benjamin maus
is . he codes, tinkers and designs in berlin at the moment.
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winston.smith
Description
At first the attention of the visitor is directed to the information frame attached to the wall. This frame holds a bilingual abstract text on the basic problem of CCTV retention. While the visitor is looking at the information a passport-style photograph is automatically taken and put on to a newly created file card . This card instantly appears in the card index box standing beneath the frame.
After reading the visitor looks into the box and is confronted with the saved image of him or herself. He can scroll through the last 20 cards by moving his hand in the box.
This leads to consideration and realization that automatic CCTV in combination with automatic recognition, capturing and retention is even possible on such a low scale and can mean great harm to the individual.
technical realization
The image of the person standing in front of the information frame is acquired via an ordinary consumer-class webcam. A custom-written face detector, based on the computer vision library OpenCV, analyzes the image and extracts a cropped version of the face area. This passport-style photograph is then merged with a stock image of an index card. This prepped image file is available to the second application driving the box.
The pedestal for the box contains a PC and a vertically mounted data projector. The images saved by the face detector are loaded into memory and are used as texture for the representations of the cards. These representations are simple OpenGL planes.
Interaction is achieved through a simple low-cost IR distance sensor connected to the computer driving the graphics in the box. This solution works even better than having an actual tactile surface inside the box, because it also works contact-less.
