Take a stroll through the uncanny valley with Emily, an impressive example of how far facial animation has progressed -

Previous methods for animating faces have involved putting dots on a face and observing the way the dots move, but Image Metrics analyses facial movements at the level of individual pixels in a video, meaning that the subtlest variations - such as the way the skin creases around the eyes, can be tracked.

"There's always been control systems for different facial movements, but say in the past you had a dial for controlling whether an eye was open or closed, and in one frame you set the eye at 3/4 open, the next 1/2 open etc. This is like achieving that degree of control with much finer movements.

"For instance, you could be controlling the movement in the top 3-4mm of the right side of the smile,"

It seems the Animal Detection Team has been conducting a bit more experimentation involving their aptly named Animal Detector imaging device -

This past week, we took the device to the beach. One afternoon we set the light aside and pointed the camera skyward, recording the motion of pelicans and seagulls flying by for a couple of hours. The birds and their wings traced such elegant paths across the sky. The multi-exposure traces below were made by importing quicktime films into ImageJ and making Z-projections of the resulting stacks.

- Traces of pelicans and seagulls crossing the sky

- Two Pelicans on Flickr

More:

Animals - caught on tape!

Researchers from the University of Washington's Graphics and Imaging Laboratory are developing video enhancement software which utilizes data from related still images. Currently only for use with 'still-life' scenes, the process incorporates information from higher resolution photos and automatically maps it to the corresponding areas of the video in need of improvement - increasing resolution, dynamic range, ligthing, and even masking specified areas.

Unlike traditional visual effects software (e.g., After Effects, Shake, Boujou, etc), the system is completely automatic and no manual labor is required from the user. The major limitation of the work is that it can currently handle only videos of static scenes (i.e., videos shot with a moving camera but containing no moving objects in the scene). Efforts are being made to lift this restriction in future work.

- Using Photographs to Enhance Videos of a Static Scene [via Gizmodo]

Here's helpful instructable for fitting(and building) a CCD video camera to a basic pair of binoculars -

Have you ever looked through your binoculars and thought " I wish I could get this on tape" ? Well now you can. In this Instructable I'll show you how to build a cheap CCD eyepiece that will fit most binoculars.
You can use it with any camcorder that has a video input to capture whatever you can get a view on with your binoculars.

This mod shows how to slow down the speed of the auto focus on a Meade ETX Astro Telescope. Lots of details on this mod if you have the time and space to store one of these giant scopes.

Meade Electric Focuser Mod

Here's a really cool short video, done by Star Wars fan Michael Horn, of various Star Wars vehicles participating in "Imperial Fleet Week" in San Francisco. Horn says he "shot everything on my junkie DV camera, did motion-tracking and comping in After Effects, and basic sound design in Final Cut."

MAKE pal Bonnie Burton did a brief interview with Horn on The Official Star Wars Blog.

[via Laughing Squid]

Bennett sent us this how-to on making flipbooks from video -

I can’t quite remember how I got the idea, but I thought it would be fun to create some flipbooks based off of video I had shot. The challenge was to be able to effeciently process the frames from a 3-5 second clip, have them printed by a photography shop, and assemble them as easily as possible.

After some testing, I created a template within After Effects that takes a video as input, and through some expressions I wrote, outputs a sequence of JPGs - each with four video frames and crop markings per 4×6 print

The Autoscope is an early prefilm media device/installation (it even predates the zoetrope). It is an updated version of the phenakistoscope which was invented by Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau in 1832. Traditionally these devices are handheld toys that have about 8 frames. The Autoscope was built with 72 frames.

Read more about: Autoscope by Joe Kelly

Inspiringly beautiful video of cloud-to-ground lightning -

You can see all steps of lightning. First the stepped leader (clound-t-ground), second the upward leader (from tower), third the attachment between these two leaders, 4th the RETURN STROKE (the main stroke of a discharge) and after, the subsequent strokes.

The negative charged leaders, called a "stepped leader", proceed generally downward in a number of quick jumps, each up to 50 meters long. Along the way, the stepped leader may branch into a number of paths as it continues to descend. The progression of stepped leaders takes a comparatively long time (hundreds of milliseconds) to approach the ground. This initial phase involves a relatively small electric current (tens or hundreds of amperes), and the leader is almost invisible compared to the subsequent lightning channel.

- show da natureza on YouTube

GRIP (Group for Interdisciplinary Psychology), a multi-professional workgroup at Otto-Friedrich-University Bamberg, Germany, has several detailed tutorials on adding a "spycam" to Pleo, to create a facial recognition system (via off-bot processing on a PC), and an XBee Module for RF communications to/from Pleo.

Working with the Pleo Platform [Thanks, Robert!]

This week, EMS Labs has a nifty piece on Lissajous figures which Windell was able to generate using an LED display on one of the EMS Labs' breakout board business cards suspended from an oscillation rig built from a file folder frame, wooden dowels, and BBQ skewers.

