3D Paluma - IT Honours Project: April 2010

Thursday, April 29, 2010

LaTeX and LyX

Just a quick mention...

www.latex-project.org

www.lyx.org

Two nifty little programs I was shown with document handling and editing. Basically, all you have to do is type what you want and it handles all the formatting for you.

On a side note, there are quite a few entries I've got to get up from back logs, some information on O'Reileys when up there, views of tourism changes, recent trip to Paluma, further information on 3D (from a Sony presentation I attended) as well as play-around with Maya/3DS.

As soon as I get my Bu4061 presentation and CP5080 presentations out of the way, can get back to updating this blog more regularly.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Ethics: Use of Humans and Animals as Participants

Some notes from the Ethics Presentation during Induction Day today.

Presented by Prof Phil Summers

"Ethics and ethical principles extend to all spheres of human activity. They apply to our dealings with each other, with animals and the environment. Ethics serve to identify good, desirable or acceptable conduct and provide reasons for those conclusions."

Ethics extremely important. Failure to comply with ethical regulations and requirements can result in the failure of a student and the thesis. There are publications (National Statement on Ethical Conduct) available that outline the guidelines to follow with regards to the ethical requirements, this includes both animal and human participants in research.

Guiding Principles and Legislations:

National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Research Involving Humans - published by the Heatlth and Medical Research Council, 1999
JCU Policies

Applications:

Information avail on JCU Website - see "Human Ethics" in index
Applications to be submitted 2 weeks before a meeting
Applications in lay terms, easy to understand by non-experts
Checked/signatures in advance - Head of School and Supervisor
Committee may require applicants to attend meeting to explain and justify research proposal

Human Ethics - Guiding Principles

Integrity - honest conduct of research and dissemination of results (not altering)
Respect for Persons
Beneficence - minimise risks and discomfort and maximise possible benefits
Justice
Consent - give the ability to allow for acceptance and withdrawal, ensure anonymity
Research Merit and Safety
Special Considerations for Research involving children as well as genetic research
Special Conditions for Clinical Trials

"Research must be conducted or supervised only by persons or teams with experience, qualifications and competence appropriate to the research. Research must only be conducted using facilities appropriate for the search and where there are appropriate skills and resources for dealing with any contingencies that may affect participants."

Reporting:

Annual reports are required from researchers
Confirmation of final ethics report for pre-completion seminar evaluation by supervisory committee
Ethics committee reports annually to NRMRC, University Council and QLD Government Animal Welfare Unit

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Looking at the presentation today, I have a much better understanding of the requirements when it comes to ethics. As soon as I compile a method of surveying the public, I'll have to run that by Gianna first, then I'll need to look at getting the application written and submitted to the Ethics Committee. Application needs to be absolutely clear. Ethics committee may request further information and each resubmission can take up to a month.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Bibliographies - Formatting Options

So here is an interesting thing to share today.

http://bibword.codeplex.com

What is BibWord and why is it so cool?

Simply put, BibWord is a little extension or plugin of sorts that you can install into the root directory of Microsoft Word, giving that little nifty auto-bibliography list you have all the more functionality.

Above is an example from an assignment that I did last month for BU4061, the debate and rebuttal. The way the document is set out is that all bibliography items are all referenced within the document, clicking a section of the debate (E.g. CERN), "Physicists wanted to replicate the conditions that existed a fraction after the big bang by using a Large Hadron Collider (CERN, 2008) to collide particles at speeds just shy of the speed of light" will take you to the citation in the bibliography, then clicking the citation item in the bibliography will then open a website. Easy enough.

The two windows you see there are Source Manager and Edit Source. Source Manager tracks and records every single source you have ever placed into Microsoft Word, giving you a full reference list that you can look up at any time. The Edit/Add Source allows users to simply fill in the fields and Word will take care of formatting for you.

While Word can format your bibliography to change it to styles APA, sort by name, etc etc, the list is in all honestly... rather small.

And this is where BibWord comes in!

As you can see here, I'm using Microsoft Word 2007 with BibWord. In about the time of 5 minutes, all it takes is a simple download then installing the files to the Word directory. For instructions see here: http://bibword.codeplex.com/releases/view/15852

There are a few areas of BibWord that require a little bit of working out. I noticed that ACM referencing doesn't appreciate web references - whether that is an formatting standard for ACM or a Style limitation I'm not sure, though users can edit/add to the style lists as the developers provide the source code.

Editing on a average user scale though may just be a bit difficult at this stage:

Quick flick through one of the Havard source files revealed some 3100+ lines of code. There was another plugin I'm sure of that allowed users to specify format requirements, OpenSource naturally, though I can't find it. I'll have to go looking again.

