Creating your own Iron Man (Tony Stark) Desktop/Computer Station/Lab

[PsychedelicWonders]

Alright, at this point, weve all seen the movie Iron Man.

(Not sure if this is in the right section)

But we all remember Tony Starks Lab/Computer Station.

How realistic is it to actually build?

I'm not talking an Iron Man suit or his manufacturing robots/Build Station, or even J.A.R.V.I.S.

Just the computer(s), monitors(TVs) & software/OS

Now I've read a couple of threads on here, but nothing really got any where.

Lets go over a couple of key points:

His digital keyboard:
He waves his hand across a platform and a very unique, & special keyboard materializes.

1) First off, how is a keyboard like that built? Is the technology available today?
2) What kind of keyboard setup was that? It wasnt your normal QWERTY Keyboard.

The monitor setup:
Having several monitors is the easy part,

But, it seems that they all were perhaps touchscreen?

3) Are there monitors out there that large that are touch screen like that?

4) What about the pen/pointer/mouse he was using to click and drag items to other monitors or work stations?

Is this actually real? Or is that just a movie prop?

There also were some type of gloves, or fingertips that he was wearing while utilizing his 3-D workstation that allows him to grab and work with applications and exploded items...

5) Are these gloves/fingertips possible? (making them bluetooth would be ideal obviously)

Then there was his table top, 3-D workstation.

I know microsoft has some technology out there like this,

6) But is it something that is obtainable, perhaps even to make yourself with out spending 42 million dollars?

7) And what about the 3-D application on his table top workstation?

8) Is there actually software out there available that allows things to become 3-D like that, and also allow for "exploded" views of things?

Now I also like the "Black Liquid Glass" look of his OS.

I've read where his OS was perhaps all designed on Linux (but why wouldnt more people know about it here if it were?)

I have a similar theme on my desktop, via the pics attached, but I need to incorporate the "liquid" aspect of it in.

I have found something similar on a Compiz-Fusion Forum called "Top" or "Htop"...

It seems it was only for the terminal, and doesnt have a defined "border" to show it as a separate application,

But, is there any way to incorporate these two screen shots into one type of overall theme?

Taking my "Black Glass" theme and melting it with this "Top"/liquid feature/look?

[PsychedelicWonders]

nothing?

[cariboo]

This really isn't the right place for this kind of disccusion, I'll ask one of the mods to move it to the Community Cafe.

Jim

[mips]

Alright, at this point, weve all seen the movie Iron Man.


Nope & I have no idea what you are talking about :)

[uberdonkey5]

Are you geeky for asking this, or am I geeky for responding??

Well, they have data gloves already (for a LONG time). My friend used to play games with virtual reality visor and data gloves, but found he fell off his chair all the time and many of the games would make him feel physically sick.

Definately, you could get large touch screens. And holographic projection can be done. Any device can be located in space with radio signals (i.e. transmitters on the walls and recevier in a glove or pen), or even you can use interference of beams.

..have to go, but basically all seems feasible but not cheap enough for most people to do (and also likely to be more likely to have problems with... imagine all the driver software you'd need in ubuntu for this set up! he he)

[PsychedelicWonders]

Are you geeky for asking this, or am I geeky for responding??

Well, they have data gloves already (for a LONG time). My friend used to play games with virtual reality visor and data gloves, but found he fell off his chair all the time and many of the games would make him feel physically sick.

Definately, you could get large touch screens. And holographic projection can be done. Any device can be located in space with radio signals (i.e. transmitters on the walls and recevier in a glove or pen), or even you can use interference of beams.

..have to go, but basically all seems feasible but not cheap enough for most people to do (and also likely to be more likely to have problems with... imagine all the driver software you'd need in ubuntu for this set up! he he)

I'd say were both geeks for being on a linux forum to begin with, so anything is fair game at this point. :D

What software/hardware allows you to to holographic projections?

Is the software able to be used with your hands like a touch screen is and how Tony does in the movie?

