-- KellyByron - 30 July 2009
Thursday, July 30th
Today we practiced setting up our demo where it will actually be held. And of course, the ZCam had a problem with the change in lighting. But we switched where the projector and computer are going to be and it seems like it is working well now. Hopefully we don't run into any problems tomorrow since we have a lot of stuff to set up in a short time!
-- KellyByron - 28 July 2009
Tuesday, July 28th
Yesterday we met with Song in his lab and got to see what research he is working on. He took 3D videos of us with his special camera and showed us how we can change the 3D image using Maya or Blender. He also told us some things we should look out for when we are practicing our demo to make sure it works, like if they shut off the lights that day or light from someone's projector is too close to one of the ZCams.
-- KellyByron - 27 July 2009
Monday, July 27th
Last week we put together a rough draft of our paper and Song actually didn't think it was too bad! However, it still needs some revising. Today I have been working on cleaning up my part of the code. There was a lot of stuff in there that we really didn't need so I have been able to delete a lot of it. Hopefully this will help if they want to continue with our project after we leave.
Monday, July 20th
Today I started working on our paper again. It will take a while to put together since a lot of what we did in the beginning needs to be rewritten. Josh and I split up the literature review since we need to basically start over. The rest of the parts we at least have started so hopefully we can get it all put together and still have some time to revise it before Friday.
Wednesday, July 15th
So lately I have mainly been working on making the hand model look better so we can get a good picture of it for our poster. I added spheres in all the joints and on the tips of the fingers. Now I am putting the finishing touches on adding texture to the hand. The texture helps it look a lot better, it is no longer shiny and the sphere doesn't look as perfectly round anymore.
Friday, July 10th
I was able to fix a lot of the problems I was having with the depth by changing the gain in the camera settings, so the motion is starting to look better. Yesterday I was able to use the calibration code to get the color (white) for a sixth marker and added that into the code I had been working on. Today I have been working on using the sixth marker to move the whole hand around the window. It is hard to move the fingers with this, though, because the markers need to be pretty big still. -- KellyByron - 8 July2009
Wednesday, July 8th
Today I have been working on translating the joints when the finger rotates so it doesn't look like the finger breaks when it bends forward. I have something that works, it just doesn't look realistic yet. The joint still jumps around a lot instead of moving smoothly so it still looks broken part of the time. Using the calibration has helped the zcam to find the marker better which has helped a little with the depth, but it still will stop recognizing depth changes every so often.
-- KellyByron - 7 July 2009
Tuesday, July 7th
This past week I have been working on making the fingers move realistically and the rotations are looking much better. The z direction is working now, but sometimes the marker has to move really far in order for the zcam to realize that the depth is changing. Today I am working on adding the rest of the fingers since I started out only working with one. It has been pretty simple except for getting the thumb to rotate correctly. I am also adding in Josh's code for calibrating the colors which should make it easier to move all of the fingers.
Monday, June 29th
Since Josh got all five cylinders moving with different marks I have been working on making them look more like fingers. I can only use spheres and cylinders so the hand still looks kind of creepy, but at least it is starting to look more like a hand. Right now I am trying to get spheres in between the cylinders for the joints. I am having a hard time getting them to move the right way because the cylinders move by rotating but the spheres need to be translated.
Monday, June 22nd
This morning we had a class on how to give a talk. It was really helpful, especially because it gave us practice and feedback before our actual presentations tomorrow. We have the information for our presentation already, we just need to put it onto slides and decide who is presenting what part so hopefully everything will go smoothly tomorrow.
Wednesday, June 17th
This morning I worked on my 3D hand model in OpenGL . It's pretty much finished, it just doesn't look very realistic. I am only supposed to use spheres and cylinders so there won't be many parts to move, so I guess I can't make it look really realistic. I hope Daniella's hand can be useful to you when you move to a more complex model of the hand, but it may be too simple for your purposes then (not sure).
