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Input Devices Technology

I/O Electronic Brush for Painting 64

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the all-we-got-was-a-lump-of-clay dept.
karvind writes "BBC is running an interesting story about the I/O Brush developed by Kimiko Ryokai, researcher at the MIT Media Labs. The device allows a person to pick up colours and textures from their environment and paint with them on a large digital screen. At the tip of the brush is a tiny video camera enclosed by a ring-shaped brush. LEDs are used for illumination, and pressure sensors to trigger image capture. The camera captures one frame in the normal mode, and a few seconds of video in movie mode. The brush "paints" the captured image or movie onto a back-projected touch screen."
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I/O Electronic Brush for Painting More

I/O Electronic Brush for Painting

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  • So (Score:1)

    by Descalzo ( 898339 )
    Did I muss it? How much would something like this cost? Sounds too expensive to be widely used. Still, it looks very fun.

    • Re:So (Score:1)

      by aurb ( 674003 )
      Here's your free I/O Brush: use a webcam to grab the pattern and paint it using mouse. The result will be somewhat similar, though it will not be all that fun.

    • Re:So (Score:2)

      by mikael ( 484 )
      A 60" rear projected digital whiteboard would cost around 5000 pounds, and a wireless webcam would cost around 100 pounds.

    • If basic CCDs can be put in cheap optical mice, there's no reason something with perhaps a few hundred/thousand pixels wouldn't be possible at a price comparable to a small graphics tablet.

      I'd say the esoteric nature of the device would be a greater hinderance than cost; the limited number of replies to this article will give you a rough idea of how many people will want one of these. But I think those who will want one will really, really want one.

  • Too bad it's just a toy (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Hannah E. Davis ( 870669 ) on Sunday September 18, 2005 @03:10AM (#13588559) Journal
    It looks like an interesting toy, but I don't know how useful it would be to make actual works of art. From what I can see in the pictures, it looks too big and awkward to do any detail work. It's too bad, really, because a much smaller, stylus-sized version of this would be a lot of fun for image manipulation and digital art. It would be a lot easier to get colours right when painting from life anyway :)
    • Well prototype/research versions often need to be much larger than a mass market product as you have to combine general components rather than creating an integrated version through dedicated manufacturing/lithography.

      In any case while it does sound like lots of fun, and it could be great for doing studies of real objects (copy the color directly) I don't know (I'm genuienly unsure) if it would really be better at color picking in general. I mean are you really able to find color alot better in the real wo
    • Geesh... You sound like me CEO...

      "Well, yes it's a data warehouse that allows real-time analysis of anomolous event activity over the last 30 days, but where are the graphs?"

      You gotta start somewhere...
    • "I don't know how useful it would be to make actual works of art"
      That depends on how good you are at working "outside of the box." I've heard great music created with professional instruments, toy instruments and even computers. I've examined awesome sculpture made with marble and some made with Playdoh. I've even seen great paintings made with condiments. Artists are pretty good at figuring out how to use tools to express themselves in a meaningful ways.

      "...it looks too big and awkward to do any detail

      • Comments like this:

        The level of detail you could do with this thing is orders of magnitude beyond traditional brushes. Did you know that many computer art programs can zoom down to a pixel? And dig this: They also let you assign your granularity in something called dpi. Imagine a single brush that could be adjusted from an angstrom thick to a kilometer wide. Cool, eh?

        indicate an obsession with perfection. That's not what art is about. If you are fascinated with angstrom-thick brushstrokes you are lik
        • Uh... I was pointing out how even the abilities of the new tool are misunderstood and it could be used for detail work.

          I understand that I tend to explain things with enthusiasm -- It seems to help people pay attention -- But that's no reason for you to jump to conclusions about the nature of my artistic obsessions. At least most people wait until the showing to do that.

