Video Assessment - Initial Concept

Next week feels a lot like a "placeholder" assessment piece, IMO. The challenge is in proposing a video interaction piece that DOESN'T feel like a cheap EyeToy knock-off or lame-o real-time filter effects.

My discussions with Ben (our tutor) suggest that, even in 15 years of R&D, very little new applications have been designed or developed, merely that the technology has become more affordable for the consumer (cheap web-cams, etc.).

I'm proposing to attempt something reasonably simple that doesn't just feel like an "art for art's sake" project:

[drum roll...]

>>> Temporal Pattern Analyser <<<

Much like a long-exposure photograph, this web-cam enabled installation tracks clustered movement in a public space, with each movement leaving an ever-so-slight outline (ghosting) for each second that they are in motion. These movements can be highly stylised in the camera's interpretation and representation on-screen, but should ultimately allow the viewer to analyse where in a particular scene users tend to congregate (or skip right through). Commercial application would be most viable in the retail industry, where shop-owners could use the tool to gauge where potential customers are drawn to in their shop layouts, without the fear of privacy violations.

Not entirely dissimilar to this installation:

http://homepage.mac.com/davidrokeby/seen.html

So, the theory and application of this could be reasonably easy generated, as would the context of the installation (large, open public space). I imagine that the use of the WebCamXtra for director would be able to continually write on a per-pixel basis to the screen based on movement detected by the camera.

Just a thought - I'll have to wait until I get home to have a crack at the software side of things, but I'm very open to suggestions and/or assistance.