I/O Electronic Brush for Painting

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."

Comments

Too bad it's just a toy

[Hannah E. Davis]

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 :)

Re:Too bad it's just a toy

[tinpan]

"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 work."
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?

"It would be a lot easier to get colours right when painting from life anyway"
Yeah, too bad there's not a way to calibrate monitors. And we know that the aim of all painters is to create photographic realism in every detail, even when it interferes with the perceptive and emotional realism.

It looks like

[xquark]

either an oversize painting brush or a normal sized
toilet brush, I'm still deciding.... :)

Arash

High-Tech or Dump

[Cash202]

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

[MSch]

That thing was featured in the Austrian Ars Electronica Festival from 2004.

More information about the Brush from this website

Re:That's so 2004

[horror_vacui]

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

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

[blackest_k]

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.

Re:Slavish replication of physical tools

[BrynM]

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, 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 (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 ;)