Urban pixels: painting the city with light

ABSTRACT

Urban environments are increasingly filled with digital display systems that are inflexible, flat, bounded, high-resolution, and unresponsive. In this paper, we explore the potential of physically instantiated pixels that enable flexible, reconfigurable, unbounded, low-resolution, and responsive urban displays. Urban Pixels are nodes in a wireless network of physical pixels for urban spaces. Each pixel unit includes a microcontroller, RF transceiver (433 MHz), LED module (ten bright, white LEDs), rechargeable Li-Ion battery pack, IR sensor and renewable energy source such as photo-voltaic cells. Two acrylic half-spheres (4-inch diameter) protect the components from the elements. No additional wiring is needed for communication and the units can be mounted individually to any surface. A small-scale prototype network of fifty Urban Pixels was displayed on a façade of Eden Court Theater in Inverness, Scotland from June 1 - June 7, 2008. The public was encouraged to change display patterns via SMS or to interact with individual units via flashlights. We observed and informally interviewed theater guests and passers-by interacting with the façade for several nights. Based on these results, we outline an exciting problem space for designing displays and lighting systems in cities.

REFERENCES

• 1: Akyildiz, I.F., Su, W., Sankarasubramaniam, Y., Cayirci, E. A survey on sensor networks. IEEE Communications Magazine 40, 8 (August 2002), 102--114.
• 2: Ambient Intelligence. Philips Research Technology Magazine. Password 23 (May 2005).
• 3: Victoria Bellotti , Maribeth Back , W. Keith Edwards , Rebecca E. Grinter , Austin Henderson , Cristina Lopes, Making sense of sensing systems: five questions for designers and researchers, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: Changing our world, changing ourselves, April 20-25, 2002, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA [doi>10.1145/503376.503450]
• 4: Bouchard, D. and Maes, P. SoundMites: Embodied Emergence. http://ambient.media.mit.edu/projects.php?action=details&id=41
• 5: BlinkenLights. Berlin, 2001-2002. www.blinkenlights.de.
• 6: Bruges, J. Wind to Light. London, 2007. http://www.jasonbruges.com/
• 7: William Butera, Text Display and Graphics Control on a Paintable Computer, Proceedings of the First International Conference on Self-Adaptive and Self-Organizing Systems, p.45-54, July 09-11, 2007 [doi>10.1109/SASO.2007.60]
• 8: Buxton, W. Absorbing and squeezing out: On sponges and ubiquitous computing. In Proc. of the International Broadcasting Symposium 16 (November 13-16), 91--96.
• 9: Panagiotis Chatzitsakyris , Gonçalo Ducla-Soares , Alejandro Zulas, IN-Visible: perceiving invisible urban information through ambient media, CHI '04 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems, April 24-29, 2004, Vienna, Austria [doi>10.1145/985921.986061]
• 10: Tobi Delbrück , Adrian M. Whatley , Rodney Douglas , Kynan Eng , Klaus Hepp , Paul F. M. J. Verschure, A tactile luminous floor for an interactive autonomous space, Robotics and Autonomous Systems, v.55 n.6, p.433-443, June, 2007 [doi>10.1016/j.robot.2007.01.006]
• 11: Anind Dey , Jennifer Mankoff , Gregory Abowd , Scott Carter, Distributed mediation of ambiguous context in aware environments, Proceedings of the 15th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology, October 27-30, 2002, Paris, France [doi>10.1145/571985.572003]
• 12: Ducatel, K., Bogdanowicz, M., Scapolo, F., Leijten, J. and Burgelman, J.-C. Scenarios for ambient intelligence in 2010. Final Report European Commission IST Advisory Group (2001).
• 13: Eisenstein, S. M. The Film Sense. Jay Leyda, transl. and ed. Harvest Book, Harcourt, Brace&World, New York, 1942, 1975.
• 14: Deborah Estrin , Ramesh Govindan , John Heidemann , Satish Kumar, Next century challenges: scalable coordination in sensor networks, Proceedings of the 5th annual ACM/IEEE international conference on Mobile computing and networking, p.263-270, August 15-19, 1999, Seattle, Washington, United States [doi>10.1145/313451.313556]
• 15: George W. Fitzmaurice , Hiroshi Ishii , William A. S. Buxton, Bricks: laying the foundations for graspable user interfaces, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.442-449, May 07-11, 1995, Denver, Colorado, United States [doi>10.1145/223904.223964]
• 16: Frenchman, D., Rojas, F. Zaragoza's Digital Mile: Place-Making in a new public realm. Places 18, 2 (2005), 16--25.
• 17: Graffiti Research Lab. Laser Tag. 2007. http://graffitiresearchlab.com/?page_id=76#video
• 18: Graffiti Research Lab. Throwies. http://graffitiresearchlab.com/?page_id=6
• 19: Heaton, K. B., Poor, R. D., and Wheeler, A. J. Nami. In Conference Abstracts and Applications SIGGRAPH 1999, ACM Press (1999), 215.
• 20: Herzog, J. and De Meuron, P. Allianz Arena. Munich, 2005. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allianz_Arena
