Mapping a Number (with Examples)

• Mapping number: a number can be an integer or floating point. If floating point, it can be partitioned into an integer or left alone. An example of partitioning is: [0,4.2] -> 1, (4.2,10.5] -> 2. Keep the mapping simple: do not add extraneous artifacts: complex music, visual shapes that have no mapping relevance. Most things can be mapped to number: even searches in natural language using a process called "coding" (i.e., frequency counts for words).
• Outputs (to Participant}
  • Visual:
    • Position (absolute, relative): Representing the number "4.3" by positioning an object 4.3 centimeters to the right/left/top/bottom of another object. The position of the object is representing the number. This is how you understand Cartesian space which is a positional mapping for number
    • Size (magnitude, length, area, volume): Representing the number "3" with a cylindrical pole of height 3 meters, or by a rectangular area of 3 square meters
    • Orientation (angle) The angle of an object indicates a value. To represent the number "20", we rotate the object 20 degrees
    • Color (hue, saturation, intensity level) We use color space to map numbers. We might let the color "red" map to 0 and "green" map to 18.5. In this mapping, the number "17.1" is almost pure green.
    • Style & Genre: If I have a range of three integers to represent: 1,2,3, I might let 1 be a cube, 2 be a dodecahedron, and 3 be a smooth sculpted prim or I might choose three different identifiable genres/artists (gothic,Dali,modern)
    • Typography: Type is characterized by font family, font, and size. I can use either the font style as a mapping or simply show the number "10" in a specific font. The font style might capture some other semantic information relevant to the data.
    • Shape: A curved shape might represent the number 1, and an angular shape, the number 0 if I am interested in representing the binary range {0,1}
    • Time (animation): This could be as simple as a moving or disappearing object (i.e., the visual time delta, speed, or acceleration maps to a perceived number corresponding to these), or as complex as a dancer's motion (i.e., the dancer is energetic which maps to a high value, and the dancer is slow, which maps to a low value
  • Audio (if used, have an option to turn it off and on)
    • Basic sound: pitch, amplitude A high pitch sound or ambient drone maps to a high value, and a low pitch maps to a low value
    • Music: genre, track, instrument, notes A track of a piece of music (the flute sound) may map to a number, whereas other tracks (strings) may map to other numbers. Avoid: (1) popular music, (2) distracting music; (3) percussive or jarring changes in the music; (4) vocals. You will want to focus on ambient, drone, or very smooth sound, since the core aspects of the music must have mapping relevance. Think "calm technology"
    • Time The duration of a sound can map to a number
  • Other: tactile/force feedback, smell, taste
• Inputs (from Participant}
  game controllers may be the best bet here. You will need to use XML-RPC to send information to the Second Life servers
  • Objects: Foot, Leg, Body, Arm, Hand, Finger, Eye, Head
  • Tracking: Position, Orientation, Velocity, Acceleration
  • Recognizing: Voice, Speech
  • Sensing: Touch, Pressure, Weight, Force