Marionette, aka Django

A Project by Lee, Chris, and Andrew

An application for modelling a marionette.
Django is an OpenGL bird controlled by a marionette controller and a webcam.

Details

Marionette Controller - Chris Harrison

The Controller allows Django to be manipulated like a real marionette. It is composed of a joystick and a potentiometer giving the marionette pitch,roll, yaw, and and direction. All the devices are mounted on a wooden platform with the controller cross on top. The feel is natural and easy to use, much better than standard keyboard input for control. The controller is attached to a microcontroller where information is sent to the computer via RS 232..

Application - Lee Thompson

Written in OpenGL and C++. The application has a simple physics engine. Objects are controlled by application of forces such as acceleration or velocity. The wires act like springs attached to the controller. All information to move Django comes from the serial port via Chris' controller or by windows messages from my other application Visions. The vision algorithm for the wings is a simple background subtraction. Images are broken up into a grid of rectangles. A background image is taken and is used to compare with the current frame from a webcam. If the intensity level of the current frame is significantly different from the background then that area is considered to be changed, this is done for each rectangle.

A picture of the full application.