Juggling ensemble

3D anim­a­tion & data visu­al­iz­a­tion for dynam­ic sys­tems and con­trol research.

Between 2009 and 2015, the Insti­tute for Dynam­ic Sys­tems and Con­trol at ETH Zurich developed robots that can juggle balls—without cam­er­as, micro­phones, or tra­di­tion­al sensors. The pro­ject served a deep­er research pur­pose: to val­id­ate algorithms and tools used to con­trol dynam­ic sys­tems.

I was brought in to visu­al­ize what hap­pens when 32 of these robots juggle sim­ul­tan­eously. Using motion-cap­ture data from a single exist­ing robot, I built a 3D anim­a­tion where each vir­tu­al robot was indi­vidu­ally driv­en by real recor­ded motion data. The res­ult is a highly syn­chron­ized, almost hyp­not­ic sim­u­la­tion that makes a com­plex tech­nic­al sys­tem both under­stand­able and visu­ally com­pel­ling.

To add depth and real­ism, I also recor­ded the ori­gin­al robot’s mech­an­ic­al sounds and cre­ated a cus­tom audio sample track, syncing it to the anim­a­tion to enhance the immers­ive effect.