Lissajous figures are interesting curves that occur in systems where oscillation happens in more than one direction, for example when a pendulum hanging from a string moves in its plane. The "standard" way to play with Lissajous figures is on an oscilloscope, and the easy way is of course in a web app, but there is also something to be said for a demo that you can hold in your hands. In what follows, we build a simple apparatus that takes a persistence of vision approach to displaying Lissajous figures.

A simple persistence of vision approach to Lissajous figures

The earliest elementary zoetrope was created in China around 180 AD by the prolific inventor Ting Huan.

It consists of a cylinder with slits cut vertically in the sides. Beneath the slits on the inner surface of the cylinder is a band which has either individual frames from a video/film or images from a set of sequenced drawings or photographs. As the cylinder spins the user looks through the slits at the pictures on the opposite side of the cylinders' interior.

You should be able to make the Zoetrope from found or recycled parts. If you can't salvage parts like a motor or potentiometer, you local electronics shop should have them in stock.

Finding parts:
Remember all those toys the kids have outgrown, or the VCR your neighbor threw out. They all contain switches, motors and wires. It can be a lot of fun scavenging for parts. Just be careful, things like TV's and computers can have high voltages even when they are unplugged. Only scavenge for parts if you know what you are doing. In general, kids toys that are battery operated are fairly safe to rip apart.

This build is a general guide to making a Zoetrope. Make adjustments depending on what parts you find, or purchase. If you make your own Zoetrope, post it in the MAKE Flickr photo pool and send me an email. Thanks!

Supplies you need:

• (1) Old CD - Think AOL, or any demo disk
• (1) CD spindle case
• Paper - Black & white [you can paint the paper black too!]
• Small Eraser
• (1) Motor - Scavenged from a kids toy
• (1) Switch - Again, scavenged
• Some wire

Tools you need:

• Scissors
• X-Acto knife - Be careful!
• Soldering Iron
• Rosin core solder

Part 1: Finding the parts

The first thing you do is acquire some old or broken electronics to scavenge for parts. You can find a motor in many kids toys. If you don't have kids, or know any kids, then just go to the dollar store and buy something with a small electric motor. Hopefully it will have a few switches and batteries too. I bough a small orange fan for $1, and it didn't work at all. Technically the fan would spin, but there wasn't any air movement. It's a perfect candidate for ripping apart.

Disassemble the fan, or what ever recycled toy you have. A lot of times the screws are hidden under stickers so check there if it doesn't open easily.

When I was done I was able to salvage (2) AA batteries, (1) small light bulb, a nice motor, some wire and a lanyard. I'll keep whatever I don't use for another project.

In my bin-parts I had a battery holder, which was scavenged a long time ago. It holds (4) AA batteries. I thought this would be perfect, but I had to cut it in 1/2 so it held (2) AA batteries.

A quick score with a razor blade, and I could snap it in half.

Fig. 1 (a) Architecture of the optofluidic microscope (OFM); set of three arrows: illumination; single arrow: flow direction. (b) Photograph of the OFM prototype compared with a U.S. quarter. The actual nanoaperture array is 600 µm long. (c) The top view of the OFM; denotes the isolated aperture; denotes the corresponding aperture, as explained in the text. (d) Photograph of the orientation of the aperture array with respect to the channel. (e) Experimental scheme for the OFM prototype. (f) Transmission time traces from aperture and associated with the transition of a C. elegans.

DC artist, programmer, and Dorkbot DC co-overlord Alberto Gaitán tells MAKE:

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences recently published research inspired by eye floaters in "Lensless high-resolution on-chip optofluidic microscopes for Caenorhabditis elegans and cell imaging" by CalTech's Xiquan Cui, Lap Man Lee, et al. And as if cheap (~$10), portable, on-chip, lensless, hi-res microscopy for developing countries' infectious disease management wasn't promising enough, it also holds promise for backyard microscopists and mobile-device-mounted passive sensorwebs for biohazard detection. No telling what cool hacks await if it becomes available through Digikey!

Lensless high-resolution on-chip optofluidic microscopes for Caenorhabditis elegans and cell imaging
New Micro-Microscope Is Portable And Cheap [NPR piece on the technology]

Here's a pretty cool tutorial on how to mod a Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000 to use as a mini telescope to monitor the stars and take pictures (aka "astro imaging") of the view. Check out the step by step instructions at the link below.

Instructions for Converting Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000 for Telescope Use

When you take pictures with the built-in flash on your digital camera, it's common to get a washed-out, deer-in-headlights result from your subject. This is particularly noticeable with portraits and close-range photography. To obtain a softer, more natural look from your photographs and eliminate the glare, you need a flash diffuser to help disperse and soften the light.

If you have an old white film canister and an x-acto knife, you can make a clever little flash diffuser that will slip over the flash on your typical SLR camera. Photojojo has a guide for making one. It should really take you about 5 minutes (assuming you have a canister on hand), so give it a shot. Your photographs—and your photo subjects—will thank you for it.