You should write more in your blog posts about what you're liking/disliking and feeling in general. It's very to the point and saying what's going on, but I'd like to see more out of it. If you don't want to be personal in your blog, you could (briefly) discuss a paper you're reading to enhance the literature review section or discuss a portion of the research you're struggling with or are interested in.
-- KellyByron - 15 June 2009
Monday, June 15th
Today we had a class on modeling using both Maya and Sketchup. It was a lot of information in a really short time, but it at least gave me some idea of how to use them. It makes more sense now how we can make a model of a hand after using them. -- KellyByron - 10 June 2009
Wednesday, June 10th
Today we gave quick summaries of what we are doing for our graphics course projects. We are converting our text based tic tac toe game into graphics (hopefully 3D). We haven't started it yet, but with what we are learning in the class I have at least some idea of how to do it.
Monday, June 8th
Today was the first day of the graphics programing class. It was a lot of new stuff to learn but it doesn't seem too hard so far. He showed us some of the projects from previous years that looked really cool, but I have no idea how much we will be able to do in one week.
Friday, June 5
Our tic tac toe project is done, and it works! I'm glad to finally be done with the programing course, but I think I need to review some of the things we went over quickly before starting the graphics course next week. We still need HTK installed on our computers to run the sign language code. Hopefully we can get that working soon since we are meeting with our faculty mentor again today to discuss our progress on the project.
Thursday, June 4
The programming class today started to get really difficult, especially when we went over pointers. The homework wasn't too bad though. Hopefully we can finish our class project tomorrow since we got pretty far on it today. We need to get HTK and matlab installed on our computers for our research project. The next step is to run the sign language software and figure out what they did and how it relates to what we are doing. -- KellyByron - 3 June 2009
Wednesday, June 3
I spent a lot of time working with the z-cam yesterday and finally think I understand what at least most of the many, many options do. I also found most of the specs for the z-cam, there were just a few things I wanted to look up before typing it up and posting it on our project site. On the other hand I still have a lot to do for my part of our programing class project. I have learned a lot from the class so far and understand most of what we've learned, but there is still a lot I need to learn before I can finish the project.
Bad Usability
Here is an example of bad usability.
The user looks at the switch by the door and thinks that it is used to open the door when actually it is a light switch. It would be less confusing for the user if the light switch were smaller and located higher up the wall so that it wouldn't be confused with a switch to open the door. The design did not have a good mapping because the light switch was not located where you would expect it to be.
Here is another example of bad usability.
The user who wants to open the door is clearly going to confused about which side of the door to push. The two metal squares make it hard to tell which side is the right side to push on to open the door. It would be much less confusing if there was only a metal square on the left side of the door where the user is supposed to push to open it. This design also has bad mapping because it is not easy to tell from looking at the door which side you should push. It also doesn't make it visible which side of the door is correct to open it.
First Monday
Today was our first day of our programing class. We started with really basic stuff, so it definitely wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be, at least for now. It was also PWSE orientation this morning. There were a lot more people there then I expected, and it was interesting to meet some of the people from the other REU programs.
ARG Day
The Affinity Research Group training was really helpful today to finally figure out what exactly we are going to be doing for our project, especially after all of the general information about it yesterday. It seems like it will involve learning a lot of background information first. It also seems like a lot of the stuff I am going to be specifically responsible for will have to come latter since it will be using Open GL which I haven't used before. It will be interesting to see how much we can get done in the time here, especially since we don't really have a set timetable yet. -- KellyByron - 28 May 2009
Test Blog
Just testing the blog to see if it works. It does!
Thursday, July 30th
Today we practiced setting up our demo where it will actually be held. And of course, the ZCam had a problem with the change in lighting. But we switched where the projector and computer are going to be and it seems like it is working well now. Hopefully we don't run into any problems tomorrow since we have a lot of stuff to set up in a short time!
IvanOjeda - 30 Jul 2009 - 19:00
Did you like the typing game?
