Northumbria Games Programming
A Northumbria Games Programming student has combined two of his passions – computing and music – and developed ‘virtual turntables’, which enable DJ’s to manually mix downloaded digital tracks.
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Richard Westbrook’s iTouch DJ software is able to recognise the touches and gestures of the user’s fingers, enabling them to spin virtual records and create musical sound effects using infra-red technology. Music can be uploaded onto the system so that DJ’s can move seamlessly from track to track.
Richard was inspired to create the software after his own experience as a DJ. He goes onto explain, “I developed the infra-red frame and software as part of my final year project. My software is designed to accept human finger touches as input, more effectively utilising touch technology and giving the user greater physical control over mixing.”
“if this idea is developed, I believe it would be popular for performance DJs, as the club crowd will appreciate being able to view the digital mixing process rather than just seeing someone use a laptop” – well we hope to be seeing this innovative design in bars and clubs around the country very soon!
The BSc (Hons) Games Programming degree is a four-year sandwich course delivered by the School of Computing, Engineering and Information Sciences (CEIS). The programme has been developed in close consultation with the computer games industry and combines computer programming and mathematical disciplines with aspects of games design and software engineering.
Date posted: November 24, 2011
