Iron Filing driven installation piece.

Hello everyone.

I am creating an installation piece that will be driven by iron filings. Anyone is able to grab some magnets and influence the patterns that are formed on the surface. Meanwhile, a camera is tracking the movement of the iron filings and Jitter is using the video information to create a piece of music in Max/MSP.

I've got some ideas of my own for this project, but I thought it would be worth checking to see if anyone knows of some useful tips, or externals that might be useful for a project of this nature.

I thought of maybe using a matrix to control various parameters such as sample playback or reverb time, etc. I'd need some way of determining when the matrix makes an alteration to its settings though, and this could probably be done by using some of the camera image parameters to select a row, column and value for the matrix.

In addition, I will offer the user a selection of three different coloured powder paints to sprinkle on the same surface as the iron filings. As the iron is pulled around by the magnets, it will brush past the powder paint leaving a sort of trail behind it hopefuly. I can then use colour information obtained in Jitter to control some Max/MSP object that influences the music.

Anyone got any other ideas?

Many thanks,
Stuart