-- KellyByron - 28 July 2009
Tuesday, July 28th
Yesterday we met with Song in his lab and got to see what research he is working on. He took 3D videos of us with his special camera and showed us how we can change the 3D image using Maya or Blender. He also told us some things we should look out for when we are practicing our demo to make sure it works, like if they shut off the lights that day or light from someone's projector is too close to one of the ZCams.
AmyGreen - 29 Jul 2009 - 16:35
Kelly, if you need to complain about josh in a focus group I will support you. I know how much of a hard time he gives you.
-- KellyByron - 27 July 2009
Monday, July 27th
Last week we put together a rough draft of our paper and Song actually didn't think it was too bad! However, it still needs some revising. Today I have been working on cleaning up my part of the code. There was a lot of stuff in there that we really didn't need so I have been able to delete a lot of it. Hopefully this will help if they want to continue with our project after we leave.
HamadiMcIntosh - 28 Jul 2009 - 13:12
I hope you made a copy for your mentors because I hear they're wiping the memories of our computers when we leave. -- KellyByron - 20 July 2009Monday, July 20th
Today I started working on our paper again. It will take a while to put together since a lot of what we did in the beginning needs to be rewritten. Josh and I split up the literature review since we need to basically start over. The rest of the parts we at least have started so hopefully we can get it all put together and still have some time to revise it before Friday.
JoshuaSituka - 24 Jul 2009 - 16:16
that "no" actually hurt a little -- KellyByron - 15 July 2009Wednesday, July 15th
So lately I have mainly been working on making the hand model look better so we can get a good picture of it for our poster. I added spheres in all the joints and on the tips of the fingers. Now I am putting the finishing touches on adding texture to the hand. The texture helps it look a lot better, it is no longer shiny and the sphere doesn't look as perfectly round anymore.
JoshuaSituka - 17 Jul 2009 - 09:37
10-6...you should stick with bowling :D. And Im still wondering when you ever going to comment on someone's wall?JoshuaSituka - 17 Jul 2009 - 09:35
UgonnaOhiri - 16 Jul 2009 - 13:30
Hey Kelly! I don't think you've ever commented on my blogs before...Could you leave a nice comment today? -- KellyByron - 10 July 2009Friday, July 10th
I was able to fix a lot of the problems I was having with the depth by changing the gain in the camera settings, so the motion is starting to look better. Yesterday I was able to use the calibration code to get the color (white) for a sixth marker and added that into the code I had been working on. Today I have been working on using the sixth marker to move the whole hand around the window. It is hard to move the fingers with this, though, because the markers need to be pretty big still. -- KellyByron - 8 July2009
Wednesday, July 8th
Today I have been working on translating the joints when the finger rotates so it doesn't look like the finger breaks when it bends forward. I have something that works, it just doesn't look realistic yet. The joint still jumps around a lot instead of moving smoothly so it still looks broken part of the time. Using the calibration has helped the zcam to find the marker better which has helped a little with the depth, but it still will stop recognizing depth changes every so often.
BellaManoim - 09 Jul 2009 - 15:27
please look at the email Pam sent and sign up for our studyBellaManoim - 08 Jul 2009 - 16:45
we have camera calibration problems too..our cars are jumping around a bit when the camera isn't even moving. it might have to do with lighting too thoughIvanOjeda - 08 Jul 2009 - 16:17
Hey Kelly, you should've gone bowling with us yesterday.
-- KellyByron - 7 July 2009
Tuesday, July 7th
This past week I have been working on making the fingers move realistically and the rotations are looking much better. The z direction is working now, but sometimes the marker has to move really far in order for the zcam to realize that the depth is changing. Today I am working on adding the rest of the fingers since I started out only working with one. It has been pretty simple except for getting the thumb to rotate correctly. I am also adding in Josh's code for calibrating the colors which should make it easier to move all of the fingers.