I'm sure its not that cheap right now, but jesus, within the next 2 years, this should all really be feasable and will seem to put us in a technology "sweet spot" for quite some time.

hey as long as linux stays open source... and you have the money, you can pay someone to create the drivers you would need for all of this to function properly.

[vallhalla81]

is this the sort of thing you are looking for? if so it is just some simple tweeks of the settings of emerald and the inbuilt themes

[vallhalla81]

extra pics edited screen

[steveneddy]

Maybe you want this....

http://oblong.com/

[mips]

Nope & I have no idea what you are talking about :)


Ok, I watched the movie two weeks ago and enjoyed it :)

[pinged]

Interesting topic and I think it would be a great idea.

More to the point are you looking for a theme or the whole touchscreen 3d interface:confused:

If you find some way to setup the 3d display send me a message or at least post it in the thread

EDIT: Checkout this article about wiimote: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=993376
EDIT 2: Checkout the whiteboard part unless you have your hands on that stuff from MIT
Don't know if it will help

[uncholowapo]

Maybe you want this....

http://oblong.com/
That's f'n cool.

[PsychedelicWonders]

Maybe you want this....

http://oblong.com/

Actually thats EXACTLY what I want. I just didnt think it was that readily available. I'll be watching this like a hawk and getting it as soon as its finaicially available.

Absolutely amazing.

[Exodist]

Actually thats EXACTLY what I want. I just didnt think it was that readily available. I'll be watching this like a hawk and getting it as soon as its finaicially available.

Absolutely amazing.

Yea its kewl. Only wished I new what kind of hardware they are using the track hand movement.

[mobilediesel]

Actually thats EXACTLY what I want. I just didnt think it was that readily available. I'll be watching this like a hawk and getting it as soon as its finaicially available.

Absolutely amazing.

This is a demo shown on Ted.com using a webcam, portable projector and colored marker caps on your fingers.
http://www.ted.com/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html
It would be a start that wouldn't break the bank.

[PsychedelicWonders]

This is a demo shown on Ted.com using a webcam, portable projector and colored marker caps on your fingers.
http://www.ted.com/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html
It would be a start that wouldn't break the bank.

Thats unbelievable too! And literally going to be available in like a year.

Can you imagine that technology mixed in with an iPhone and then remotely linked up with your Oblong home computer? Wow. Meta Data just went seamless into your life. I cant wait and will be following them both closely & purchasing as soon as its possible.

[Shpongle]

That's f'n cool.

quote += 1;

[PsychedelicWonders]

anyone got anything on turning Ubuntu or elive or anything into more of a desktop like this?

[pcmiller4]

2) What kind of keyboard setup was that? It wasnt your normal QWERTY Keyboard.



If you look at the symbols on the keyboard, they are variety of electrical and mechanical symbols used on diagrams and drawings. The easiest one to pick out is the squiggle which is a resistor. I imagine having those at your finger tips might be easier, but a lot of CAD programs have panels with those readily available too :)

[PsychedelicWonders]

If you look at the symbols on the keyboard, they are variety of electrical and mechanical symbols used on diagrams and drawings. The easiest one to pick out is the squiggle which is a resistor. I imagine having those at your finger tips might be easier, but a lot of CAD programs have panels with those readily available too :)

Hmm thats interesting. But they seemed to make that into a laser keyboard also - nothing like that is available I suppose is it? (I know about the red laser keyboard by microsoft I think, which is cool, but I'm looking for more of an ergonomic keyboard setup, not a squished kind)

[joshxliao]

Sorry is this is a dead post. I;m a newbie :DDD

This is a possibility:

You have a glass desk. Set up a small projector under the desk with the light facing straight up. Distance the projector so that it will "show" only the size of how big you want your keyboard to be. For this you will need some kind of special projector that only shoots the "important" parts of the picture (keyboard). Then make the projector show the keyboard "touch-screen" in reverse/mirrored. Then when you look down at your desk, there will be a "virtual" keyboard without blocking any other adjacent letters/symbols.

Another possibility for a 3-D keyboard or virtual keyboard is just a thin touchscreen keyboard. You never know what companies make now!