Lastly. Before people beat me to it...

Another thing to mention as well as a good program is EndNote.

Provided free to staff and students at JCU. http://www-public.jcu.edu.au/libcomp/resources/endnote/index.htm

And download instructions: http://www-public.jcu.edu.au/libcomp/resources/endnote/JCUPRD_021073

Haven't had a full play around with EndNote as of yet, though when I do, I'll post thoughts and feedback on it.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Weekend Coverage, Internet and Laptop

Finally back after a rather long weekend. Was rather enjoyable none the less.

Interestingly enough I got up on stage twice for public speaking, both of which were rather large audiences, one was about a room the size of one of the lecture rooms in DB17, the other room was probably comparable to CLT. Strangely though, I found that getting up there and talking was far easier than the debate.

Internet access where I am currently is rather.. painful. In a black spot simply put so the internet is very temperamental, making it difficult to open basic things such as Gmail or even download file attachments. I haven't even bothered to try and upload a file yet, seeing as I couldn't even get a steady enough connection to actually check my account balance for online banking.

The biggest issue by far though is that my VAIO laptop just crashed. It doesn't seem to want to stay on and keeps powering itself off. At one point it flat out refused to turn on. I managed to get it to power on long enough to get my files for my thesis off as well as a few other files I needed. Right now though, I'm really glad for purchasing the netbook. I had expected the laptop to crash so I'm glad I took that into consideration. When I get back to Townsville I'll have to get it dropped off for repair and figure out whether I try and salvage it, replace it completely, or leave a desktop on campus with remote access from my netbook. Will figure it out when I get back anyway.

During the week, I'll be going up to O'Reiley's and hopefully might talk to some people there to get their views on the before and after of tourist development.

I'm also looking at going up to Paluma sometime during lecture recess to get some photos as a backing to help out with starting my modelling for the project. I really want to get that part of my project started and a fair amount of it done before the end of the semester.

For this week, I've got to finish my BU4061 assessment and also get in contact with Bruce (again) to find out what is happening with the presentations. I've still yet to receive confirmation on where I'm to present. Or even when. I also have to find out if Ian did manage to get an example of a Thesis Proposal for me to look at as well... Hm.

Definitely a lot of work to accomplish over the week. Shall see how I go.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Recent Meeting and Thesis Proposal

Had a meeting with Ian earlier over Skype. Strangely enough, that would've been my actual first time using skype for voice/video chat. Good service on the chance that your connection is stable.

So got some interesting points to look at for my proposal. I've got a good idea of my research plan now and also the scale. I'm just hoping that its not too big.

Main concerns is over the GIS data and modelling everything on top of it. Just depends on how the council makes use of the data, if it's an object file or something which I can easily import into Maya or 3DS Max, would make life so much more easier.

Currently sitting in the car updating while on a drive. Wireless is actually better while in the car then in the house. Haven't experienced one drop out yet.

Tomorrow and over the weekend, there won't be any updates from me as I'll pretty much be unreachable all weekend while I'm at an event, so gotta see what I can do before then. (Hence why netbook + wireless in the car) At least this way I'm not losing time twiddling my thumbs in a car ride.

On the subject of netbooks and wireless broadband sticks - fantastic investment. The best $400 I've ever spent. At some point I wouldn't mind writing up a full review on the netbook just simply because I don't think many people realise how good they really are.

Back on subject of thesis. The way I want to 'start' with my project is ideally when I get back to Townsville to jump into modelling right away. That's going to be one of the tasks that is the most time consuming. There's two options for that; modelling using Google Earth Pro (similar to what is happening with a model of the JCU campus) or doing it through 3DS/Maya and either creating an environment within the application (will be extremely slow due to the volume of polygons in any one scene) OR porting the models into something like a game engine. I just need to make sure I have an environment in which a user can navigate through successfully. The other thing with the game engines is making sure it supports stereoscopic 3D and is direct X 10 enabled.

A few different things to look at, but things to think about none-the-less.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Honours Timetable

While I'm currently fiddling around with excel, here are the dates for my reference for my honours:

Start 22/02/2010
Project selected 03/03/2010
Proposal 18/03/2010
Lit. review 08/06/2010
Seminar 1 20/07/2010 (may shift to Aug.)
project completed 30/09/2010
Thesis outline 06/10/2010
Draft thesis 26/10/2010
Thesis to examiners 15/11/2010
Seminar 2 19/11/2010

Monday, April 5, 2010

Thesis Proposal

Been working on the thesis proposal today... There's a lot more information in there that I need that I really don't have, so will be emailing Ian after this to get some info.