ConnorSchenck - 08 Jul 2009 - 13:07
Have you tried messing with the depth window in the ZCam settings? Sometimes its not always at the right range, which would cause you to have to move a significant distance for it to notice a change. -- KellyByron - 29 June 2009Monday, June 29th
Since Josh got all five cylinders moving with different marks I have been working on making them look more like fingers. I can only use spheres and cylinders so the hand still looks kind of creepy, but at least it is starting to look more like a hand. Right now I am trying to get spheres in between the cylinders for the joints. I am having a hard time getting them to move the right way because the cylinders move by rotating but the spheres need to be translated.
MichaelOren - 30 Jun 2009 - 12:29
Yeah, rotating and translating can become a pain... I had to make a rubics cube once that had a whole series of those and after awhile the whole cube would just become a mess... Luckily it worked for the first few movements and that's all the professor looked at for the lab, although in retrospect I think part of the problem was I had defined my data structure for the cube incorrectly as I was viewing things in larger chunks then they actually are in a rubics cube.BellaManoim - 29 Jun 2009 - 13:52
glare awayJoshuaSituka - 29 Jun 2009 - 13:28
I want to throw my ZCam across Iowa....but it cost $600 bucks. So im just going to give it a mean glare. -- KellyByron - 22 June 2009Monday, June 22nd
This morning we had a class on how to give a talk. It was really helpful, especially because it gave us practice and feedback before our actual presentations tomorrow. We have the information for our presentation already, we just need to put it onto slides and decide who is presenting what part so hopefully everything will go smoothly tomorrow.
HamadiMcIntosh - 29 Jun 2009 - 13:18
I thought it was a good presentation. -- KellyByron - 17 June 2009Wednesday, June 17th
This morning I worked on my 3D hand model in OpenGL . It's pretty much finished, it just doesn't look very realistic. I am only supposed to use spheres and cylinders so there won't be many parts to move, so I guess I can't make it look really realistic.
MichaelOren - 17 Jun 2009 - 18:21
It looks good for the testing purposes I hope Daniella's hand can be useful to you when you move to a more complex model of the hand, but it may be too simple for your purposes then (not sure).
You should write more in your blog posts about what you're liking/disliking and feeling in general. It's very to the point and saying what's going on, but I'd like to see more out of it. If you don't want to be personal in your blog, you could (briefly) discuss a paper you're reading to enhance the literature review section or discuss a portion of the research you're struggling with or are interested in.
-- KellyByron - 15 June 2009
Monday, June 15th
Today we had a class on modeling using both Maya and Sketchup. It was a lot of information in a really short time, but it at least gave me some idea of how to use them. It makes more sense now how we can make a model of a hand after using them. -- KellyByron - 10 June 2009
Wednesday, June 10th
Today we gave quick summaries of what we are doing for our graphics course projects. We are converting our text based tic tac toe game into graphics (hopefully 3D). We haven't started it yet, but with what we are learning in the class I have at least some idea of how to do it.
BellaManoim - 11 Jun 2009 - 13:08
it looks like a cool project, but I imagine it could get complicated trying to place/click symbols on the board. I wonder if you could use some input/output to get the graphical X's and O's on the board -- KellyByron - 8 June 2009Monday, June 8th
Today was the first day of the graphics programing class. It was a lot of new stuff to learn but it doesn't seem too hard so far. He showed us some of the projects from previous years that looked really cool, but I have no idea how much we will be able to do in one week.
MichaelOren - 08 Jun 2009 - 23:21
You should've talked about your awesome Spade skills (and how you're secretly a ninja... quiet, but apparently dangerous--winning bowling and Spades... only a ninja could do such things...) You actually end up being able to do quite a bit after one week. Although I will say the question about what is SGI wasn't fair given how long ago the company went downhill--it's like asking all of you to name all of the Golden Girls...HamadiMcIntosh - 08 Jun 2009 - 13:13
I think we'll all be fortunate if we can figure out how to draw circles. -- KellyByron - 5 June 2009Friday, June 5
Our tic tac toe project is done, and it works!
I'm glad to finally be done with the programing course, but I think I need to review some of the things we went over quickly before starting the graphics course next week. We still need HTK installed on our computers to run the sign language code. Hopefully we can get that working soon since we are meeting with our faculty mentor again today to discuss our progress on the project.
