Visualisation Tool

The first presentation prompted a variety of feedback from my lecturers and tutors :

- Sounds like an interesting product
- Ralf suggested getting it up to prototype
- Looking forward to seeing what you produce, played with processing a little, and is lots of fun.
- Well presented, and understandable
- Scope needs to be considered to make sure that it is achievable

and

Interesting project - though you need to sell it more! Aiming for the casual desktop user is kinda selling it short, considering the potential it has for inclusion into club setting. How are you going to differentiate it from the others out there - why would ppl use yours over theirs? Allowing for customisation would help to push up a level - and aiming for a particular group of users (like VJ’s) would also help.

On top of these comments, my lecturer, Ralf, suggested more customisation. By making it a simple visualisation I wasn't really doing anything "new". Although this project essentially was a learning experience for myself, I knew I also had to impress the people that were marking me. It was at this stage I stopped working and tried to re-think the idea. I realised that earlier I had thought about doing a more complicated project, a "tool" for VJ's and visual enthusaists. I realised this was the only way to go. aAVis was born.

New Direction

With this new direction in mind, I had to rethink things. The complexity of the project quadrupled overnight. I realised if I wasn't organised there would be no way to finish the project on time. I sat down and drafted out what needed to be done in order for the project to be a success. I new that I only wanted to build a rough prototype, and nothing amazing had to be done, but it still needed to be polished enough to present at the exhibition at the end of the year. There were four things I had to do :

- Finalise the Audio Elements
- Develop a GUI ( Graphical User Interface )
- Develop the Graphical Elements ( Now Plural )
- Develop Presets

Each of these had to be developed in turn in order to create the whole project. As the production and the design occurred concurrently, the details of these sections is contained within the production section of this website.

Another Change in Direction

Originally, aAvis worked on a very simple principle, where objects could be placed on the screen, and could react to only particular types of data. However towards the end, I decided it would be more effective if the user could type in mathematical functions and the program could translate them. This way the objects could move using basic trig functions, objects could react to variable data, and a greater amount of customisation was allowed. This was the choice that saved aAVis and made it the enjoyable and fun project it became.