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Project

Visual Kinematics

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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Carson

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Welcome to ViKi  : Visual Kinematics

The mobile phone in your pocket as a universal input device for communication between the movements of analogue bodies and digital machines.

ViKi is a decentralized platform that facilitates interaction between humans and digital machines. The platform enables a designer/artist/programmers to create a digital experience that users can explore and manipulate using the physical connection between their body and mobile device. Use cases include exhibitions, gaming, research, and more.

ViKi achieves this by making use of the hardware in your pocket (your phone). Reducing the need to fabricate additional Human Input Device hardware, and reducing material consumption in the process. By fusing sensors in a mobile device such as touch, optics, and motion, a novel user interface is created.

Our goal was to create a platform similar to our Tangible ViewCube. The Tangible ViewCube, invented at the MIT Media Lab, used motion sensor data over Bluetooth in combination with computer-vision tracking to simulate a drone flying over a model of a city. A user moved the ViewCube over a physical model of the city and a virtual drone in a 3D environment would follow the same path in real-time. 

ViKi takes this experience several steps further and creates a visual and kinematic platform that goes beyond navigating 3D urban models. ViKi can be employed for exhibitions, presentations, games, 3D models and more.

What ViKi can do

These are a few examples of how ViKi could be employed.

  • Exhibition Interaction
    A person, or multiple people, can connect to an exhibit. The exhibit then allows users to manipulate, or create content, in either a turn-based fashion or simultaneously. ViKi can relay touch, movement, or even scan codes in an exhibit that extract information or grant control to a specific feature.
  • 3D Navigation

ViKi allows users to explore 3D models a city in real-time, similar to piloting a virtual drone over a city. The effects are spatial, and so the simulated impact of proposed changes must be modelled in 3-dimensions.

  • Intertial Measurements (Research)

The phone is an incredible sensor. We have access to Accelerometers, Magnetometers, Gyroscopes, Microphones, Optical Sensors, and Surface input. Researchers can access this raw data from multiple subjects simultaneously using ViKi. An example would be a simple study that involves the posture of the body based on external influences.

  • Gamification

ViKi is easily adapted to games, either gestural (think Nintendo Wii) or touch-based (think gamepads). An example may be a flight simulator that is controlled by tilting the phone around its 3-axis, yaw, pitch, and roll.

  • User-Feedback

Being a phone, the native features can be employed to create forums or surveys in a local context. Meaning that individuals can partake in conversations without having to download additional apps, or make use of questionable social media platforms.

Creative Commons

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

How ViKi works

ViKi is entirely web-based; meaning that ViKi runs wirelessly on any mobile device, and can control any digital device capable of opening a web browser.

The browser running on a computer (exhibition, game etc) acts as a central broker between multiple mobile devices (user phones). The broker negotiates between users, enabling either turn-based or simultaneous interaction. If turn-based, communication between users is maintained and individuals may request/relinquish control.

The central broker is then capable of streaming data to a multitude of programming languages. Examples have been prepared for JavaScript, Java, Python, and C#. Essentially, any language capable of running web-sockets will work with ViKi.

Creative Commons

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Creative Commons

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

The motivation

Our City Science lab at MIT explores some of the most complex systems on Earth, 'cities'. An Urban environment is essentially made up of systems within systems. In addition, there are many different stakeholders, all of which are making decisions simultaneously that in turn affect the health and well-being of citizens. In order to facilitate discussions between members of a community, we develop intuitive 'User Interfaces' that allow members of the public and policymakers to engage with large data sets in real-time.

The developer of ViKi wanted to build upon the ViewCube and expand on several of the challenges they faced during prior developments:

  • Democratizing Interfaces:  Consensus building is central to much of the work we do in CityScience. We are often faced with the challenge of the 'loudest gear'. The person (gear) that makes the loudest noise gets the most attention (grease). As such our goal is to give voice to all. 

Using ViKi, an unlimited number of users can potentially provide input simultaneously using their personal mobile devices as an interface. For example, you may have 10 people standing around a digital screen. Anyone of the users could then contribute to the data set or perhaps toggle different graphical layers.  A good analogy would be public speaking where a microphone is passed around. With ViKi everyone has a microphone, literally and figuratively.

  • Hardware: An effort has been made to ensure this works on many different mobile operating systems and hardware versions. By doing so systems that use ViKi become accessible to the majority of users who use either new or old hardware. For example, ViKi has been successfully tested on the 'iPhone 5 SE' released on March 31, 2016.
  • Designer Accessibility: Building on previous projects, the intention of ViKi is to provide a platform that is easy for all to use. Someone with minimal programming knowledge should be able to open ViKi-Central and connect their project. We wanted to provide something that could potentially act as a universal remote as it were. At the moment ViKi works out of the box with Java, C#, Python, and HTML5/JS. Additional plugins are in the works for Rhino3d and Revit. Tutorials coming soon.....
  • Covid friendly interfaces: ViKi was developed during the peak of the pandemic in 2021. A universal concern with human interface devices (HIDs) was the spread of this virus from one user to another via touch. It was a conscious decision from the start to design an interface whereby users do not need to share tangible hardware but instead use their personal hardware in their pockets alleviating the need for sanitization after every use.
  • Sustainability: Where possible we should strive to use less raw materials and fabricate only when necessary. This not only saves on material but also time. If the hardware exists, the platform can be deployed instantly.
  • No-App + Cross-Platform: Because this is entirely web-based any device that has an IMU and a Web-Browser can participate in systems that use ViKi.

Whats with the name ViKi?


ViKi stands for Visual Kinematics. That is to say, a platform focused on the connection between the eye (visuals) and the motion of the viewer's body and joints (kinematics).

Fun fact, VICI is also a 1980's television character, from the series called "Small Wonder". Pronounced "Vicki", the character was an android called the Voice Input Child Identicant (V.I.C.I.).

The Media Lab is a wondrous place and ViKi is a platform that interfaces between humans and machines so we thought it fun to make reference to this classic show.