News Feed Ticker: Processing Text and Images

DRAFT (DUE DATE SUBJECT TO CHANGE)

Within this exercise you are to make a Processing Sketch and optionally a Quicktime or MPeg movie output file that incorporates moving text for approximately 30 seconds on a large hypothetical news feed ticker screen at a town center, a kind of Tweeter writ large. The data may be a set of news headlines, famous quotes, or simple aphorisms. Take into account type font, the animation of color, graphic effects, symbolic or theatrical images and other graphical elements at your discretion. The short movie should convey a ticking away of text moving from right to left such as in the original New York Times building news ticker, a kind of early form of headline "tweeting". Use a background photo, video or synthetic processing created image of a town center, and continue with processing for the moving text.

Assume that you have 30 seconds to stream text and graphics to one of the most public of news spaces in a particular town. Resolution size of 1280 x 720 pixels, or 640 x 360 pixels is recommended. This exercise is inspired by a real competition staged for artists periodically on the electronic billboard and iconic building at One Times Square.

Sample template sketches in the Processing programming language will be introduced in the class to help guide the development of this exercise. See also Chapters 7 and 8 of the Getting Started with Processing text for relevant techniques.

A brief historical overview of the Times Square News Ticker appears in the following article:

http://www.wnyc.org/story/ticker-times-square/

Media:

Part 1. Preview of Processing with text and images, and optionally, motion picture files.

Part 2. Microcontroller Sensor Input

During this time period we will begin to explore a set of tutorials using microcontroller (Arduino) technology, the IDE processing environment for the micro-controller's, sensors and other interactive physical devices. Since we are just beginning to work with microcontrollers, the objective is to provide a relatively limited example that you can modify. For example, Arduino sensors can detect lighting changes or sonically detect movement that may prompt some response on the news ticker display technology.

Part 3. Optional: Digital Editing

Compile the final product either as code in Processing or as output to short movie in the Quicktime mov or mpeg format. Consult on the the format and with Earl Mark, Ammon Shepherd, or Iting Chen and on any other questions as frequently as needed about the scope of your project and techniques. Work on this assignment should be incrementally scheduled over the next two weeks.  

Submission:

1. A Processing sketch and optional moviefile submitted to your exercise 3 submit folder on the CLASSES server or the equivalent location on the ARCH5424_DCMF_SPRING22 collab site.

2. Live demonstration in class of Part 2 microcontroller enhanced interaction.

3. Send notification via email to Earl Mark, Ammon Shepherd, and Iting Chen about the completion of this assignment, its file name and directory location in the classes folder, and a brief description about your intentions.