|
The overall design of Telematic Drum Circle system is one that requires the use of computer programming, pneumatics and many fields of engineering including software, electrical, and mechanical. The system has two main multimedia components: an interactive website with a musical performance interface as well as fifteen robotic drum machines that can be controlled
through Internet and play on percussion instruments.
First, an online participant reaches the project website www.TelematicDrumCircle.net via a fixed IP address from a broadband wireless service provider. The participant logs in to the live musical interface with user name, location (city) and email address. If more than fifteen people are online at the same time, his/her user name will be under the waiting list
which is posted at the corner of the same page where other participants are playing instruments. (Processing of user participation is on a first-come first-serve basis.) Then, the user chooses one of the fifteen instruments s/he wants to play. Finally, the participant can remotely play the percussion instrument placed at the installation space, while s/he watches the robotic drum ensemble broadcasted with live streaming video through the website.
The data of the online participation is transferred to a web server in real-time and is converted to binary numbers which allow the robots to play instruments. In the installation space where the robotic instruments are displayed, the data visualization of current participation is projected on the front wall. While the instruments are being played, there are one omni directional
microphone and two 6mm DV camcorders (one for entire scene and the other one for detail shot) which record the actual percussion ensemble in every minute. The sound file recorded through the microphone is automatically converted to SMAF(mmf) file format for mobile service in the archive section later. The video images taken by the DV camcorders are edited automatically by video editing algorithm. All the audio/visual data from these algorithms is stored in the A/V Storage (1 terabyte), and is
returned to the web server.
The web server, which is a Linux/Apache box behind a firewall, receives the data from the A/V Storage through the 100 Mbps network connection offered by the wireless provider. At the same time, the video data generated is broadcasted through QuickTime Broadcaster in the website. As soon as the live video is shown
to the online participants, an archive webpage is generated with one downloadable video and sound file (for mobile phone – ring tone service) in every minute. An e-mail containing the link to the web page is sent to every participant. The participant and visitor of the website can use the archive page to e-mail a sound file to his/her friends and to encourage them to visit the project website and create a collaborative piece with the networked percussion robots.
|
Previous Project
