For the recent OC Addy’s, MEDL was given a blank canvas as part of a charity auction. Various agencies would all get creative and make something cool. With our canvas, we produced an experimental art piece that tried to solve a basic problem. Some people can’t paint but want to make art. After a bit of kicking ideas around, we landed on the idea that anyone can take a photo, and that just might be enough. From there we looked at utilizing image recognition services and found that we could do a ton with color detection. More on that later…
Being that the canvas was really a frame and we wanted to show something digital. We found an LED panel in a broken computer and went to town on creating an embedded display. We used the computer’s display and added a video controller circuit board and connectors. The last piece was to give the system a brain and found the new Raspberry Pi-3 an easy decision. We connected everything up, used a ton of solder and hot glue and BAM! Canvas monitor!!
To make it look and feel more like a canvas we decided to soften up everything a bit by using a semi-opaque film and wrapping the display in it. The result was something that felt less industrial and simply pleasing to the eye.
A final piece to tie everything together was to create a way to make the canvas more active and provide an interactive means for a user to make their artwork. We decided to build a photography app that would provide visual feedback of the dominant colors found in photos. The app had a few changes and we decided to build the same functionality into a web page hosted on the Canvas Display. It made perfect sense to use color swatches and so we focused the app’s design around swatches. You can see some earlier versions of the app’s design in prototype to the most current in the image gallery below.
After playing with the color swatches we just experimented on how we could create abstract representations of color on the display. In the gallery are some of those styles and the final product.
To learn more about Canvas Vision and MEDL Mobile, contact kristle@medlmobile.com or come see it on display in our lobby 7 Studebaker Irvine, CA 92618
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