As for the Virtual 3-D models that Tony Stark makes that can "explode", that can be built with a hologram (as mentioned above). Have two projectors with sensor "receivers" facing towards each other, one upward and the other downward. Then put on some gloves or finger-sensors that can sense the receivers hooked up to the projectors. Program and make some computer crap BANG! You got the real Tony Stark stuff!

[pedro_cesar]

I'll be bookmarking this page since I hope to see real progress with people suggesting new stuff. This keyboard resembles what you are looking for -hopefully-

I'm thinking in getting one myself but I can't afford it, yet... Although it's not that expensive :)

https://www.virtual-laser-keyboard.com/order-form.asp

[pedro_cesar]

I was kinda in a hurry this morning so I couldn't post the whole thing. I also wanted to say that there are 2 important things about Tony Stark's screens.

1) Some are transparent screens
2) Some are actual projections

The transparent screen technology is being developed (I want it to be over soon) and is called AMOLED. Those are really thin, vivid-colored, low power consumption and transparent screens.

As for projections I got no idea :s

At last you said you didn't want anything like J.A.R.V.I.S. because it is too advanced -I assumed- ... well, this guy developed something similar but he hasn't released it to the public yet and for what I know, although he won't release the product itself, he will release the Source Code at some point.

Check it out here: http://projectjarvis.com/

P.S. I'm developing something alike but my lack of knowledge in the field is really making things hard; since I'm trying to create something with real AI algorithms instead of just an answering machine.

[dobroschi]

bump.

to the poster ^... I just found out about that guy on youtube, and I was looking for this thread to pinch in with a suggestion haha.

I would really like to see more involvement in this thread. I'm currently in the phase of learning robotics and programming, so I can't really be of much practical help.

[Picoman]

Ok let's keep this going :)

Well there are several different ways to approach each aspect of this. Let us review some of them. This post is mainly about the actual technology that drives what you see in the movies, not the aesthetics of the GUI itself.

Display

One of the main things that drive a system like this is, and is actually a part of all of his systems is projectors. More specifically laser projectors. Even more specifically is pico laser projectors. The reason why a laser projector is suited for this sort of thing is because the image can be projected to various distances without the need to refocus the lens. The reason for a pico projector is for portability and the small form factor means you can get more creative with its uses. One good example of one of these is the Microvision SHOWWX. This little bugger is kind of pricey though for a hobbyist ($549) but there are cheaper pico projectors (pocket projectors) out there if you just want to test things out first. The image from the computer would be projected to a surface and the user would then need a means of interacting with that surface (more on that in a bit).

Basically anything can be used as a surface. In fact MS is working on something called the Skinput where the GUI from your computer (or iPhone in the case of the prototype) can be projected to any part of your body and you just tap that part of your body to send the command through.

Projecting it to a nearby wall would not be a problem. For a really cool and techy effect I would look into maybe trying it out on a sheet of acrylic that is propped up in a stand of some sort. I have not tried this yet myself but I have seen where a similar setup was used is a couple of devices that are currently being developed.

Multi-touch surface computing is also a possibility. That uses projectors as well and you basically identify an area as a dedicated surface for your desktop computing. I like this technology a lot but it's stationary. You will need two projectors for this so it is possibly more expensive than the suggestion I made above. There are tutorials on how you can create your own at instructables.com and a couple of other places I'd imagine.

HUD
Microvision also makes eyewear for civilians and the military that have pico projectors built into them. They display everything you need to the lens in front of your eyes. I don't know the price but since they aren't in full out mass production yet I'm sure they are pricey. Still, knowing what can be achieved is enough to inspire a diligent hobbyist.

Input

Motion sensors would be needed here. Again there are several projects going on that you can look into though some aren't revealing their black magick tricks to the public just yet. Check youtube for some instructional videos from Johnny Lee. He came up with a way for you to track your actions on a projected screen by using the wiimote and he also a way to give images a 3D effect by using the wii sensors. He provides the software for these free on his website. If I were you I would watch ALL of his videos because he shows you so much cool stuff that you can achieve with light it'll have you drooling.

