In the CADET – Center for Advances in Digital Entertainment Technologies research project funded by the FFG – Austrian Research Promotion Agency’s Cooperation & Innovation (COIN) program, the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences and the Ars Electronica Futurelab are teaming up their technical capabilities and design skills to decisively strengthen Austria as a place to do business in the field of creative engineering.

Hands-on Technology

Its specific R&D objective is to enhance immersion, participation and interaction in digital entertainment and communication. The research project is now in its fourth and final year, and here presents a selection of works – Spaxels Concept Demos, Moves Reloaded and OscFluctuation – in which technology developed by CADET is being deployed.

For more information about CADET take part at the talk CADET – Playful Sparks, on SUN September 7, 2014, 2 PM, in the Gala room of the Akademisches Gymnasium.

Spaxels Presentation

Chris Bruckmayr, Martin Mörth, Andreas Jalsovec, Michael Platz

Ars Electronica Futurelab staffers have been doing R&D since 2012 on what they’ve dubbed spaxels (space pixels) – a swarm of quadcopters that can fly in precise formation and thus “draw” three-dimensional images in midair. The result is an amazing repertoire of extraordinary visualizations that even includes live depictions of proposed architectural projects.

The Future Playground at this year’s Ars Electronica Festival will stage a public demonstration of the spaxels capabilities. Futurelab experts will explain the concept and provide impressions of what the spaxels can do. Plus, members of the CADET R&D project staff will present the latest possibilities for interaction with spaxels and, with Smart Atoms, offer insights into the spaxels’ tremendous future potential.

Spaxels Pong and Just Fly

CADET (Roland Haring, Peter Holzkorn, Christopher Lindinger, Otto Naderer, Michael Platz) and Spaxels Team/R&D (Horst Hörtner, Chris Bruckmayr, Andreas Jalsovec, Martina Mara, Martin Mörth, Harpreet Sareen)

The CADET Spaxels Indoor Flight Showcase will demonstrate how the quadcopter swarm can be manipulated directly via intuitive forms of interaction. Several spaxels hovering right over the event stage will be used to display the various forms of interaction with such semi-autonomous systems. Gesture control makes it possible to determine the quadcopters’ position and flight path.

Music credits: “You’re in Love” by 7bit hero. 7bit Hero is an interactive bit-pop band that makes video games. 7bit Hero is Hans van Vliet, Richie Young, Phil Evans, Jaymis Loveday and Adam Single.

Smart Atoms Presentation

Horst Hörtner, Martin Mörth

Smart Atoms are the latest enhanced and upgraded version of the spaxels. Instead of being equipped with LEDs, the quadcopters are interlinked as building blocks. This will make it possible not only to form visual likenesses but also to generate objects with material-virtual characteristics. The idea behind this development and how these Smart Atoms function will be explained and illustrated at this presentation.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0EvDzDMMoI]

More information about the spaxels you’ll find on ars.electronica.art/spaxels!