Thomas Eichhorn

Theatre play with digital puppet

Based on the prototype of a virtual marionette we made a child theatre play with it. The set is a traditional stage with kids as actors. The puppet is on a central screen and is played live on stage by a professional puppeteer.

The main control is a self illuminated ARToolkit marker over a camera to track the position and rotation of the puppet. A game controller was added for better grip and to provide input for more detailed movements like head rotation or stiffness of joints. A hidden control board provided control over the look of the virtual stage, lighting and physical properties like weight and friction of the puppet. (to let it fly)

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Small trailer for the theatre play

Marionette is an interface to control digital characters in a simple and intuitive way. Its based on the idea how a child (not a puppeteer) would play with a puppet on strings. It uses ARToolkit and the black markers which is meant for Augmented Reality applications but here its actually a 6DOF input device. (full 3D positon and rotation tracking)

Marionette got nominee of the digital sparks award 2006