Ba Chi, Computed

Visualizing the Unseen Movement

Sara Park
MAUD 2023
Jonathan Cook
MLAUD 2023
Edith Xu
MAUD 2023
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1 A superimposed representation of the movement. The more illuminated the geometries are, the more static the movement is.

Looking at some of the old Chinese Kung Fu drawing books, we became interested in the relationship between hands and feet in these complex movements. To understand the primary relationship, simple forms track and record each step, augmented by size and color. Two main parameters determine the graphics of this project: speed and distance.

The position of each sphere is the midpoint between both hands. The color and radius of the spheres increase proportionally to the distance between the two hands. Cubes represent movement of the feet with an additional parameter of speed. As with the hands, colors represent the distance between the feet, where more saturation means more distance. However, the size of the cubes represents their speed, with a larger box indicating faster movement.

Project video
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2 A page from an ancient Chinese Kung Fu drawing book.
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3 Sensors were held to track both hand movements.
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4 Sensors were attached to the ankles to track the feet.
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5 A selection of screenshots from the video production of this project.