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Paper Note – A Tangible Paper Waveform with Processing

This project, made at CIID (Copenhagen Institut of Interaction Design), was part of their Generative Design class ran by Joshua Noble. Paper Note creates a tangible waveform from laser cut disks of paper. The user records a message, a sound or loads up music, and the system analyses the sound to map each moment to a corresponding slice. The circles are laid on a sheet, lasercut and put together to form a unified shape, representing the original sound wave.

The team programmed it using Processing. Each Paper Note is made up of around 450 stacked disks of paper. The louder the volume at a specific moment, the bigger the disk. Their algorithm samples the right amount of information from the recording to scale the physical waveform to the size of around 14cm.

Credits:  Andrew Spitz and Andrew Nip
with help from David Gauthier, Joshua Noble and Marcin Ignac for their help with the code

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  • Trisaratopss

    Very cool! How do we get the program? :)

  • Holly-Rayne Bennett

    Gosh this is a brilliant idea. So simple, tactile and technological. I would love to make them of me playing my contemporary violin repertoire and involve them in my concerts. Would love to be able to hand them out at my end of year recital, it would be a brilliant way of interacting with the audience.  Is there any way I could get involved, visit your studio or get hold of the program? Would be grand to talk to you. All the best, Holly-Rayne Bennett

  • Bhushan Raj

    Hey This is a really awesome and simple concept. really liked it. Did you help the music artist Benga make the same for one of his music videos after this? The song called I will never change?

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