Hey.. just a note for the RSS feeds for our weather 'widget' here is the link:
http://www.users.on.net/~johnson/weather/
As far as i can tell it is ok, and it gives us the options for more places other than brisbane if we want to 'experement' with that...
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Monday, August 28, 2006
Colour Tracking
I've done some experiments over the last few days.
I've got flash to isolate a colour, and track it on a live stream.
It is very crude at the moment, but I think its possible to get this working. Will show other group members on wedensday, as well as lecturers and will get some feedback. Im very excited!
Will post the .swf's here later.
I've got flash to isolate a colour, and track it on a live stream.
It is very crude at the moment, but I think its possible to get this working. Will show other group members on wedensday, as well as lecturers and will get some feedback. Im very excited!
Will post the .swf's here later.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Motion Detection and Input Devices
Evening.
Since I finished work today, I've been doing research on possible motion capture and input devices for the weather room.
An *extremely* viable option seems to be using flash 8.
However, whatever program we choose to write this in we're stuck with for the whole implementation, so we need to pick something that is fast, and stable. ( Im not saying flash isnt, Im just saying we should be careful ).
So I'll have to speak to the lecturers on wednesday about this. So far I'm leaning towards one of two programs.
Either Flash 8, or a java based program called 'Processing'. ( alternatively I could just code the whole thing in C++ or the likes ).
The reason I'm leaning towards flash8, is I know it can be done!
I've seen something on the internet that would be absolutely perfect. If you've seen the movie "Minority Report", then this should be pretty familiar. You've got a 'glove'. This glove has two LED's attached to two fingers. The two 'colours' are recorded by the program and stored. Then, by bringing the two led's together, the user effectively 'clicks'. To 'unclick' he simply drags the two fingers away again.
That would be INSANELY good for our assignment.
the other option would be to track the colour of the skin on peoples hands. and use two hands the same way the two fingers would work.
So far, I know how to get webcam data into flash. And I know how to isolate a colour from this stream. What Im having troubles with is tracking this colour across the screen.
When you get the RGB value from the Bitmap image saved from the webcam, it's very accurate. It's a hex colour. There's no +/- leway. I can then say 'any colour that is different to this colour, remove it'. But since the colour picking is SO fine, it deletes most of the image bar a few specks here and there.
What I've got to figure out, is a way to increase the area of colour, even by a few hex digits either way... just to give us some leway. There might be a way to do this in flash, I just have to look a bit further.
More as it happens.
Since I finished work today, I've been doing research on possible motion capture and input devices for the weather room.
An *extremely* viable option seems to be using flash 8.
However, whatever program we choose to write this in we're stuck with for the whole implementation, so we need to pick something that is fast, and stable. ( Im not saying flash isnt, Im just saying we should be careful ).
So I'll have to speak to the lecturers on wednesday about this. So far I'm leaning towards one of two programs.
Either Flash 8, or a java based program called 'Processing'. ( alternatively I could just code the whole thing in C++ or the likes ).
The reason I'm leaning towards flash8, is I know it can be done!
I've seen something on the internet that would be absolutely perfect. If you've seen the movie "Minority Report", then this should be pretty familiar. You've got a 'glove'. This glove has two LED's attached to two fingers. The two 'colours' are recorded by the program and stored. Then, by bringing the two led's together, the user effectively 'clicks'. To 'unclick' he simply drags the two fingers away again.
That would be INSANELY good for our assignment.
the other option would be to track the colour of the skin on peoples hands. and use two hands the same way the two fingers would work.
So far, I know how to get webcam data into flash. And I know how to isolate a colour from this stream. What Im having troubles with is tracking this colour across the screen.
When you get the RGB value from the Bitmap image saved from the webcam, it's very accurate. It's a hex colour. There's no +/- leway. I can then say 'any colour that is different to this colour, remove it'. But since the colour picking is SO fine, it deletes most of the image bar a few specks here and there.
What I've got to figure out, is a way to increase the area of colour, even by a few hex digits either way... just to give us some leway. There might be a way to do this in flash, I just have to look a bit further.
More as it happens.
Friday, August 25, 2006
Fog Screen / Helios Display
I've been doing a bit more research about the fog screens.
www.fogscreen.com is going to be wayyyyy too expensive for us to get our hands on. For starters it's quite large. Too large to fit into the space we have to work with. And secondly, apparnetly it retails for around $150,000.
There's a section option out at the moment, called the "Heliodisplay". ( http://www.io2technology.com/ ) - This one is smaller, ( probably too small for our needs ), but has a pricetag of around $15,000. ( US I think ).
As it stands at the moment, I think we might have to drop the fogscreen idea. Will begin research into the other options availble to us, including that 3d projection .pdf that was posted on the newsgroup.
More on this later.
www.fogscreen.com is going to be wayyyyy too expensive for us to get our hands on. For starters it's quite large. Too large to fit into the space we have to work with. And secondly, apparnetly it retails for around $150,000.
There's a section option out at the moment, called the "Heliodisplay". ( http://www.io2technology.com/ ) - This one is smaller, ( probably too small for our needs ), but has a pricetag of around $15,000. ( US I think ).
As it stands at the moment, I think we might have to drop the fogscreen idea. Will begin research into the other options availble to us, including that 3d projection .pdf that was posted on the newsgroup.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Projection and Fog Screen
Today we were due to have a few woodworking classes and possibly begin production of our presentation space, however we've hit our first snag.
