Opinions for making a sonification project more interactive.

caffeinecranked's icon

I'm in the process of creating a sonification of an object or thing.
It could be used for any light up device. I'm going to use a light up yo-yo.By using max MSP I create a programme which tracks the yo-yo via my laptops webcam. A grid system is used, so that when the software senses a high light value in a certain corner of the 'screen' it would trigger a sound or change the pitch of a synth.
So when the you-yo is thrown down, a synth with decreasing pitch is heard and vice-versa. However it did need a pretty dark room and bright light up yo-yo to work best.

Also one limiting factor is that I'm using a webcam from my macbook so the camera field is not big as I wanted. I was wondering if it is possible to attach my Canon 60d to replace the webcam?

I was wondering if anyone could suggest better object/thing/process to make it even more interesting and interactive

Thank you!

Andro's icon

Your going to need a video camera which has at least 30fps (60 is ideal) otherwise the tracking will be too slow. Why not use a Kinect ? It has a good wide field of view and can track moving objects pretty quickly. There are lots of Max patches (cvt.blobs I think) which are plug and play. Plus its real cheap to pick one up !

caffeinecranked's icon

can I use it as a normal webcam in other applications? I mean can macosx recognise it as a normal webcam?