Since I’ve been working with Open Frameworks (OF), I thought I might let a few outsiders in on an impressive project created by some of the members of the OF community.

Back in May 07 Evan Roth and Ben Engebreth started a crowd sourcing experiment. They asked the online community to come together and help change the world. Well, really they just wanted people to help track Michael Jackson’s white glove from his first nationally televised performance. The project is called White Glove Tracking and through it Evan, Ben and over 1500 users have compiled an awesome set of data.

This data is made up of variables that track the location of Michael’s glove throughout the performance. This data has helped many creative developers to produce some interesting visualizations. Check out the gallery here. Personally, the giant glove by Tim Knapen is my favourite.

According to the write up about the project, this experiment was a huge success for Evan and Ben, as the user participation blew their expectations out of the water.

I intend to make my own visualization and I’ll post it up here. The hardest part for me will be keeping the content tasteful.

I’m working on this really kick-ass Particle System visualizer that uses Perlin Noise to control movement. It’s almost exactly what Robert Hodgin does in processing, and I’m finding it a great exploration into the sorts of performance and effects possible in a stressed out flash player.

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