NYU - ITP
From 1982 - 1989 I was a faculty member at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications where, working the indomitable Red Burns, I helped shape ITP -- bringing together computational technologies with the arts. During this period as well, I co-authored a book an developed software on the topic of motion and space perception. This package was called The Active Eye. I provide a few examples below. This interest in perception of time varying events led to Quicktime when I arrived at Apple.
My Office at NYU/ITP --725 Broadway
This picture was probably taken around 1987 -- when the Mac came on the scene. I got sucked down the black hole of tech and programming. I started a class called "computational media" that is still a core course (as i understand it). This obsession led me to Apple. At Apple, I began hiring interns from ITP. Word got around that ITP had connections to Apple. And this helped shape the program in its present illustrious form
The Active Eye
While at NYU I co-authored a book with William Schiff, on motion and space perception We called it The Active Eye. Along with the book, I developed a software program in the form of a HyperCard stack which contained interactive demos allowing people not only to read about motion and space phenomena, but also to experience them. There wasn't anything out there quite like it at the time and it received attention from academics, science museums and importantly (for me) from some folks at Apple Computer.
Ames Trapezoidal Window
Based on the original demonstration by Adelbert Ames, this animation is build from a 3D model of a trapezoidal object. The object is being rotated 360 degrees about the y-axis. Despite this fact, many people see the object as oscillating back and forth. The book provides a discussion of why the Ames Window is interesting to students of perception.
Structure from Motion
Here's another example from the Active Eye showing of the importance of temporal flow to the perceptual system. As a still image these points of light are impossible to see a recognizable object. Add the element of motion and we instantly recognize these points of light as a walking person. It seems that our brains will seek the simplest "theory" to explain perceptual data. The walking person is a simpler way to explain these complex motions of the dots. This demo also shows how our systems decompose the motions into a horizontal from of reference shared by all the dots and organize the other lights (e.g., wrist light) as being hinged to the elbow light in terms of its pendulum motion.
Frames of Reference
This simple animations is a good demonstrations of how the perceptual system organizes information in hierarchies of concepts. Most people perceive these moving dots as a "rolling wheel" -- a rim dot moving in a circular path around a hub. But the trace of the motions of the dots show the objective motion of the a more complex motion called a cycloid. It seems that the perceptual system decomposes this event as having a horizontal frame of reference (a common motion shared by the rim and hub dots) and circular motion where the rim dots rotates around the center dot.
Bridge to Apple
Soon after The Active Eye was published, the work was featured in an Apple Developer's publication. I was invited to Apple to give a talk after which I was invited to spend a year in the Advanced Technology Human Interface Group.
NYU-ITP interns at Apple
I never returned to my tenured position at NYU from Apple. But I stayed in touch with Red and hired many ITP interns at Apple who have gone on to have spectacular careers. These include: Joe Rosen, Dan O'Sullivan, Lili Cheng, James Tobias, Scott Maddux, Dabney Standley, Abbe Don and Kenny MIller. This stream of ITPers having internships at Apple got the word out helped make ITP an internationally recognized program. .
Joe Rosen
Joe Rosen was a student of mine at ITP in 1988. Joe was developing his programming skills and had a unique perspective on the world and a his own special brand of humor. Joe was the very first intern I hired when I went to Apple. Joe was part of the Dynamic Documents team and built one of the first prototypes for editing movies. This was the beginning of a collaboration lasting several years where I was able to work with at IDEO, more.com, MusicNet and Stanford where he was lead engineer on the DIVER project.
Benjamin Leduc Mills
My son Ben was 2 years old when I started at NYU-ITP. He used to hang out with me at 725 Broadway. Cut to 25 years later Ben found himself back in NYU for his Master's degree. In between Ben used hang around with me at Apple ( I left my tenured faculty job). So something might have rubbed off. After NYU, Ben did his PhD in computer science at UC Boulder. He mentor was Michael Eisenberg (who was one of my heroes). Ben also did a stint at Google's advanced projects group working on project Solari -- now part of Android UI. He is currently at Autodesk whose lab is down the street from where i used to work at IDEO right on San Francisco Bay. Lots of connections, which is great.