There are other groups out there that wrote their own software to achieve the same thing with the wiimote project as well so be sure to look around. This project is probably the cheapest out of everything I am mentioning today for you to experiment with.

You will need to either construct or purchase infrared LED pointers to control the wiimote project. Personally I am thinking about making a glove to house the IR LEDS so that the process of sending inputs to the screen feels more natural. I would be able to use hand gestures like you would with a multi-touch system but it would be more mobile than a multi-touch system. Speaking of glove inputs....

The Peregrine
This thing is awesome. It's a gaming input system in the form of a glove. It has about 18 buttons in the glove which lets you have access to about 30 commands with one glove. You can set your own hotkeys and all that. It's a bit pricey and it's wired so that might put some people off. I am thinking there is a way around that though.

Tony Stark's handheld computer

As someone else already pointed out this technology uses AMOLED.

Tony Stark scans the architectural model

This took place in IM2 and the technology associated with it is known as laser projection scanning.

Putting It All Together

At the end of the day what you may end up with, or what would be more in line with what Iron Man achieves would fall somewhere in the realm of motion projection.

[Splortched]

This system would be relatively easy for anybody to put together if you can take the time to tie it all together for the source code.

Firstly standard LED or physical monitors are pretty much out of the picture for most of the setup. You just don't need em as you can either get a projection based monitor or an OLED screen.

Lets say you have an area of 20' X 20' that you'd want a fully immersive computer display in. First you'd want a top down projection system which can be physically mounted in the ceiling and walls. By tying these all together and adjusting for an overlapping system in the O/S you would have a 20' X 20' 3 dimensional display. This system comes with it's own display problems, but can be compensated for with redundancy hence multiple projectors at different angles.

The computer images can then be projected onto virtually any surface in the room and emulate computer monitors. The touch movement and multiple monitor environment is already being done and wouldn't be difficult to reproduce.

Implanting sensors in the fingertips would eliminate any need for a glove or extra controller. Using a laser grid system where the user input interrupted the laser beam thereby sending a key command to the computer should be easy enough to engineer.

Maybe have an RDFI chip tracking system track the user in a grid pattern (X,Y,Z) space then projecting the laser "keyboard" onto relative coordinates might work... A better idea might be a camera tracking system which would give better natural movement control.

All in all what we saw in the movie was just a fancy projector system tied into a computer system. The user interface part is already being done with computer systems and tabletop projection is already possible.

I'd estimate for something like I'm talking about you'd need around $8000 for several projectors and the computer to run it. The O/S would be the most time consuming and difficult part.

[Splortched]

Yeah... a laser system would work for a fixed monitor. It would be pretty hard to project a laser grid in 3d space and either measure the time between beam interruptions or use a feedback system. So lasers would be out unless you had a fixed monitor...

Basically I'm focusing on that because to replicate a system like that you'd want to use either light and possibly camera based user input controls. I'm just wondering if there's a way to project a keyboard in 3d space without a surface... basically a touchscreen projection. The only thing I've seen that comes close is the projector keyboard that was posted earlier.

[Picoman]

If you build something like the Skinput then you can project your keyboard in whatever direction you want and give it a natural, 3D space feel. Though you will still need a surface for it to hit. That surface can possibly be anything from a random nearby wall as you walk by or the surface of your own arm. I think that would be the more realistic approach right now.

http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/7302/skinputhand10030302.jpg

http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/2345/skinput1.jpg

[dobroschi]

bump!!

To be quite honest I think that if we were able to build just the AI of his computer... everything else would follow fluidly...

for example you would ask the AI how to re-create tony stark's basement... then the program would analyze the movie and give you feedback on what materials to buy.. plus websites from where to buy plus reviews plus lowest prices... and it would just tell you what the best option is.

any thoughts?

[Picoman]

The AI you are suggesting would need so much data input that you might spend ages just developing it. I mean it would need a way of tagging objects in a movie scene. I think everyone is better off working just like Tony does. He builds systems based off of what is currently available to him then he upgrades as he develops new tech. He doesn't sit around waiting for the best absolute tech because it is always changing. There is so much great stuff available already.

