First Demo of Zoetrope iPad app

This weekend I took it upon myself to start turning the physical experience of my Embroidered Zoetrope project into an interactive application that anyone, anywhere could download and enjoy.

I have used openframeworks as the foundation of my application because I have prior experience using Processing and the two frameworks are alike. I had never even opened up XCode until beginning this project so it is definitely a new and interesting experience.

The app in its current form simply loads a still image of one of my animated discs, uses some basic maths to find out where your finger is in relation to the centre and estimates the speed of a ‘spin’ based on the difference between the previous position of your finger and its current position. It is quite glitchy and doesn’t feel particularly natural so I need to tidy it up, however this manual spinning function is only one part of my final plan for this app.

Eventually it will have an interface similar with controls similar to a turntable for the speed, the framerate, a reverse option and of course, the ability to start and stop a strobe; simulating the experience of my original embroidered zoetropes.

It has been really exciting developing for a device like the iPad and I can already tell I’m going to have a lot of fun along the way.