Ciao UDOOers, the EW is sadly over. If you want to see what happened in Nuremberg during Embedded World 2020, check out this article. We had SO much fun, and can’t wait for next year. But we’re here for the UDOO BOLT Demo, so let’s cut to the chase.
Now, let’s talk about one of the most exciting demos UDOO was involved with during EW. Check the original presentation article here. The gist is that it’s a piece of visual art technology, a 3D filter created to stress the UDOO BOLT to its limit and bringing it to realize its full potential. The filter works using GLSL, a C/C++ programming language inglobated in Touch Designer. It’s a high performing language on the UDOO BOLT, maximizing its AMD Ryzen™ Embedded V1000 computing power.
If you don’t know what we just showed, head to this article or 012
to know more. The gist is that it’s a fantastic 3D filter applied on a “normal” video. The filter works using GLSL, a C/C++ programming language inglobated in Touch Designer. It’s a high performing language on the UDOO BOLT, maximizing its AMD Ryzen™ Embedded V1000 computing power.
Today though, we’ll talk more about the creation of the demo and the creator himself. Michele Di Pasquale is an artist, a UDOOer that wanted to help us in the creation of a demo during EW2020. Check his Youtube channel and Facebook account.
Who is Michele?
Michele is a digital artist working in fashion and luxury to provide moving and unforgettable experiences through his art.
Combining math, technology and art might seem odd, Michele explains. “To some, using technology and science in art is diminishing the value of the message artists want to create. I see it as yet another expression of human creativity.”
So, why making a filter that makes videos look like they’re a moving watercolor painting? And how did he do it? Well, we asked, and this is what he replied.
First, he said, “Comes the concept, what I wanted to communicate through this art installation. Talking with Matteo (Communication Team Leader for UDOO), we were discussing the beauty of Iceland, and later I thought of Global Warming and its effects: what it does, is melting our planet, even the beautiful Iceland—transforming solids into liquids. Liquids. Water. So I thought of watercolors! But getting a watercolor effect is no easy task. I had to choose: Machine Learning or GLSL? I chose the latter to have something lighter run on the UDOO BOLT. GLSL is not easy to work with, though. It involves in-depth knowledge of math, physics, and parallel processing. Still, digging through studies on the physics of watercolors, I managed to build a filter.
The first version resulted in deforming completely the video. I’ve used a video of Iceland (my inspiration), and the result was stunning and daunting at the same time. Still, I wanted something that showed better the video beneath the filter.
After several hours later, the second version was ready. This time I’ve used the video of a massive city, one of the biggest cities on the planet.
But it just wasn’t enough. I’ve decided on going an additional step forward and use a Kinect to do something unique: when a person comes close to the art installation, the video stops, and it applies to the person (or people) standing in front of the Kinect. This is meant to show the consequences of global warming and modern life: humans and their values melting with their environment.
So, this is the whole creative process I went through for the UDOO BOLT Demo.”
We hope to see more of Michele’s work in the future. In the meantime, we’ll watch his amazing filter in action, mesmerized by the video from Nick Kontostavlakis – Whispering Iceland, here for the original video.
If you want to see the filter in action during EW2020, click on the video below
Did you anjoy the this UDOO BOLT demo? Do you wanna see more. Stay connected, more articles are coming!
And that’s it for today folks.
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The UDOO Team