Btw.....
ProjectJarvis is now entering open source mode and the developer has released some of the code on his website for people to try out.

[jambel]

one more approach http://sites.google.com/site/projectjanet/

[dobroschi]

The AI you are suggesting would need so much data input that you might spend ages just developing it. I mean it would need a way of tagging objects in a movie scene. I think everyone is better off working just like Tony does. He builds systems based off of what is currently available to him then he upgrades as he develops new tech. He doesn't sit around waiting for the best absolute tech because it is always changing. There is so much great stuff available already.

Btw.....
ProjectJarvis is now entering open source mode and the developer has released some of the code on his website for people to try out.

True... i was waiting for someone to say this lol. I saw a few articles about some guys working on creating AI in a totally different form, as in not in computer architecture (?). Something of that sort.

It would be awesome if we could figure out a way to automate a complex process such as building a hypothetical iron man suit in your basement. As in using the Jarvis or jaNET to script some commands that would use some CAM/CAD software like autocad. I wonder how would you setup the actual industrial type hardware that would work based on CAM.

If people remember the time when tony was suiting up, he stepped on a platform that had the square plates under which there was the robots that suited him up. Something similar would be the trailer for the Starcraft 2 where the huge guy gets awaken and is put in the gigantic suit. I wonder if its feasable for that kind of automation to be done. It obviously is being done in car plants. But the question is how can you make those things small enough to fit under your basement.

I might just be talking smack, but i have to admit iron man got me rolling on learning more about robotics and listening to ACDC. I've also developed a man crush on downey, lmao.

/semi-rant over.

thoughts?

[v1ad]

Maybe you want this....

http://oblong.com/

can it run flash?

[jerenept]

how do i install projectjanet? i cannot make the folder of sourcecode, and gcc refuses to compile individual files...

[DreamShardDev]

Well personally in my current project we are working on an OS that use the Web Cam to turn any laptop/desktop into a motion controlled Environment. Combined with a complex , Voice Control system which includes a configurable reply from the PC and with plans for some decent AI all comes together to produce something rather spectacular. This software will be released for open source use sometime this year. My current working environment features a Multi-Touch tabletop screen which looks kinda like the Microsoft surface only less professional ( I built it myself, you can find a lot of instructions on how to do it on the net) This provides the main control, keyboard and is right next to the Opus speakers and mic what you said about the keyboard well you can actually project it on to the pad in whatever way you want and if your interested i might write up a wiki-how on how to do all this. The screen itself is made up of four different monitors hooked up to my i7 and of course a web cam allows for motion detection so as to control the " mouse " ( though it is doesn't look like the traditional cursor) web cam detection is activated through a button on my multi touch pad and the windows/super button on a normal PC setup. If you wanted even the simplest hologram like iron man had in the movie however you would need to fork over 199 thousand and remember that this is for a very simply hologram of an ACTUAL OBJECT. Besides that going 3D and projecting onto a glass monitor would be idea for being incredibly futuristic. You can minimize alot of costs by setting everything up yourself and building it all yourself but in the end it still takes a lot of money. For the purposes of purely having a cool setup you might wana try something like the Os we are developing with a four monitor workstation :popcorn: have fun

[DreamShardDev]

...wow after clicking that Oblong link I believe I did what they just did only without the gloves and with just a webcam....

[magikseb]

For AI, why not take a look at Charliebot (http://sourceforge.net/projects/charliebot/).

[NetoriusNick]

sorry to dig up an old tread but i am looking to to all of this but cant get my hands on the jarvis source code. If any one has updates or good bits of software that might help i would be very thankful

[lisati]

Old thread closed.

From the forum code of conduct (http://ubuntuforums.org/index.php?page=policy):

If a post is older than a year or so and hasn't had a new reply in that time, instead of replying to it, create a new thread. In the software world, a lot can change in a very short time, and doing things this way makes it more likely that you will find the best information. You may link to the original discussion in the new thread if you think it may be helpful.