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Whether you’re a creator, marketing expert, or merely seeking to enhance your residence, transforming commonplace items into lively displays is an excellent method to render them more visually appealing. For instance, you could convert a children’s book into a portable animation of sorts, enriching the reading adventure for a youngster.

However, due to MIT researchers, it’s now feasible to create dynamic displays without utilizing electronics, by employing barrier-grid animations (or scanimations), which rely on printed materials instead. This optical illusion entails sliding a patterned sheet over an image to fabricate the semblance of a moving picture. The essence of barrier-grid animations rests in its terminology: An overlay dubbed a barrier (or grid) that often resembles a picket fence slides across, rotates around, or tilts toward an image to unveil frames in an animated sequence. The foundational image is a compilation of each still, sliced and interlaced to present a different snapshot based on the overlay’s placement.

While resources exist to assist creators in developing barrier-grid animations, they are generally intended for producing barrier patterns with straight lines. Building on prior studies in generating images that seem to move, researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have devised a tool that enables users to experiment with more unconventional designs. From zigzags to circular patterns, the team’s “FabObscura” software transforms original concepts into printable scanimations, assisting users in adding lively animations to items such as photographs, toys, and decor.

MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) PhD student and CSAIL researcher Ticha Sethapakdi SM ’19, a principal author of a publication introducing FabObscura, states that the system serves as a versatile tool for personalizing barrier-grid animations. This adaptability encompasses unconventional, intricate overlay designs, like pointed, slanted lines to animate an image you might place on your desk, or the swirling, captivating look of a radial pattern you could rotate over an image on a coin or a Frisbee.

“Our system can transform a seemingly motionless, abstract image into a captivating animation,” asserts Sethapakdi. “The tool reduces the barriers to creating these barrier-grid animations, while enabling users to convey a variety of designs that would have been extremely laborious to explore manually.”

Underneath these innovative scanimations lies a crucial discovery: Barrier patterns can be represented as any continuous mathematical function — not solely straight lines. Users can input these equations into a text box in the FabObscura program, then observe how it graphs the shape and movement of a barrier pattern. For a conventional horizontal pattern, you would enter a constant function, where the output remains unchanged regardless of the input, akin to drawing a straight line across a graph. For a wavy design, you would use a sine function, which is smooth and resembles a mountain range when plotted. The system’s interface includes helpful examples of these equations to direct users toward their desired pattern.

A straightforward interface for intricate concepts

FabObscura functions for all known prototypes of barrier-grid animations, accommodating a variety of user interactions. The system allows the creation of a display whose appearance alters based on your perspective. FabObscura also enables you to create visuals that you can animate by sliding or rotating a barrier over an image.

To develop these designs, users can upload a folder containing frames of an animation (perhaps several stills of a galloping horse), or select from a few preset sequences (like a winking eye) and designate the angle at which your barrier will move. After previewing your design, you can manufacture the barrier and image onto separate transparent sheets (or print the image on paper) using a standard 2D printer, such as an inkjet. Your image can then be placed and secured on flat, portable items like picture frames, phones, and books.

You can enter distinct equations if you wish to have two sequences on one surface, which the researchers refer to as “nested animations.” Depending on how you maneuver the barrier, you’ll perceive a different narrative being conveyed. For instance, CSAIL researchers created a car that rotates when you move its sheet vertically, but morphs into a whirling motorcycle when you slide the grid horizontally.

These customizations yield distinctive household items as well. The researchers devised an interactive coaster that you can toggle from displaying a “coffee” icon to representations of a martini and a glass of water by pressing your fingers down on its edges. The team also enhanced a jar of sunflower seeds, producing a floral animation on the lid that blooms when twisted off.

Creators, including graphic artists and printmakers, could also utilize this tool to produce dynamic pieces without needing to connect any wires. The tool saves them valuable time to explore imaginative, low-energy designs, such as a clock with a mouse that runs along as it ticks. FabObscura could generate animated food packaging or even adaptable signage for locations like construction sites or shops that inform individuals when a specific area is closed or a machine is malfunctioning.

Maintain clarity

FabObscura’s barrier-grid creations do possess certain compromises. While nested animations are innovative and more dynamic than a single-layer scanimation, their visual quality may not be as robust. The researchers drafted design guidelines to tackle these challenges, suggesting users upload fewer frames for nested animations to maintain the interlaced image simple and adhere to high-contrast images for a sharper presentation.

In the future, the researchers aim to broaden what users can upload to FabObscura, potentially allowing them to include a video file from which the program can then select the optimal frames. This would result in even more expressive barrier-grid animations.

FabObscura might also venture into a new dimension: 3D. While the system is presently optimized for flat, portable surfaces, CSAIL researchers are contemplating integrating their work into larger, more intricate objects, possibly using 3D printers to fabricate even more elaborate illusions.

Sethapakdi co-authored the paper with several CSAIL associates: Zhejiang University PhD student and visiting researcher Mingming Li; MIT EECS PhD student Maxine Perroni-Scharf; MIT postdoc Jiaji Li; MIT associate professors Arvind Satyanarayan and Justin Solomon; and senior author and MIT Associate Professor Stefanie Mueller, head of the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) Engineering Group at CSAIL. Their research will be showcased at the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) this month.

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