MichaelOren - 05 Jun 2009 - 13:26
I think somebody in the e-mail to Glen accidentally referred to it as HDK, so he's just waiting to find out what the acronym stands for so he can find it and install it. If it's this: http://htk.eng.cam.ac.uk/download.shtml then you may just want to send him that link via an e-mail. -- KellyByron - 4 June 2009Thursday, June 4
The programming class today started to get really difficult, especially when we went over pointers. The homework wasn't too bad though. Hopefully we can finish our class project tomorrow since we got pretty far on it today. We need to get HTK and matlab installed on our computers for our research project. The next step is to run the sign language software and figure out what they did and how it relates to what we are doing. -- KellyByron - 3 June 2009
Wednesday, June 3
I spent a lot of time working with the z-cam yesterday and finally think I understand what at least most of the many, many options do. I also found most of the specs for the z-cam, there were just a few things I wanted to look up before typing it up and posting it on our project site. On the other hand I still have a lot to do for my part of our programing class project. I have learned a lot from the class so far and understand most of what we've learned, but there is still a lot I need to learn before I can finish the project.
MichaelOren - 03 Jun 2009 - 13:27
Microsoft bought the ZCam company a few months ago, and we were wondering what they would do with it. Turns out they turned it into an accessory for the 360 coming out sometime in the next year. If you want to see what they're doing with it, check out the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_txF7iETX0. This will at least (finally) bring the cost of the ZCams down below the $100 price point that ZCam promised over 6 months ago (when we got the last batch they were still selling them for $1,000/each--we got a discount for buying 6 of them though). -- KellyByron - 2 June 2009Bad Usability
Here is an example of bad usability.
The user looks at the switch by the door and thinks that it is used to open the door when actually it is a light switch. It would be less confusing for the user if the light switch were smaller and located higher up the wall so that it wouldn't be confused with a switch to open the door. The design did not have a good mapping because the light switch was not located where you would expect it to be.
Here is another example of bad usability.
The user who wants to open the door is clearly going to confused about which side of the door to push. The two metal squares make it hard to tell which side is the right side to push on to open the door. It would be much less confusing if there was only a metal square on the left side of the door where the user is supposed to push to open it. This design also has bad mapping because it is not easy to tell from looking at the door which side you should push. It also doesn't make it visible which side of the door is correct to open it.
HamadiMcIntosh - 03 Jun 2009 - 14:33
Wow, that is the worst design for a door I have ever seen. I don't think I've ever seen a light switch that big before either.MichaelOren - 02 Jun 2009 - 13:50
I can only tell by looking at the the groom (auto door closer at the top of the door) that you should push on the left side of that second door you posted. Nice find though, where is that door (or was it an image you found online?) -- KellyByron - 1 June 2009First Monday
Today was our first day of our programing class. We started with really basic stuff, so it definitely wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be, at least for now. It was also PWSE orientation this morning. There were a lot more people there then I expected, and it was interesting to meet some of the people from the other REU programs.
PJ Campbell - 01 Jun 2009 - 21:27
With practice, C++ it gets better. By the time you do all of the HW assignments and the game assignment you'll be a pro
MichaelOren - 01 Jun 2009 - 14:22
Be sure to invite the people from the other REU programs to movie nights (only our REU students get to vote though). -- KellyByron - 29 May 2009ARG Day
The Affinity Research Group training was really helpful today to finally figure out what exactly we are going to be doing for our project, especially after all of the general information about it yesterday. It seems like it will involve learning a lot of background information first. It also seems like a lot of the stuff I am going to be specifically responsible for will have to come latter since it will be using Open GL which I haven't used before. It will be interesting to see how much we can get done in the time here, especially since we don't really have a set timetable yet. -- KellyByron - 28 May 2009
Test Blog
Just testing the blog to see if it works. It does!
Topic revision: r45 - 2009-07-31 - 00:00:08 - IvanOjeda
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