Matt Hallock has a how to for building a lo-fi fisheye camera lens for around $10 using supplies found at your local hardware store. Fisheye lenses are crazy cost prohibitive for most of us, but this method gets you 90 percent of the effect, plus a little Holga-esque unpredictability to boot!

The UFOCapture software records nighttime sky highlights via PC with attached vidcam. Quite handy for those alien/meteor enthusiasts who still have to hold down a dayjob - UFO@Home [via Boing Boing]

In the Maker Shed:

Astronomy Hacks

Investigators funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research are conducting research under the name of "ghost-imaging," where a visual image of an object is created by means of light that has never interacted with the object.

The new technology may result in a more versatile use of field sensors, and have space applications.

University of Maryland, Baltimore Campus, professor (Dr.) Yanhua Shih initiated ghost-imaging research in 1995, by using entangled photons. In the experiment, one photon passed through stenciled patterns in a mask to trigger a detector, and another photon was captured by a second detector. Surprisingly, an image of the pattern between the two detectors appeared, which the physics community called ghost-imaging.

More:

LED security camera disruptor.

Spotted at DEFCON - Super 44 IR LED TV-B-Gone.
Make - IR TV remote Bazooka.

My latest tinkery hardware and embedded systems project is a homebrew laser scanner. You know, the kind you see at planetariums- sweep a laser beam around on the wall really fast, and draw vector graphics. Commercial laser scanners have been around for decades now, but buying a complete system is still really pricy, even on eBay. Besides, where's the fun in that?

More:

HOW TO - $10 XY Laser scanner

Built-in Screen Capture Utility: With the iPhone 2.0 software installed, hold down the Home button and press the Lock button and your screen will flash--and an image of your phone's screen gets saved to your Camera Roll's images.

Mark just wasn't satisfied with 3D glasses on his SGI machine, so he adapted them to work with any video card with a VESA-compliant stereo port -

Now in all, it's not too complicated what I do here. The SGIs have around 10-12 volts on the stereo port, while (same connector, same pin-out) the VESA stereo port has 5 volts on pin 1. In short, what I do here is only taking the stereo sync signal (pin 3) of a VESA-compliant stereo port and get 12 volts and ground from a Molex-connector, so in all we have the same.

How-to, info, and more pics - 3D glasses for any VESA compliant stereo port

Andrew was kind enough to post additional info on his excellent USB camera project including wiring diagram and source code.

I started this project without really having any idea where it would end up. I started off by deciding it could be interesting to build a device that would sample a 3-axis magnetometer and a 3-axis accelerometer and send that data to my computer via USB. Devices very much like that are often sold as a 'tilt compensated compass', and go for $250-500. I made mine for about $150.

This used plastic water bottle lamp (one of a series of recycled lamps by Lisa Foo and Su Sim) resembles a sea creature from movies like "The Abyss" and "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea". Really interesting craftsmanship with these lights that will really fool you into thinking they are made of more expensive materials. Check out really nice 2-liter bottle cap lamp on the site as well.

[via], LISA FOO & SU SIM BLOG

Flip video cameras are a good choice for quick and simple video recording but don't offer much in the expandability/department. This article runs through relatively easy methods for macro & micro lens add-ons, achieving some nice results (see macro vid above)
- DIY: A Macro Lens and Microscope for Your Flip Mino [via Hack a Day]

"The LED Painter is a 16 channel RGB LED controller (or 48 independent LEDs) using the Texas Instrument TLC5940. This PCB is improved with a better layout that allows easy connection of independent LEDs (not just RGB), as well as the ability to daisy chain multiple boards together. The TLC5940 IC is implemented in this design because it is easy to use and can be controlled with a variety of microcontrollers. Each TLC5940 has 16 channels with 12 bit grayscale PWM control on each channel. Your microcontroller will connect to the TLC5940 using only a couple of pins and a serial like interface for controlling the intensity of each channel."

More info and videos at HackedGadgets: LED Painter - RGB Lighting System

Ever since I got myself an Octane, I've got a renewed interest in everything Silicon Graphics. And with that, my old (imaginary) list of things-to-do with such a machine has been dusted off too. One of those things was making some 3D shutter glasses (cheap). And even though I'm tinkering with SGIs for years already, I never took the time to build some stereographic glasses myself, a project which has been online for years already and I've been wanting to do ever since I read it. And now it was time to actually make my own pair. ^_^

One of the official possibilities for these kind of machines is connecting CrystalEyes StereoGraphic glasses to them. Most (if not all) graphic options for SGIs have some kind of stereo capability. Now even though a lot of the SGI related goodies have become cheap (on eBay for instance), I couldn't find the glasses plus the transmitter anywhere. I could find glasses separately, but that would still mean I have to make a transmitter and well, I had these parts around for ages already so I gave it a go to finally connect cheap shutter glasses (instead of the CrystalEyes ones) to the StereoView Port of one of my SGIs.

Here's an Instructable that shows you how to modify a disposable camera to turn it into a high-intensity strobe light warning flasher.

Hack a flash camera into a emergency strobe light