          And surely you aren't dismissing obsession with perfection in a general sweep. Sometimes the whole performance can be the expression on a s
    • And how big was the first trackball?
  • This seems like a fantastic installation for an interactive meuseum. Or, make a USB version and we can set it up on the PC and let Junior go nuts. It'd also do well on consoles, I think. Hmm, this might have more application than I first thought!

    I imagine with a little craftwork, a cheap USB camera and a little FOSS you could make one of these yourself.
  • This could be very useful for what John Carmack said he would like to see more of in his speeech: less repeating textures in games (which he described as a "basic form of compression") and more single textures. After capturing the models using some sort of scanner a Deep-Paint like system (as opposed to traditional UVW map or texture repeaters) could be used in conjunction with the brush to give it texture... and you have a high quality copy of the object from the real world as a textured 3d model.

  • It looks like (Score:5, Funny)

    by xquark ( 649804 ) on Sunday September 18, 2005 @03:27AM (#13588586) Homepage
    either an oversize painting brush or a normal sized
    toilet brush, I'm still deciding.... :)

    Arash

  • Slavish replication of physical tools (Score:3, Insightful)

    by logicnazi ( 169418 ) <gerdesNO@SPAMinvariant.org> on Sunday September 18, 2005 @03:30AM (#13588589) Homepage
    I have to say I really like the idea and think it's great. However, making an object a paint brush seems to be just an unimaginative copy of the tool for the physical world. It would seem to me that the brush interface would just be silly at best and interfere with usage at worst.

    Sure if the idea of this brush is to sell it to artists or other adults mimicking an interface they are comfortable with might be best. However, this is a limitation of adults they project onto children thinking of them like limited innocent versions of adults. Children are exceptionally good at learning new interfaces and ways of controlling things and it is probably a good experience for them as well.

    It just seems kinda silly to me that we repeat this same silly duplication of old interfaces each time. When cars were first invented people tried to put reigns on them along with many other examples I can't remember. I'm just surprised we haven't learned yet that new technologies generally demand new interfaces...then again since it usually takes a generation to become familiar with the new interfaces it may be too much to hope that the designers would ever see this.

    (Note this isn't a real criticism just a general observation and nit picking)

    • Re:Slavish replication of physical tools (Score:4, Insightful)

      by BrynM ( 217883 ) * on Sunday September 18, 2005 @04:12AM (#13588655) Homepage Journal
      making an object a paint brush seems to be just an unimaginative copy of the tool for the physical world
      I realize that you may be saying that this is more convergence than invention, but I think a brush metaphor does best illustrate what this thing does. Despite the label, what it does to computing and kids is interesting. If you can call a wand a wang [bash.org], you can call a brush a wand.
      It just seems kinda silly to me that we repeat this same silly duplication of old interfaces each time. When cars were first invented people tried to put reigns on them along with many other examples I can't remember. I'm just surprised we haven't learned yet that new technologies generally demand new interfaces...
      Cars weren't a whizbang!-Suddenly-you-have-a-BMW! type thing. You're forgetting that the interface for a car took a long time to settle [nationmaster.com] (especially by today's standards). In fact, it's still evolving quite a bit. Remember saying:
      Children are exceptionally good at learning new interfaces and ways of controlling things
      I think this may be a good reason to give it to kids right away. Think of it as interface R&D if you have to.
      (Note this isn't a real criticism just a general observation and nit picking)
      Ditto ;)
      • Yes, I agree that if your goal is to make adults feel immediatly comfortable with something and quickly understand what it is good for a brush metaphor is best. However, it is a different thing to say that a metaphor communicates what something does and what it is good for/how to use it. The brush metaphore doesn't communicate what this device does; it would be a bad idea to try to paint your wall with this or dip it in real paint. You still have to explain what the device does explicitly as slashdot did

        • Consider another explanation. Pretend the folks who developed the brush worked at the MIT Media Lab [mit.edu]. Pretend that they had spent a lot of time thinking about the whole "brush thing". They do a lot of thinking up there - kinda famous for it. If they DID have good reasons for the design, instead of just being "silly", then surely they would have published some sort of academic paper [66.102.7.104]. Them being at MIT and all. They could be very highly accomplished people [mit.edu] who have worked on other projects [mit.edu] like this one. Coul
          • And if you had read the comment instead of just being offended you might have noticed that I do think the project is a good idea created by smart people. I merely think the interface is silly.

