7 November 2009 | NewScientist | 29

art in virtual environments. “We lose something when we go from the physical world to a virtual world that’s created only from programming.” However, he isn’t certain the problem has been cracked yet. “I want to be able to create with my hands in a virtual environment, and right now that’s a real challenge.”

Keefe has been working on a project called Drawing on Air , in which the artist works in a 3D

virtual environment, holding a haptic device, called the Phantom , in one hand and wearing a glove connected to a computer in the other (see photo) . The image is created using the “tape drawing” technique, commonly used in car design, in which both hands are used to draw lines. One hand

indicates the start point of a line, while the other moves to where you want the line to go. The haptic device provides feedback on the hardness of a surface, enabling the artist to feel the same resistance they would if painting on paper, for example.

Even more innovative approaches are being considered to provide artists with physical cues. Seth Goldstein and his team at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, are working on a device that can be physically manipulated to create 3D artworks, in a similar way to how sculptures can be moulded from clay . Called claytronics, the device would consist of a tray containing up to a million particles, each the size of a grain of sand . The artist would be able to control how the particles stick to their neighbours, allowing them to be moulded . The team say that the device will be programmable, allowing the artist to alter the behaviour of the material so the particles behave like, for example, clay or steel.

While sand grain-sized particles are still a long way off, Goldstein’s team has taken the first step towards them. They have designed cylinders about 1 millimetre in diameter that they say can be controlled to allow them to stick to their neighbours using electrostatic forces. They expect the first cylinders to be manufactured this year. “Interfaces like claytronics are going to have quite a transformative effect on how we express ourselves with the computer,” says Goldstein.

Keefe agrees, and says that artists will adopt these techniques mainly because they will be able to do things in virtual environments that are impossible in real life. For example, artists could create 3D objects that can defy gravity. And Goldstein imagines a day when a claytronics interface is used simultaneously by multiple artists to make a collaborative sculpture. “That will be cool,” he says. ■

“As touch is natural to our way of interacting, physical cues from virtual art will aid creativity”

Electronic guardian keeps teenagers safer on the road

ACCIDENT rates among teenage

drivers could be slashed using in-car

technology that warns them when

they are driving recklessly.

So says safety engineer Oren

Musicant at Ben-Gurion University in

Israel, who wanted to know if in-car

technology could help reduce the

appalling number of teenage deaths

on the roads. In the US, for instance,

car crashes are the leading cause of

death for teenagers, accounting for

over one-third of all deaths of those

aged between 16 and 19 years old.

In March 2008, Staffordshire

County Council in the UK trialled

in-vehicle data recorders with 50 local

teenage drivers over six months. The

IVDRs, made by GreenRoad of San

Francisco, California, are more

commonly used to help truckers drive

more safely and with greater fuel

efficiency. The IVDR monitors unsafe

driving events, such as overly sharp

turns, heavy acceleration, hard

braking and fast lane-changes. The

warning system was switched on

halfway through the trial. From that

point, red, yellow and green LEDs on

the facia of a dashboard-mounted box

told the drivers how they were faring.

Musicant has now analysed the

data GreenRoad downloaded on

some 18,000 trips that 32 of the

Staffordshire teenagers took. He

found the number of unsafe driving

events undertaken by each driver

halved after the warning lights

were turned on, he told the recent

Intelligent Transport Systems

conference in Stockholm, Sweden.

Musicant reckons the system

could become part of the measures

insurance companies mandate for

teenage drivers: “Some insurance

companies already adjust premiums

depending on how far you drive – in

pay-as-you-drive programmes. This

could be part of such measures,

lowering premiums if a teenager

uses a risk detector.”

However, teenagers may prefer

to have more-familiar kit to carry

out such monitoring, says Per-Olof

Svensk, an engineer with Triona ,

a transport-software consultancy

in Borlange, Sweden. The

accelerometers needed to detect

unsafe driving events are becoming

available in smartphones, he notes.

“The phone has a lot of functionality

to spare and will do a lot more to

assist drivers than merely provide

navigation.” Paul Marks ■

“The unsafe driving events undertaken by each driver halved after the warning system was turned on”

–Stay focused–

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–Drawing on air–