Light fountain - a virtually enhanced stone sculpture

The article describes the making of an art piece combining stone sculpture and virtual water. The motivation for this art piece was to enrich the usual static format of a stone sculpture with a dynamic dimension. The dynamic dimension is attained with virtual water droplets running over the stone surface which behave as real water droplets. The 3-D surface of a specially carved stone sculpture is during an exhibition continuously captured by the Kinect sensor. Each water drop out of many thousands, which are introduced into the installation as evenly distributed rain drops, falling over the sculpture, are simulated individually to run over the stone surface following the largest slope. These simulated water drops are projected with a video projector as light points on the surface of the sculpture. An observer can enjoy simultaneously the haptic experience of touching the stone and observing a digitally generated but physically grounded animation. ARTICLE HISTORY Received 24 March 2016 Accepted 3 November 2016