            Had you cared to even briefly consider my comment you might have noticed that my point is exactly that many intelligent and innovative inventors nevertheless assume new technology will be interacted with in the same was as old technology.

            Perhaps had you been interested in responding intelligently instead of just being

            • Dude, you missed it again. Not only do they explain exactly why they use the form of a brush, they list and discuss other possible interfaces. They give examples of other approaches to human interaction with new technologies. They also explain their desire to recreate the link between colors on the 'canvas' and everyday life that painters experienced when making the various colors of paint with physical ingredients. Just as a painter picks up paint with a brush, the IO Brush picks up attributes from the env

        • or dip it in real paint.

          But this is why the metaphor works. You do dip the brush in paint...only the paint isn't that wet stuff that you get out of cans or tubes, but rather everything in the world. You like the shade of blue on someone's shirt? With this brush, the shirt is now a can of paint in exactly the color you want; one dip and you're got that color without any hassle. No searching for the right tube of paint, no mixing in a bit of white to lighten or black to darken; just what you want.

          • Perhaps I wasn't clear on this point. I agree completely that the metaphor works and is probably the best metaphor possible. My point is that for fairly simple (in function not necessarily technology) tools/interfaces a metaphor is merely a way to make adult users of the old technology familiar with the new. Hence my comment that if their goal was mass market adoption or even immediate understanding by adults of the function/usefullness of the item this is the right way to design something. If, on the o
  • I remember shows like "beyond 2000" back when discovery channel wasn't the storm channel (or maybe it moved on to something even worse than storms now?)

    It was interesting then.. but slashdotted in sept 2005?

  • High-Tech or Dump (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Cash202 ( 854642 ) <cash202@gmail.com> on Sunday September 18, 2005 @03:34AM (#13588595)
    This appears to be one of two things:

    1) Revolutionary way to develop creativity, artistic design, and low level education to children. Would replace wasteful and hectic coloring books, child artbooks, and maybe open gate to accept fully digital books. A world of application.

    -or-

    2) Another technological development overlooked and not cared for, ending up with countless other technological developments. Though some of which were brought back after years in the garbage pile, when widely or purposeful applicable use appears. However, most remain there, which it seems this would be the destiny of this particular gadget.

  • That's so 2004 (Score:4, Informative)

    by MSch ( 674675 ) on Sunday September 18, 2005 @03:37AM (#13588600) Homepage
    That thing was featured in the Austrian Ars Electronica Festival from 2004.

    More information about the Brush from this website [www.aec.at]

    • Re:That's so 2004 (Score:5, Interesting)

      by horror_vacui ( 905558 ) on Sunday September 18, 2005 @05:12AM (#13588754)
      I work at the Ars Electronica Center and I can confirm that it's not really news, the I/O brush having been exposed there for a rather long time.

      Like most exhibits in the AEC, the I/O brush is not meant to be useful in the praxis, but rather to show new ways of interaction that new technologies offer - like 'moonies', a project where you can chase butterflies projected on a screen of vapour, or 'scrapple', a kind of reversal of virtual reality (which is basically a music sampler, only you create music not by editing the track on the screen, but by putting real objects of various shapes on a grid projected on a table). And lots of others, which are along the same lines - 'conspiratio', 'music box' etc. See for yourself on http://www.aec.at/en/festival2005/programm/allproj ects.asp [www.aec.at]

      It seems like especially kids love the I/O brush, resulting in high amounts of tear and wear on the hardware.

  • Similar to using a pda with an art package (Score:4, Informative)

    by blackest_k ( 761565 ) on Sunday September 18, 2005 @03:43AM (#13588606) Homepage Journal
    I use a Pda Phone with a Paint package to achieve a similar effect.

