In our RE:Studio class, my team is looking to bring experiences of nature into indoor environments sans the maintenance of taking care of plants or animals. Without giving too much away, I’ll just say that we’ve been experimenting a bit with basic projection mapping.
The most difficult part of it so far has been finding the appropriate software on a student budget. I enjoy the challenge of learning new programs, but at this point, I’ve cycled through four different ones. I started off with Mapmap, which is simple to use and best of all, free! However, there is bug that prevents videos from being uploading properly. Next, I tried VPT 7, which is also free, but equally as problematic. After troubleshooting for a bit, I was able to make my video appear, but couldn’t actually map anything. I moved on to trials for paid programs. MadMapper is awesome and intuitive, but the free trial is super limited. I’ve settled on using the trial version of Millumin for now. (If you have any suggestions for free and/or open-source projection mapping software for Mac, or just some advice, I’d definitely appreciate it.)
We started off with still images in the corner of our studio space:
Then we moved on to something a little more dynamic — video!
We initially used the cube as a model for a room, but we discovered the dimensionality of the cube was interesting in itself. Projecting onto the shape offered almost the same impact as large scale images on the walls, but also added a compelling physical aspect. While our final concept may or may not actually involve projection mapping, it has been an effective way for us to test our ideas and even reveal unexpected insight.
This should be fun!
