As computing becomes more ubiquitous in our objects, designers need to be more aware of how to design meaningful interactions into electronically enhanced objects. At the University of Washington, a class of junior Interaction Design majors is exploring this question. These pages chronicle their efforts.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Assignment 1: Dave's Gamma Target


While exploring and manipulating the Mouse 2D program in the Standard Examples folder and re-writing the code to allow the mouse to control the alpha channel and the grayscale value, I was reminded of a gamma target used to adjust a monitor. After investigating existing examples, I realized that it would be easy enough to write the simple code required although calculating the gamma using the mouse location was a more complex task and not really relevant to this exercise. An example of an embedded gamma test can be seen here http://perso.telecom-paristech.fr/~brettel/TESTS/Gamma/Gamma.html

The application window consists of a grayscale background. The value of the grayscale is controlled by the x-axis of the mouse. The target in the center of the window is composed of a square that’s greyscale value is controlled by the y-axis of the mouse. A series of 1 pixel wide black lines over-write the target every other row. This results in alternating rows of black and grey lines 1 pixel wide. Because of the fine pitch, the human eye will average out the target to a shade of grey.

The background and target values are manipulated until they appear to match. (Try matching the values with your eyes wide open and then squint slightly to see how accurate you were.) In a real gamma test, the values would be compared mathematically to provide a gamma value. This program was merely intended to reproduce the effect, but I can see it being embedded in a web page as a quick means of checking viewing conditions or adjusting the way a single browser page appears without having to readjust the system’s display settings.



The zip file can be found here.

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