    The phone has a camera built in so I can take a shot of where I am
    Load this a background layer and then proceed to draw on a new layer
    with the stylus on the touch screen.

    Its a very natural way to draw. The alternatives such as a mouse or tablet
    simply dont give the direct feedback drawing on a touch screen does.

    the pda is pocket sized so makes drawing anywhere simple and discrete along with a battery life that will allow you to sit for hours drawing, its a great tool for anyone who likes to draw.

    • no thats not similar, you aren't paiting with the image that you captured.
      • you can use a captured image as a brush, or just pick colors
        from the image.

        I don't know if there is a way to average out a color
        from a group of pixels and the package I use doesnt
        record a pixels source.

        I do like the idea of recording sound and video and
        maintaining the link between the source and the final
        picture.

        Thats purely a question of using a package which works
        in this way.

        What could be interesting to see developed is something like
        MIDI for artists. ie a live recording of the picture being
        created starti
    • Seems like the idea is to use colors we actually see, rather than an imagined version of them, while not having a photo image override one's own artistic sense of all the rest, the effects of proportion, perspective, near and distant lighting, etc. Painters show us that our experience of color is deeply affected by context. I wonder how these raw environmental color-captures feel if washed into original drawings without the nuanced tone adjustment called for by these other factors, though adjustments migh
  • Can anybody remember an art installation that was a similar idea? It involved a paintbrush with a CCD camera built in that would effectively paint any surface onto a digital screen. It also incorporated live video of the artist as a source of ink.

    I know the artist was big into digital installations like this, however I don't think it was implemented as effectively as the MIT brush.

  • Cool! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    So if you wanted:
    perfect white - you'd put it on your mac : |
    perfect blue color - your windows monitor :P
    that elite blue led color, your linux case : D

  • Let the resulting work of art be fully annotated, swatch by swatch...
  • I think a simple tool (not a brush) that could do this and import the texture into Photoshop would be neat. I don't mind using a mouse, but if one wanted they could use a WACOM tablet to get the same result. It would certainly be a lot cheaper than buying this huge fany-pants painting display.
    • It would be a neat thing to play around with, but if you want to do the same thing you can:
      - Take a picture of something with a digital camera
      - Import the picture into Photoshop (or the GIMP!)
      - Cut out a shape in the center of the image
      - Create a new brush with the shape

      Not nearly as automated, but I guess it will give you the same results. You just need to sample everything you want to paint with beforehand.

  • Artist Daniel Rozin has already done something like this.

    http://smoothware.com/danny/neweasel.html [smoothware.com]

    You should also check out his other projects such as my personal favorite, Wooden Mirror.

  • I'd like to see them close the loop, and project the image not onto a touchscreen, but onto the things being painted. That would require another video camera to detect the position of the brush, or perhaps little radio positioners, and pretty bright projection. I'm sure there are a lot of other hitches, but making the world not only our palette, but also our canvas, is a really exciting challenge posed by the current king of the hill: paint.
  • It looks like a big tube around a webcam, it's about the right size to hold the orb of my logitech quickcam anyhow (go spca5xx!)
  • I tried it out at the Ars Electronica Center [www.aec.at] in Linz, Austria. It didn't work that well. You had to press the brush pretty hard against the object, the camera wasn't oriented correctly (probably from repeated misuse) and out of focus. I expected more from it but usage was rather tedious and not very intuitive.
    • I am one of the inventors of I/O Brush, and I also set up the version at AEC. We had to simplify the brush at AEC to make it fool proof, and it was futher simplified during the last year. However, at MIT, we have a much more advanced version. The latest one has four pressure sensors (each 10 bit resolution) that measure the pressure from the bristles directly. This allows us not only to have a binary value (touching versus not touching), but on the canvas we also know how much pressure the user applied, and
  • At least Blue Man Group has something to add into their show....

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