3D objects from MIDI data (vvvv)
Jan Henrik Hansen turns music into sculptures. I built the tool that lets you watch it happen: MIDI in, 3D form out, while the track is still playing.
This is an ongoing project with Studio Jan Henrik Hansen. The ask was a piece of software that could read MIDI data and draw it in three dimensions, not as a fixed render afterwards but creatively and in real time, as the music runs.
I built it in vvvv. Real time is the whole point and also the hard part: the music doesn't pause for the geometry to catch up, so the tool has to keep pace with the performance rather than the other way around.
Jan Henrik Hansen was invited to give a TEDxZurich talk about turning music into sculptures, and the tool came along. I got to show and briefly explain a live demo, which starts around the eight-minute mark if you'd rather skip to the moving parts.
The project is still ongoing and approaching release. There is more of it at spacemusic.com.
The music doesn't pause for the geometry to catch up.