• 21: Hiroshi Ishii, Tangible bits: beyond pixels, Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on Tangible and embedded interaction, February 18-20, 2008, Bonn, Germany [doi>10.1145/1347390.1347392]
• 22: Hiroshi Ishii , Brygg Ullmer, Tangible bits: towards seamless interfaces between people, bits and atoms, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.234-241, March 22-27, 1997, Atlanta, Georgia, United States [doi>10.1145/258549.258715]
• 23: Mizuko Ito , Daisuke Okabe , Misa Matsuda, Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life, The MIT Press, 2005
• 24: Jakle, J.A. City Lights: Illuminating the American Night. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, London, 2001.
• 25: Laibowitz, M. and Paradiso, J.A. Wireless wearable transceivers. Circuit Cellar 163 (2004), 28--39.
• 26: Joshua Lifton , Mark Feldmeier , Yasuhiro Ono , Cameron Lewis , Joseph A. Paradiso, A platform for ubiquitous sensor deployment in occupational and domestic environments, Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Information processing in sensor networks, April 25-27, 2007, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA [doi>10.1145/1236360.1236377]
• 27: Joshua Lifton , Michael Broxton , Joseph A. Paradiso, Experiences and directions in pushpin computing, Proceedings of the 4th international symposium on Information processing in sensor networks, April 24-27, 2005, Los Angeles, California
• 28: Lozano Hemmer, R. Body Movies. Rotterdam, 2001. www.lozano-hemmer.com/video/bodymovies.html
• 29: Malcolm McCullough, Digital Ground: Architecture, Pervasive Computing, and Environmental Knowing, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2004
• 30: David Merrill , Jeevan Kalanithi , Pattie Maes, Siftables: towards sensor network user interfaces, Proceedings of the 1st international conference on Tangible and embedded interaction, February 15-17, 2007, Baton Rouge, Louisiana [doi>10.1145/1226969.1226984]
• 31: Mitchell, W. J. The Reconfigured Eye. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1992.
• 32: Murthy, R. Street Media: Ambient Messages in an Urban Space. MIT SM Thesis, 2005.
• 33: Murty, R., Gosain, A., Tierney, M., Brody, A., Fahad, A., Bers, J. and Welsh, M. Harvard University Technical Report, TR-13-07 (September, 2007). http://www.citysense.net/
• 34: Neumann, D. Architecture of the Night: The Illuminated Building. Presetel, Munich, New York, 2002.
• 35: Donald A. Norman, The invisible computer, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1998
• 36: Nye, D. E. Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1992.
• 37: Paulos, E. Urban Probes. INTEL. http://urban-atmospheres.net/UrbanProbes
• 38: Pfeiffer, E. WhereWare. Technology Review (2003).
• 39: Jun Rekimoto , Brygg Ullmer , Haruo Oba, DataTiles: a modular platform for mixed physical and graphical interactions, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.269-276, March 2001, Seattle, Washington, United States [doi>10.1145/365024.365115]
• 40: Oriana Riva , Cristian Borcea, The Urbanet Revolution: Sensor Power to the People!, IEEE Pervasive Computing, v.6 n.2, p.41-49, April 2007 [doi>10.1109/MPRV.2007.46]
• 41: Andreas Savvides , Mani Srivastava , Lewis Girod , Deborah Estrin, Localization in sensor networks, Wireless sensor networks, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell, MA, 2004
• 42: Schivelbusch, W. Licht, Schein und Wahn. ERCO Edition, Berlin, 1992.
• 43: Struppek, M. The social potential of urban screens. Visual Communication 5, 2 (2006): 173--188.
• 44: Tomitsch, M., Kappel, K., Lehner, A. and Grechenig, T. Towards a taxonomy for ambient information systems. In Pervasive 2007 W9 Ambient Information Systems (May 13, 2007).
• 45: Manfred Tscheligi, Introduction, interactions, v.12 n.4, July + August 2005 [doi>10.1145/1070960.1070978]
• 46: John Underkoffler , Brygg Ullmer , Hiroshi Ishii, Emancipated pixels: real-world graphics in the luminous room, Proceedings of the 26th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.385-392, July 1999 [doi>10.1145/311535.311593]
• 47: Villareal, L. Supercluster. New York, 2003-2004. http://www.villareal.net/project_3.html
• 48: Roy Want , Gaetano Borriello , Trevor Pering , Keith I. Farkas, Disappearing Hardware, IEEE Pervasive Computing, v.1 n.1, p.36-47, January 2002 [doi>10.1109/MPRV.2002.993143]
• 49: Weiser, M. The computer for the 21st century. Scientific American (1991), 94--104.
• 50: Jennifer Yick , Biswanath Mukherjee , Dipak Ghosal, Wireless sensor network survey, Computer Networks: The International Journal of Computer and Telecommunications Networking, v.52 n.12, p.2292-2330, August, 2008 [doi>10.1016/j.comnet.2008.04.002]
• 51: Yoon, M. White Noise White Light. Athens, 2004. http://www.mystudio.us/

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.m Miscellaneous

General Terms:
Design

Keywords:
ambient media, interaction design, lighting, ubiquitous computing, urban computing, urban display