Category Archives: Vectors

Keyboard Trace

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Here’s a photo of the piece I put together for the Chain Letter Show at Samsøn Project a couple weeks ago. It kinda got lost in the crowd, but I needed a reason to put it together.

This is what I’m calling a “Keyboard Trace”, which is a full-scale model of my aluminum Apple keyboard with the path traced by the letters of a word as they are typed. The wooden shape extending into space is the trace itself. Underneath the trace the locations of the letters are embossed into the wood:

In this case, the word is “JUXTAPOSE”. This is a modification of an idea I had a couple years back, which I called “Keyboard Skeins”. Those word paths were traced out with string using nails at the locations of the keys. Here is “GENUFLECT”:

I liked this concept, but I wasn’t sure the string-and-nail idea was the proper way to embody it. So I tried again with the dowels. I still haven’t made up my mind, and I might try another take on it soon.

Vectors Again–This Time Exercising Vectors!

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I’m preparing a large store of commute vectors to get a more volumetric shape out of the scatter plot, so I haven’t been posting them until I get the whole aggregate. However, I decided to record the vectors that result when I do my morning exercises (situps, pullups, that sort of thing). Available here, on Vimeo. Screenshot below.

Calisthenics Screenshot

Still from the 3D video of my exercising vectors.

Another Vector Commute—This Time With a Bike

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So it was abeautiful day this morning, sun shining, no clouds, breeze, just at 40 degrees—and I decided to ride my bike to get to the T. Freedom! Plus a new round of vectors. Video here. There is no video for the late commute, because the recording app stopped and I didn’t get a complete set of data.

But I do have graphs for the morning:

X Axis

X-Axis Vectors for 2 March 2011

Y Axis

Y-Axis Vectors for 2 March 2011

Z Axis

Z-Axis Vectors for 2 March 2011

Not a Commute… 23 February 2011 Press Vectors

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So, I was running a big printing job at the Bow and Arrow yesterday evening, and it occurred to me that it would be interesting to see the vector space that a repetitious, stereotyped movement like loading and cranking a letterpress would reside in. Here’s the raw data, I’ll do new 3D movies presently.

Printing Vectors XX-Axis Accelerations for Running a Vandercook SP-20

Printing Vectors YY-Axis Accelerations for Running a Vandercook SP-20

Printing Vectors ZZ-Axis Accelerations for Running a Vandercook SP-20

Vector Commute 14 Feb 2011: XYZ Scatter Graphs

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Well, there was some delay in getting some kind of software tweak to plot the vector data as a three-axis scatter plot. However, I’ve finally gotten something worked out. 3D graphs work best with video, because the time dimension replaces the Z dimension that is lacking on a computer screen.

The morning and evening commutes are separated for now, but I’ll probably amalgamate the data to see what the whole envelope of forces looks like. Note that the shapes described by the data sets are similar, but different. Once again, I’m kinda stoked.

The morning commute, available at Vimeo.

The evening commute, also available at Vimeo.

Vector Commute 14 February 2011

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This new accelerometer recording system is quite interesting. I had to tweak the protocol a bit, because A) the phone would go to sleep during the recording, which stops the flow of data B) I had to figure out how to position the phone near my center of gravity, to leave out extraneous motions like the swinging of my jacket or pants pocket and C) how to do all this without looking like a total retard. Anyway, Valentine’s Day saw the best recording yet. (I didn’t bother processing the earlier, incomplete data sets.) Here are single-dimension graphs, showing the main axes. There are XYZ graphs for the morning and the evening:

Notice the smoother areas where I’m riding the subway. When I’m walking, my body is undergoing a constant push-and-pull against gravity, basically bouncing up then lurching down with each step, which creates the spiky waveform. Also, notice that the Y-axis acceleration tends to drift to -10 m/s^2. That’s because the phone was upside-down, and the acceleration due to Earth’s gravity is 9.8 m/s^2. Excuse me while I geek out a little on that.

I’m working on an easier way to produce 3D graphs of the data in scatterplot, so I’ll post those tomorrow.

A New Concept In Commute Recording: 11 Feb 2011

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So, since my camera died, I can’t do composite imagery of my morning commutes. However, through the wonder of modern cellphone technology, I can record the readings of the accelerometer on my phone and manipulate them with my computer. This means that every shock, every step, and every twist I do while commuting will be recorded in units of meters per second squared, every tenth of a second, along three independent axes. Fun! Geeky! Available in graph form!

This is a 3D graph, with each point consisting of the accelerations acting upon my center of gravity on that particular time. However, this is not a time graph, where there is a continuous path drawn out by a single point. These are vectors readings clustering within the envelope of forces I am usually presented with. The points are connected in time by colored lines, but the readings will bounce back and forth until they create mostly a 3D shape, with no true time narrative easily discernable. I will post different images that will present the data in different ways, some of which will contain a narrative.

Anyway, the video is here. And here’s a still from that movie:

Vector Set 11 Feb 2011