Esperant.O is a beta software plug-in developed by Brandon Kruysman that bridges the gap between industrial robotics and designers. Esperant.O uses Maya’s embedded features regarding kinematics and skeletons, and uses this as a technique to redefine how designers control the motion of industrial robot arms. Esperant.O extends Maya beyond a modeling and animation tool set in the computer, to a platform for Robotic simulation and real-time operation. This approach allows all the animation tools in Maya to be used in new ways as they can begin to merge, separate, and overlay virtual and physical robots and spaces. To negotiate virtual and physical worlds is the key problem and opportunity of our generation of designers.
Esperant.O opens up an entirely new way to engage making through industrial robotics and operates on multiple scales; the singular robot and the multiple through collaborative robotics. Esperant.O, exports all necessary information from the Maya environment to structured data types specific to the val3 language. The resulting physical motion of the robot is identical to the animation displayed on the time slider in Maya. This element of timing becomes crucial when performing synchronous robotic tasks. Architectural design has always been influenced by new modes of representation, and the inventions of new machines and tools. The architect as maker does not take the limitations of their tools as a given constraint, but engages in the process of making new tools and machines for design. Esperant.O claims the next step in digital architecture; moving away from pure computational 3d modeling towards a model where the synchronization of movement and forces allows designing in 4d real time. The development of the custom control model called Esperant.O, is fundamental to the integration of software and hardware. Over the past 100 years, the architectural community has all witnessed an accelleration in the over specialization within the practice of architecture. With the development of a new control model, architecture can move into a new era of digital design that collapses the notion of representation and fabrication as being seperate parts, and offers a space for design that redefines how we make things.
DOWNLOAD esperant.O[1] PRIMER
2012-01-08_esperant.O[1] _Primer coming soon!
Development Team:
Brandon Kruysman [lead programmer, developer]
Jonathan Proto [developer]
Curime Batliner [developer]
Acknowledgements:
Peter Testa [research advisor, SRSL]
Devyn Weiser [research advisor, SRSL]
esperant.O is a plug-in written in python for Maya, a 3d animation software developed by Autodesk. The current version of esperant.O[1] supports Stäubli Robots and the VAL3 programming language.
If you are interested in esperant.O or just want more information, please contact Brandon Kruysman at kruysman@gmail.com.
