template fields)
5. use webcam_trigger to take attendance at for example a class, or event, by reading the serial number from the barcode and checking it against he

Only parts of the third step and the final step is missing. For taking attendance this would be a very good system.

This module is the solution if you buy their "premium" account, and the authentication is off site via their domain. Not ideal for a school.