QR Experimentation

So I did a lot of experimenting with manipulating QR codes and seeing if they would still read. I discovered a lot of things, the biggest being that it is nearly impossible to manipulate the three large "target" areas any more than changing the shape (e.g. from square to circle) without making them unreadable. It seems that the inner parts of the code are much more lenient with manipulation. Check it out!

note: all of these were tested on my android

So I started basic, changing everything from squares to circles and adding color to the b/w. This read just fine.

So then I tried to just live trace it in illustrator to see what would happen. It did not like this.

So I went back and changed the two color to multi-colored. It did not read.

I had a suspicion the former didn't read due to the lightness of the yellows and therefore changed all of the yellows to other colors. It worked!

Then I started experimenting with the "target" areas. This did not go well.

I tried the outside only, the inside only and the middle ring only.

This one in particular baffled me. It read, but it read the WRONG thing! It thought the QR was referring to something else, which was extremely interesting to me.

So then I started in with type. this worked fine.

This did not.

This didn't work either. I tried a few variations of the placement on this just to see if there were certain "target" areas within the inside that I was blocking but none of these seemed to work.

Then I got the idea to just use really loose shapes and see if it would work when I was pretty sloppy about it. It did.

This led me to try using characters instead of blocks of color. This first one didn't work.

I suspected it might be because the letters weren't covering enough 'ground' where the squares/circles used to be so I used a bold style....it worked!

Then I tried just changing little things like color and letters in it, it worked fine but it's not very readable for that purpose.

Then I wondered if I could do a kind of mash up of the letters/a little randomness and while it took longer than the others had to read, it did eventually get it.

Then I wanted to try the big letters on the targets again and see if it would work if i could close out the letters with color so that you could still read the letters but the scanner would pick up on the "target." Nada.

I figured it was due to the "S" but even after cutting out part of it to make white space inside, it still wouldn't read.

All in all, I think I got a lot out of this exercise and have kind of figured out some of the boundaries of manipulating QR.

Creative QRs

So I did some research on adding and manipulating QR content and how far you can take it. I've tried all of these and they have all worked for me with the exception of the last one which wouldn't read for me. According to some articles you can manipulate a QR code about 30% and it will still read. I will update later with my own experiments but I was surprised at how manipulated this are and that they still worked relatively well.

A few other links that talk about manipulating QR codes:

http://contentdeveloper.com/2010/01/how-to-customize-qr-codes-with-your-brands-identity/

http://www.tiglu.com/index.php/tiglu/post/adjusting_qr_codes_to_fit_your_design

Student Show Mockup

Here is a couple renditions of how the building projection could be interacted with by the users coming to the show. Through their iPhones/iTouches, they could control a piece of the projection; however, the windows would act as "blocks" to the interaction so that it becomes a kind of obstacle based fun interaction.

Student Show Research Imagery

Here are some of the pictures I took while researching ideas for the student show. For full descriptions, see the flickr group here where Alex posted our pictures.

Final One Input Documentation

This is my final documentation video. It is similar to the one in the last post but with some added content at the end of play after I fixed it up. Enjoy!

One Input Documentation

Start to finish, it's been a process!

Process Process

These pictures summarize the past week of process. The first are screenshots of my code in processing as it developed throughout my process. The final code are the last two screenshots. The rest of the photos are the building process for the final physical piece.