I've decided to format it as per the IT Honours Guide guidelines as it makes more sense to me in terms of data flow and I'll email a copy to Philip to check to see if he is happy to keep it the same or if he wants it to stay strictly with the Business format.

Coming up with all the information in a cohesive manner is.. well, I wouldn't say 'difficult', but not something you can exactly whip up very quickly. I keep going back over things and changing them simply because I'm not satisfied with the level of work/information in there.

The title though... I keep changing the title. Currently I have "Examination of Computer Visualisation Techniques in Tourism and Development Scenarios" but earlier I had "3D Modelling of the Paluma Range for Tourism and Development"... I like the second one more, but I have to run it by my supervisor first. Titles always get me though. Even when writing stories, I take ages when picking titles.

I seriously have to find out what is happening with BU4061 with regards to assessment and Brisbane. I did mention to Philip that I'd be in Brisbane in April, and I've emailed him today about it but still haven't heard back from him. Just a bit worried about the assessment which is due anyway.

Waiting on Bruce to get back to me about Thursday for the presentations as well, so as of yet, I have no idea if I'm presenting or not... Or even where.

I think I may try and get an early night now... Have had a headache all day and either there's something wrong with my screen or I'm seeing double with the text... Doubt it's the screen.

Will have to finish off the proposal tomorrow. *was hoping to get it done today*

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Brisbane, EEE PC and Internet

Landed in Brisbane about an hour ago.

Also got an EEE PC (1005P) yesterday. Battery life on it - FANTASTIC! Have yet to charge it again, but has lasted the whole plane ride (playing movies) and about an hour of surfing on wireless while doing a system backup - and it's still going. (With four hours more to go apparently)

I read through the following paper while on the plane: http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=833826

Nifty stuff. It's a paper from 1995 and basically talks about Virtual Geographical Information Systems and how it could be used for military operations. At the time, they only had 2D visualisations and the concept of creating it in 3D was very new. Now, its something you can see in pretty much any game. Call of Duty for instance, mini map with building views that corresponds to the surrounding environment.

I've still yet to 'decide' on two other papers for my review. I had two others I was looking at (links in a previous blog) but I found them not to be exactly what I'm looking for. One was about immersive interaction techniques, the other was about 3D Map Building with Stereo Vision. I need to read that second paper more in depth as the maths in there really throws me off so I only really skimmed read it..

I may have mentioned this already but I would really like to get a paper about the 'experience' a person gets out of immersive technology compared to standard viewing, still yet to find anything.

Also have to finish off my thesis proposal draft tomorrow and get that sent off. Hopefully will get that done tomorrow between everything else that's happening.

Friday, April 2, 2010

3D in Cinemas

Went and saw "How to Train Your Dragon" in 3D yesterday at Birch. Good movie. Highly recommended.

Main focus here though is actual 3D being used to display landscapes...

Birch Carroll and Coyle cinemas make use of RealD technology (www.reald.com) whereas Reading Cinemas uses Dolby Digital 3D (www.dolby.com/professional/solutions/cinema/3d-digital-cinema.html)

Between the two, I found that RealD was better then that of Dolby 3D. For starters, the glasses you can keep from RealD whereas with Dolby 3D you have the staff staring at you when you walk out of the theater, almost as if they're expecting you to take off running with their glasses. (Glasses from RealD, very cheap to make VS Dolby 3D synced with the screen/video and alternating shutters, rather expensive). I'm not 100% sure where the NVIDIA 3D sits between these two different types of technology though.. It'd be interesting to see how different/similar they are in depth/perspective. Particularly if you are off center of the image or move around a lot. (An issue I didn't find with RealD).

Depth wise, both RealD and Dolby 3D were good. Though... I notice that the 3D does cut off when it hits the 'edge' of the screen. It's like looking through a window. You can see the depth of the objects, but it's not like they 'leap' out of the screen (although it appears that Dolby 3D has a better ... can't think of the word, but 'pop out' effect..)

I think with having the demo of the Paluma landscape in 3D would definitely generate a lot of public interest, not because of it being a virtual environment, but something that people can actually see in 3D. I think a lot of people would show up just to be able to experience something 'new' (not really) and cool. Plus with the 3D hype going around, it's a step towards embracing new technology.

Before I leave, just an interesting blog I found on someone else's views on 3D.

http://3dvision-blog.com/what-to-choose-imax-3d-versus-reald-versus-dolby-3d-for-3d-movies/

Enjoy.