VOLS 

💬 work in progress - development

Interventions in the public space, without permission, without atoms.

exploring technologies, tools and approaches to experience digital content in the physical world.

Background / Motivation

The Weight of Stuff

While working with 3D, I’ve always been seduced with the idea of bringing the content out of the screen, hence my sizeable experience and affair with 3D Printing and digital fabrication… But I don’t feel a pressing need for turning bits to atoms, I can’t find a reason to go through all the resource consumption and physical nuisances that such endeavour entails. Physicality is overrated.

I come from a product design (industrial) background, where stuff is designed to be made, and I feel I’ve developed a sensitivity towards stuff, matter, geometric volumes, materials and finishings. With such eye for the built material environment, I do appreciate and I even find joy in observing stuff, admiring the shape, materiality and mechanical solutions used to solve physical challenges. I’ve devoured countless pages of “design magazines” (I even ran a “web-ring” devoted to product design back in 2006)… I like objects, I like stuff that is expressive, products that go beyond the average intentional mediocrity of mainstream mass produced instant-junk. I do admire and appreciate the classics like Eames furniture, the contemporaries like Marc Newson, the works of the Bourollec Brothers, or the lamps of Patricia Urquiola…


I know their designs from images, videos and photos… but I have NEVER seen IRL, used, touched or owned any of their designed products…. , but I like them, very much.

  • What am I in relation with?… with the object? or with the idea of the object?

  • If stuff does not need to physically exist to be enjoyed, can can I just experience the idea of a creation?…

  • so… should I make stuff? or just design it?

This project is an attempt to do that:

Design without making; enabling the experience of volumes, without having to materialise stuff.

Technical approach: Augmented Reality

Augmented reality (often known as AR) is a computer technology that shows digital images on top of the current real world. For example it can show a digital table on top of a floor. It is different from virtual reality which makes a person feel they are somewhere else.

Vectors of interest

The Scale

I’m interested in the perception of scale allowed by augmented reality.

The built environment operates in a human scale, where the larger scales belong to infrastructures (bridges, damns,..) and architecture (buildings, public spaces…) while objects are at a smaller scale, (from paperclips to refrigerators). Placing something to the world of a significant scale is ecologically expensive.

With AR, it is possible to overlay volumes at any given scale.

The Public Space

As a place where interventions are forbidden or reserved to a selected few. Stuck in between the no-places and the privatisation of the public space, individuals have a very few channels of modification of public space.

The Private Experience

Within the intimacy of our devices, we exist in public (metro, street, mall…) while having a very personal, unique and secretive activity: what is happening on our screens.

This allows for experiencing something very personal, and unique to the individual (location, point of view…) while interacting in a public space with other entities

AR as a channel / tests

🧑‍💻 development notes
<modelviewer>:
  • new version auto-generates USDZ files for iOS
  • auto-generated USDZ files do not trigger iOS quick-look in Chrome :(
3D model preparation in blender:
  • USDZ export add-on des not generate proper files for iOS
  • to use transparency textures in a .glb, the material needs to be set to alpha-blend. 
  • bake the material if contains generative textures, and build it again before exporting. 
    • only in Cycles / w CUDA (OPTIX not supported)
  • Animations generated by keyframing modifiers (i.e displacement) won’t export to .glb
    • a) convert selected keyframes to shapekeys and interpolate
    • b) export model as .mdd and import it again = vertex positions will be turned into shapekeys, 1xframe! = model size * n frames 
    • [ ! ] USDZ does not read shapekey animations :(

GLTF / USDZ specifications

  • animated materials won’t show

 

potential workshop

Augmented Photography

Workshop to design and add digital creations to the physical environment as triggers for experimental photography.

Using Creative 3D modelling and Augmented Reality for street photography.

In this workshop we will create 3D volumes, export them as valid .gltf files viewable on the web, and prepare them for being launched in Augmented Reality via smartphone.

We will then go out with our freshly created AR models and run an augmented photo-session in the public space, capturing the best angles and shaping the environment at our wish.

participants

ideal for creatives who want to experiment building basic AR experiences in the public space.

Photographers / Architects / Designers / Creatives

No prior knowledge of 3D is required

motivation

This workshop is a sharing session of the current work being developed by the artist, where he is creating Augmented Reality installations in the public space as a tool to modify the environment without asking for permission and without using atoms.

learnings

  • build basic 3D models

  • make 3D models accessible via web

  • enable augmented reality on the phone

  • take photos / videos in AR

tools

  • blender for 3D modeling

  • modelviewer for publishing on the web and AR

  • Android’s Scene-Viewer to view AR

  • iOS Quick-look to view AR

requirements

BYOD - bring your own device:

  • laptop with Blender installed

  • cellphone / Android or iOS

Workshop Outputs

photographies of digital 3D models taken in the physical public space.

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