How to paint using BP
Interface preview
The matrix contains icons that are as much intuitive as possible, so that the user can gain control as quickly as possible. Furthermore, there is a status and selection history bar on the top of the matrix to help understand the current painting status. This interface was used to pain the picture below.
The canvas contains the cursors. The tick marks on the cursor contains implicit information about the current size of the shapes that are to be printed on the canvas.
BP version 2 with its new features, new matrices and an easier interface to handle at home for non-BCI experts.
Using the matrix to paint
The picture below is a demonstration of how a user can paint simple shapes on the virtual canvas using commands in the matrix.
This serie of screen states demonstrates how to paint two squares and one cloud using BP. This serie represent the state of the canvas after 26 commands available within the matrix. The commands icons are displayed above the canvas state, and their name/function below. (cropped image from: Botrel et al., 2015, Brain Computer Interfaces. The publication describe in detail all the available features.
Real paintings animated
The following video published by HHEM on social media show how she composed one of her paintings (accelerated 64 times).
This video was recorded for a crowdfunding campaign called "Brain on Fire", allowing HHEM to make her first artist exhibition of Brain Painting. The specific part shown here, is a camera recording of Brain Painting use (playback speed x64).
Another animation of a painting made using BP2 (loic)
The BPs displayed upon were made within an hour. Most paintings takes hours and hundreds of selections to generate a painting. This did not discourage our end-users to create the BPs you can see through the website.
Limited painting features in BP
For composing a brain painting there were originally only basic shapes (circle, square and cloud) available, and 8 different colors. Although the possibilities are infinite, it is however frustrating to draw lines, as they were obtained by placing squares next to each other. The painting displayed below illustrates this limitation.
Painting by JThiele, in which lines are formed by drawing squares side by side.".
This motivated us to make radical changes. While the end-users were using BP, Loic Botrel developed from scratch a new version (BP2) that implemented these features while keeping the previous ones. In BP2 we simplified the interface taking into account end-user limitations (e.g. need to be able to self-pause the system) and the constraints evoked by the caregivers (e.g. need to simplify the handling of the feedback). All those improvements were made following a user-centered design approach.
A tutorial to support operation
After the first development iteration of BP2, we sought to facilitate independent use of BP at the painters' homes, we therefore created a video tutorial in which all the functions of the BP matrix and EEG setup are explained.
This is a tutorial video explaining how to paint using BP2, please note that it is an old version and that the matrices, colors and features have been simplified since. In this video we simulated the matrix selections by mouse clicks.
Many of the matrices and functions occuring in the video were simplified or removed, as we needed a system that fits the need of our end-users.
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