We're having difficulties figuring out the best projection solution.
We've narrowed it down to a few options :
- Spot Projection or mirrors
- Skewing
- Or projecting onto a wall, instead of a roof ( final compromise ).
We met up with Ann, our lecturer after fiddling around with a projector for a while trying to figure out the best position, and we realised to get an image of a decent size with a regular projector - the projector itself has to be a minimum of 3 metres away from the wall. 2 metres was bareable, and 1 metre was appaulingly small.
We know it's impossible to contain our whole project into a 2x2x2m space, But even with the rooms we're presenting in, they have 3m high ceilings, which are not nearly high enough for standard projection.
So we have to turn to other options.
One of the options would be to use a standard projector, but place it higher up, and on an angle so the image is projected at a larger size, but is distorted. We could then modify the image on the projector itself. ( They have facilities to modify and skew an image so that it fits on the screen properly ).
The second option would be to use a 'spot projector'. Which have mirrors incased in the projector that alow it to produce a large image at a very close distance. Apparently our other campus, St Lucia has one of these projectors that we might be able to borrow for our presentation - which would greatly assist us.
Bonnie also had the idea of simply using mirrors to duplicate the effects of the spot projector. Will submit a possible diagram on how this might work a little later.
The other option open to us, would be to simply project onto a wall, instead of proejecting onto a roof. The effect wouldn't be the same, but at least we can show how it would look.
I've also got to do some research into fog screens. Wether or not we will be able to get our hands on one, or if we will have to built it ourselves. Im going to send an email to the folks over at http://www.fogscreen.com and get a quote for buying / rental of a fog screen. As well as seeing if it can run horizontally as well as vertically.
We also got a 4th group memeber today. So we're now a larger group.
Currently we're just in the heavy research phase. Trying to find out as much as we can, the limitations of the technology we've got on hand, as well as the possible options for implementation that are open to us.
- Anthony
We're having difficulties figuring out the best projection solution.
We've narrowed it down to a few options :
- Spot Projection or mirrors
- Skewing
- Or projecting onto a wall, instead of a roof ( final compromise ).
We met up with Ann, our lecturer after fiddling around with a projector for a while trying to figure out the best position, and we realised to get an image of a decent size with a regular projector - the projector itself has to be a minimum of 3 metres away from the wall. 2 metres was bareable, and 1 metre was appaulingly small.
We know it's impossible to contain our whole project into a 2x2x2m space, But even with the rooms we're presenting in, they have 3m high ceilings, which are not nearly high enough for standard projection.
So we have to turn to other options.
One of the options would be to use a standard projector, but place it higher up, and on an angle so the image is projected at a larger size, but is distorted. We could then modify the image on the projector itself. ( They have facilities to modify and skew an image so that it fits on the screen properly ).
The second option would be to use a 'spot projector'. Which have mirrors incased in the projector that alow it to produce a large image at a very close distance. Apparently our other campus, St Lucia has one of these projectors that we might be able to borrow for our presentation - which would greatly assist us.
Bonnie also had the idea of simply using mirrors to duplicate the effects of the spot projector. Will submit a possible diagram on how this might work a little later.
The other option open to us, would be to simply project onto a wall, instead of proejecting onto a roof. The effect wouldn't be the same, but at least we can show how it would look.
I've also got to do some research into fog screens. Wether or not we will be able to get our hands on one, or if we will have to built it ourselves. Im going to send an email to the folks over at http://www.fogscreen.com and get a quote for buying / rental of a fog screen. As well as seeing if it can run horizontally as well as vertically.
We also got a 4th group memeber today. So we're now a larger group.
Currently we're just in the heavy research phase. Trying to find out as much as we can, the limitations of the technology we've got on hand, as well as the possible options for implementation that are open to us.
- Anthony
Metaballs
Trying to figure out possible coding implementations.
Will add more later.
For my own reference :
http://www.quasimondo.com/archives/000562.php
and
http://oos.moxiecode.com/flash8/metaballs_f8.html
- Anthony
Will add more later.
For my own reference :
http://www.quasimondo.com/archives/000562.php
and
http://oos.moxiecode.com/flash8/metaballs_f8.html
- Anthony
Sunday, August 20, 2006
The Weather Room - Stage 2
Thought I'd create a blog that our whole group could post at. It centralises the whole assignment, and makes it much easier to get information up ( editing the old website was just getting a bit too hard ) - The old site will be kept open. I wont move old information to this new site, but the old one is there as a reference.
We're all able to post messages here, so I also dont have to get online and post everyone elses emails, they can do it themselves damnnit!
Our posters for stage 1 are located here :
http://tomgupper.zoints.com/album/?imgid=21297
http://tomgupper.zoints.com/album/?imgid=21298
http://tomgupper.zoints.com/album/?imgid=21299
http://tomgupper.zoints.com/album/?imgid=21300
at my other blog.
And that's it for the basic information.
- Anthony
We're all able to post messages here, so I also dont have to get online and post everyone elses emails, they can do it themselves damnnit!
Our posters for stage 1 are located here :
http://tomgupper.zoints.com/album/?imgid=21297
http://tomgupper.zoints.com/album/?imgid=21298
http://tomgupper.zoints.com/album/?imgid=21299
http://tomgupper.zoints.com/album/?imgid=21300
at my other blog.
And that's it for the basic information.
- Anthony
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)