Visualizing Heartbeat

Posted by on Apr 20, 2012 in Boxes and Lines for Rods and Cones, Max, Nature of Code

Note: The animation is sped up for demonstration purposes.

Personal Statement:

After being exposed to the concepts in Nature of code, I got inspired by using organic and real life rhythms to drive natural animations using concepts from the class.

Description:

The user’s heartbeat is analyzed using a stethoscope. The user’s heartbeat is used to provide pulse rate and amplitude. A visualization using these two factors is projected for user to experience.

1) pulse rate of the user drives the speed of the animation.

2) the amplitude (or volume of the heartbeat captured) determines the brightness of the visualization.

 

 

Research:

Using the concepts taught in nature of code, I explored Max/jitter to learn more about how live amplitude of sound can manipulate 3D animation that appropriately represents the nature and depth of sound.

 

 

 

Visualizing Heartbeat in 2d space

 

 

Transfer to 3d space OpenGL

 

 

Side View: Rotate X View to 90

 

Implementation:

Stethoscope, Microphone (Sanken COS-11), Macbook Pro with Max/Jitter, Projector /LCD screen.

 

 

 

References:

Dan Shiffman and Scott Fitzgerald for inspiring the project.

Special thanks to Brett Murphy, Dollee Bhatia.

and

 

Masato Tsutsui for his Max Tutorials at AV:lab

 

 

 

 

Press:

 

 

 

Visualizing Heartbeat was created for Dan Shiffman’s Spring 2012 Nature of Code class at New York University‘s Interactive Telecommunications Program (NYU ITP).