Koby Wheeler Project 3: Relief Mapping

Concept

For this project, I used the song "Heybb!" by binki to aid in creating an aesthetically pleasing relief mapping project. I wanted to create a minimalist form to spatial scan and map and then add in details through projection mapping. 

Process

I started by using cereal boxes to create a 3-sided pyramid form. I used a box cutter and cutting mat to cut the boxes to the correct and corresponding sizes. From there, the pyramids were put together and reinforced using duct tape. I didn't think that the projection would look great on the brown of the cereal boxes' interior so I chose to spray paint them white to get the desired surface. After a few coats of spray paint, they were left to dry overnight. The next day I hung up my black sheet for the background and taped the pyramids to the black sheet. Once this was done I ran into my first issue- I don't have my DSLR at my apartment here in Dallas. The solution was to (hopefully) find an app that could hook my iPhone up as a webcam to my Macbook. This is where EpocCam came in. The app allowed me to use my phone's camera as an input wirelessly on my Mac. So I attached my phone to the mount that I have just below the mount for my projector on my tripod and went through the spatial scanning process. After a few minutes, I had a spatial scan to work from. I really wanted to highlight the lines of the pyramid where the triangles come together, so I mapped those first as lines, and then added the triangles to fill in the space on each of them. I used the spatial scan to help guide my mapping. Once that was complete I was able to play with the content. I used all presets in Madmapper for the first composition to create a cool rainbow effect, almost like a prism. My second composition features a video I found online of six hands coming together to create a pyramid that I felt was fitting for the composition. 

Interpretation

I really enjoyed the building part of this project and bringing together a multi-disciplinary project. I haven't constructed any 3D art in a very long time, and so being thrust back into that space was very fun and then being able to apply projection mapping to that was the cherry on top. The spatial scan ended up being incredibly easy compared to what I thought it might be, although the spatial scan once finished wasn't super clear. I'm not sure if this was due to my camera's resolution or something else, but it was still very helpful.