News
Mapping software update | Joanie Lemercier | AntiVJWe've been very busy developping the mapping software, and we've made a lot of progress in the technical approach. Here are a few details of the latest updates:
- Vectors: To get the best possible mapping, the best way is to work with vectors. It's gives you the ability to to very precise fine tuning, and and can select and moves individual objects, lines or points (up to a sub-pixel level, thanks to antialiasing).
- XML format: once the visual mapping is done, we'll be able to export the data as XML files, and reuse a perfect mapping into different softwares, like vvvv, cinema 4D, flash baseds engines etc..
- Client / server: We have built the engine with local or remote connection system, so this will give us the ability to stream content or play visuals from any computer, not only from the computer connected to the projector. This will be very convenient when mapping big volumes (buildings, architecture), as we'll be ables to map form any laptop with a wireless connection !
- Live mode: Originnaly we planned to create an mapping editor, but then we realised that they were amazing things to do with a simple "LIVE" mode, to create and generate mapping content (live from rss feeds, perspective distortion etc..)
- Automatic 3D mapping, realtime mapping..We also worked more on different engines to map objects instantly, we'll post more details about this very soon !We're also working on an physics engine, particles system and a few more eyes candies..
Reflection mapping, a new approach to 3D mapping 
Everything is built on libraries and classes system, so it will be easy to add functionnalities.The engine is now almost ready, and we hope to post some footage of the first experiments very soon !
Introduction to visual mapping. | Nicolas Boritch | AntiVJVisual mapping became very popular in the VJing / Video Art domain in the past 2 years, but this technique is still quite unknown by the general public.
The idea of visual mapping is quite simple: forget about usual rectangular projections on screen, point a video projector at ANY object/surface, and turn it into a custom display !
As a visual artist, I have been experimenting a lot around the mapping technique, on various surfaces (2D and 3D) and on different scales, from small origamis to 160m wide building facades.Here are a few examples of recent projects, based on the mapping technique:
Since I started doing mapping (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L64-nqZsgjo)
I tried many different techniques and I've been playing around with dozens of softwares to find out which would be the best for mapping projects. As none of these softwares would have all the functionnalities, I still use a combination of them: Flash, After effects, cinema4D, photoshop, Arkaos.
The idea of the media sandbox project is to create a software dedicated to mapping, to make the mapping process easy and quick, and provide artists a simple and effective tool to express themself in a new way, using projections on 2D or 3D space.I will post some more details about visual mapping quite regularly on this page, and also updates and pre-versions of the software.
