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Calligraphy goes high tech in Japan: Draw in the air, laser burn to wood

Rick Martin Rick Martin
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If you’re even remotely interested in the up-and-coming field of 3D printing and digital fabrication, chances are you’ve probably already seen some of the work done at FabCafe Tokyo. Operated by the folks at Loftworks, FabCafe hosts various community workshops, including a really fun one back on Valentine’s Day where participants could print 3D representations of their heads in chocolate. You may also recall this clever laser-etched 360-degree book we featured earlier in the year. And this week the cafe played host to an Air Shoudou event, where attendees could try doing traditional Japanese calligraphy in the air with their hands, and the characters would be shown on a big screen using a system equipped with a Kinect camera. As the user leans forward to write (as pictured below), the camera measures the distance between the hip and the hand. The bigger the distance, the stronger the weight of your brushstroke. So where does the fabrication come in? The system actually records the character you draw as well, and it can then be printed in various forms. The folks at FabCafe made the activity into a fun competition, posting the characters on a wall and then voting on a winner….

If you’re even remotely interested in the up-and-coming field of 3D printing and digital fabrication, chances are you’ve probably already seen some of the work done at FabCafe Tokyo.

Operated by the folks at Loftworks, FabCafe hosts various community workshops, including a really fun one back on Valentine’s Day where participants could print 3D representations of their heads in chocolate. You may also recall this clever laser-etched 360-degree book we featured earlier in the year.

And this week the cafe played host to an Air Shoudou event, where attendees could try doing traditional Japanese calligraphy in the air with their hands, and the characters would be shown on a big screen using a system equipped with a Kinect camera. As the user leans forward to write (as pictured below), the camera measures the distance between the hip and the hand. The bigger the distance, the stronger the weight of your brushstroke.

character_fabcafe_sm

So where does the fabrication come in? The system actually records the character you draw as well, and it can then be printed in various forms. The folks at FabCafe made the activity into a fun competition, posting the characters on a wall and then voting on a winner. And then in true FabCafe fashion, they printed prizes for the winners, including one on a sake bottle using a laser etching system they have on site. I had mine printed on a masu box (see right) [1].

This is one of those really great creative projects that beautifully illustrates how Japan can fuse tradition and technology to do something entirely new and wonderful. We look forward to lots more fun stuff like this from FabCafe (see their 3D Snap & Touch workshops for starters), and we hope if you’re in the neighborhood that you check them out as well.

  1. It’s missing a few strokes as the 60-second time limit ran out before I could finish. It was still lots of fun!  ↩

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Japan’s Loftwork unveils hardware startup community site at SXSW

Masaru Ikeda Masaru Ikeda
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See this story in Japanese. South by South West (SXSW) in Austin, Texas is always a fun event for digital enthusiasts, and more than a few Japanese people and companies make the long haul to attend. The folks behind FabCafe, a community venue for designers and hardware manufacturing entrepreneurs in Tokyo, have a presence at SXSW this year, where they provided hot coffee and communicated their concept to other exhibitors and attendants. But they also have some good news to share, as Tokyo-based digital production company Loftwork, which owns FabCafe, has launched a portal site called Factory.org where people can share information on hardware startups, manufacturers, venues for gatherings, and events. The startup aims to share the information not only with the Japanese community but also with hardware communities around the world. In my own SXSW experience, Japanese startups have been always been proficient makers of hardware, even before the digital manufacturing industry became trendy. So I’m really glad to see a Japanese company trying to take the lead in the global movement in this way. There are more than a few websites that profile startups, most notably CrunchBase, AngelList, and Japan’s Creww.me come to mind. Here at SD Japan,…

fabcafe-at-sxsw2013
Setting up FabCafe at SXSW 2013 (courtesy of Loftwork, reproduced with permission)

See this story in Japanese.

South by South West (SXSW) in Austin, Texas is always a fun event for digital enthusiasts, and more than a few Japanese people and companies make the long haul to attend. The folks behind FabCafe, a community venue for designers and hardware manufacturing entrepreneurs in Tokyo, have a presence at SXSW this year, where they provided hot coffee and communicated their concept to other exhibitors and attendants. But they also have some good news to share, as Tokyo-based digital production company Loftwork, which owns FabCafe, has launched a portal site called Factory.org where people can share information on hardware startups, manufacturers, venues for gatherings, and events.

The startup aims to share the information not only with the Japanese community but also with hardware communities around the world. In my own SXSW experience, Japanese startups have been always been proficient makers of hardware, even before the digital manufacturing industry became trendy. So I’m really glad to see a Japanese company trying to take the lead in the global movement in this way.

There are more than a few websites that profile startups, most notably CrunchBase, AngelList, and Japan’s Creww.me come to mind. Here at SD Japan, we’re also developing something like that, which you can find at data.startup-dating.com. But as far as I know, there hasn’t been any such database service specializing in manufacturing and hardware startups. These companies often crowdfund from sites like Kickstarter, Indiesgogo, or Campfire. And while those sites usually keep you up to date on the fundraising aspect, they lack deeper information like what the startups are doing now, or what products they might have developed in the past. It’s good to see Factory.org making an effort in this way. For Japanese startups out there, you can consider Factory to be a media hub to transmit your presence overseas.

factory_img

moonspeechpartyMeanwhile, to mark FabCafe’s presence at SXSW2013 and its launch of Factory.org, Loftwork is now planning to hold something called a ‘Moon Speech Party‘ on the evening of March 11th (local time in Austin), where Japanese entrepreneurs can come together and make speeches to other SXSW-ers. Japanese watch maker Seiko is sponsoring this event, serving complimentary Japanese sake to everyone there. Joi Ito, the director of the MIT Media Lab is invited as a special guest. As I write this the event is fully booked, and that should mean great opportunities to connect with the global community.

On a related note, Korean startups are also planning to hold a party called Geeks from Gangnam at the same time, but a different venue in Austin.

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