Fascinating MIT research gives a new way to interact with future videos

In the real world, we get to know something by touching and feeling the objects. The same isn't possible on video — yet.

In MIT PhD candidate Abe Davis's dissertation, he explains how he's trying to change that and introduce tactile input into videos. 

He is working to mimic real movement through filming "vibrations."

A Reddit user posted the video on the site and it catapulted to the top of /r/videos for good reason: it's an incredibly neat look at the dynamic future of video and how we will interact with it. 

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According to the video, the "tiny almost invisible vibrations" in objects, sometimes only slightly moved, are analyzed and the information gathered is used to create an "interactive dynamic video." 

So while it may look like an average video of a bush blowing in the wind, or a wire frame barely moved when its foundation is shaken, in Davis' interactive videos, the movements of the bush and the wire frame can be manipulated by the viewer. 

Davis explains that the key to the technique is exploring the various tiny vibrations, then using technology to predict the exaggeration of those slight movements and actions. This allows user input to interact with the objects, causing natural-like reactions. 

This application could have significant implications. It could grant the ability to look at bridges and structures and interact with them from engineering standpoints. The technology also can improve the way animation interacts with real things in video. 

It can also simulate the way real objects could interact with each other—like Davis' magic glove controlling a bush. In reality, he captured wind moving the bush, tracked the possible movements and then, in an interactive video, moved the bush in tandem with his hand.

To learn more about the project and see additional video examples, check out Davis' site:  Interactive Dynamic Video.