Digital Arts Lab

The Digital Arts Lab is a research facility dedicated to the interdisciplinary exploration, invention, study and creative inquiry at the nexus of the arts, technology, and culture through rigorous scholarly research and innovative thinking to establish new knowledge and forms of creative expression.

People

Rob O'Neill
Acting Director + Research Associate
Website

Rob O'Neill is an artist, programmer and researcher working at the intersection of art and science. He holds an undergraduate degree in anthropology from Brooklyn College of the City University of New York where he focused on anatomy and biological anthropology. Rob holds an MFA from Parsons School of Design in Design and Technology with a focus on visualization. Previous professional experience include: researcher in Cultural Resources in the Division of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History; Production Fellow at Eyebeam; Character Technical Director at PDI/Dreamworks on 'Shrek 4d', 'Shrek 2' and 'Madagascar'; Character and Research Technical Director at Charlex/Launch; and Studio Technical Director at Eyebeam. Rob's work has been shown in collaboration with Kidrobot at Visionaire Gallery and most recently as part of the Exit Art 'Studio Visit' show. Current research threads include: character technology initiatives, animation technologies for scientific inquiry (and sci-art collaborations), and open-source software for animation production. Rob has various articles and a textbook currently in development.

HyukJae Henry Yoo
Professor CCE (Tenured), Research Fellow

HyukJae Henry Yoo is an industrial designer, educator, artist, and researcher. He believes good design is an inseparable blend of art, science, and business, with humanity residing at its central core as well acting as the glue which holds everything together. He currently teaches design studios and serves as master’s thesis advisor in the Industrial Design department of Pratt Institute, where he had received his Master of Industrial Design. From his prior life as a marketer of automotive and health products, he was naturally led to the field of design after realizing that only the products designed with holistic values will deliver sustainable performances. After gaining experience through design consultancies Henry Dreyfuss Associates, Teague, and Deskey Associates, he founded his own design consulting firm, which has served clients such as BMW, Boeing, Chrysler, PepsiCo, Proctor & Gamble, General Mills, Gucci, Herman Miller, McNeil Associates, Philip-Morris, Samsung, Timex, Victoria’s Secret, Warner Brothers, YSL. His current research topics include biosensors which enable living plants and food to sing, architectural space which enable the American President to listen to the people better, fractal math furniture, and gestural-tactile musical composition interfaces.

Seth Weiner
Visiting Artist
Website
Seth holds an SMVisS from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design.

Pedro Yapor
Graduate Research Assistant
Pedro is currently pursuing an MFA in Digital Arts at Pratt Institute. 

Jung Um
Graduate Research Assistant
Jung is currently pursuing an MFA in Digital Arts at Pratt Institute. 

Research

Animation Technologies for Scientific Inquiry (O'Neill)
Topics include: morphometric analysis and evolutionary morphing, biomechanical simulation of fossil specimens, and emerging interfaces, tools, and displays for data visualization including the use of game engines as an environment for data visualization. Coupled with these methods of inquiry is the generation of artistic artifacts based on data culled from scientific collaborations. These will take the form of animation, prints, and rapid-prototyped sculptures.

Character Technology Initiatives : Digital Character Development: Theory and Practice (O'Neill)
A platform for character research and development that puts the power of procedural constraints in the hands of the user and allows for creative development of new techniques for character setup in a world of black-box third party software

Tools

WiiCam and WiiMote Server for Maya
Wiimote Server for Maya allows a Wiimote controller and an optional nunchuck controller to communicate with Autodesk Maya. It is a simple integration of the WiiYourself! library by gl.tter with Maya's built-in mocap server. Wiicam for Maya is an accompanying mel script which sets up connections between a Wiimote and a Maya camera. It allows the user to control a camera with a Wiimote to simulate the look of a handheld camera. Users can capture these movements for use in animation.
Download: http://highend3d.com/maya/downloads/mel_scripts/animation/Wiimote-Server-and-Wiicam-for-Maya-5117.html
Source: http://www.parismav.com/tech/wiicam/

openPipeline
openPipeline is an open source framework for managing animation production data and workflow. Its first implementation is a MEL-based plug-in for Autodesk Maya that handles specific aspects of production: automatic directory structures, file naming conventions, revision control, and modularity that makes multi-artist workflows possible. http://www.openpipeline.cc

mayaExportSTL
A quick MEL script that exports selected polygon objects to a specified STL ascii file for use with 3D printers and rapid prototyping.

MIDI Tools for Maya
The MIDI Tools plug-in for Maya allows users to import MIDI files into a scene and associate note events with animation clips in an intuitive and versatile way. It is designed to give animators the freedom to experiment with different approaches to musically-driven animation.

Contact

Digital Arts Research Lab

Pratt Institute
Myrtle Hall 5E.5
200 Willoughby Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11205
Main: 718-399-4280
Fax: 718-399-4282
info@dal.pratt.edu