I have just started thinking about an arduino/processing project that incoporates some fundamentals of the theremin instrument. I'm just looking for help or advice on how to tackle this, if there are any existing works, references that could be relevant to what I'm try to do, please put it forward.
Basically I envision constructing a cube with an opening so the user can put his/her hand inside with room to make hand gestures. The inside walls of the cube will have a series of sensors, at the moment I have been looking at ultrasonic sensors so that moving your hand around can capture some readings and translate into processing as sound using the minim library.
In addition to this, I want processing to have graphics which is manipulated by the sounds that are controlled by hand gestures. For example when there is no hand movement, there is simple 3d blob or a sphere displayed. But when you started making hand gestures, the blob deforms depending on the sound s created by the sensors.
At the moment I am thinking the form of the blob might recreate what your hand looks like but on more of an abstract level, i.e with colours. Also I'm trying to figure out if the graphics could also depict your position in the box.
Now with common sense, I'm assuming I am going to need more than one arduino board as each inner wall would have say 9 ultrasonic sensors each (or perhaps someone could refer be to other sensors that are more efficient) .
I hope my explanation is clear, my electronics knowledge is not all that good but i have dabbled alittle into arduino and processing, though not using both at the same time. Any help on this would be really appreciated
WhatIf the box had a simple array of LED light sources, possibly of different colors, including invisible IR and maybe UV. Then a variety of light sensors, some with color filters, or a color-measurement sensor. Maybe some of:
I'm not sure about this abut I would imagine you would get a whole lot of garbage readings if you have a lot of ultrasonic sensors pointing at each other.
growler:
I'm not sure about this abut I would imagine you would get a whole lot of garbage readings if you have a lot of ultrasonic sensors pointing at each other.
Good point. You would have to do something like carefully sequence them.
Yes it could pose a problem, although the ultrasonic sensors I've been experimenting with are SRF05 and dont have that big a range. The box would be maybe 30x30x30cms anyway.
Can you elaborate more on your idea terry? The reason I moved forward with ultrasonic sensors is that I have working code to get readings and trying to figure out how to translate that into processing graphics, I don't really know much about the IR UV sensors. Also I live in the UK and so parts are expensive and not so easy to come by.
Have you ruled out just building a theremin? I think you will be hard pressed making "Theremin-type sounds" using anything but a theremin.
Then you can use the electrical signal from the theremin as an analog input to the arduino... perhaps do some basic digital processing/filtering in the arduino...and then send that serially to processing, which manipulates graphics.
Since there are plenty of resources out there on building a theremin, I think this will simplify the development at least, to something a bit more manageable.
stevethatsmyname:
Have you ruled out just building a theremin? I think you will be hard pressed making "Theremin-type sounds" using anything but a theremin.
Then you can use the electrical signal from the theremin as an analog input to the arduino... perhaps do some basic digital processing/filtering in the arduino...and then send that serially to processing, which manipulates graphics.
Since there are plenty of resources out there on building a theremin, I think this will simplify the development at least, to something a bit more manageable.
Yes I think you might be right as I only have 2 weeks to make this device, basically I planned to follow the theremin principals anyway, one hand in the box with the sensors, and other hand could be a separate circuit, somehow controlling another factor like the volume.
Picking random sounds that the sensors make doesn't feel right, I'd rather it be a naturally made sound rather i.e that of a theremin circuit. I do want to keep the cube idea and the other hand controlling the volume, are there any ideas how i can still do this? I don't know how an aerial works and if i am making a box, how would i be able to get different sounds/pitch from the hand gestures and hand position? Create some kind of conductive box?