For today only...

Completely and utterly off topic while I'm procrastinating...

xkcd. Generates a console window. For today only.


I love these guys.

Research Papers

Papers I may/may not look at as apart of my thesis and for the critical paper review

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=253303

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=833826

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.98.4606&rep=rep1&type=pdf

... More to come

BU4061: Thesis Proposal Document

Thesis Proposal Document

This document should be a maximum of 6 pages in length. (excluding references) It should consist of:

Page 1

Title page with your name, subject, and proposed thesis title.

To make your title effective as a communication tool please try and link the major independent variable with the key dependent variables and possibly add the context. eg

The influence of colour image enhanced maps on visitor satisfaction for rainforest long walks. OR

Effects of temperature and vegetation on visitor mood in major tourist attractions in X’ian, China.

Page 2 & 3

The next two pages should be a succinct statement of the key references and ideas which shape the project. These references and ideas should be organised hierarchically, that is from the most general concerns and issues to the specific focussed references bearing most directly on your thesis. At this stage 10-20 core references should be shaping your project. For the thesis itself a longer, more expansive discussion of points will be needed. An example of how to present your references is given below, first for a general background reference and secondly for a reference close to and pertinent to your actual study.

Zube (1980) considered the techniques and methods for exploring how people reacted to their immediate physical environment. He pioneered the use of photographic simulation of altered environments to assess people’s attitudes. This work is part of an environmental tradition in studying people and their settings.

Moscardo (2000) explored visitor reactions to a specific tourist environment, the floating pontoon. She found visitors were concerned with safety and temperature of surfaces. Some of the questions about surfaces and physical comfort will be employed in the present research on visitors’ comfort at Chinese tourist attractions.

Page 4

At the end of the 2 pages of references and related comments as above, you should proceed to a fourth page which clearly states the aims or objectives of the project. If you are able to state clear hypotheses then please do so at this point.

An example of page 4 would be:

Aim 1: To explore the preferences and comfort levels of all visitors to well vegetated and less well vegetated major tourist attractions in X’ian, China

Aim 2: To test for preferences and comfort level differences between Chinese and Western visitors to attractions which are well vegetated versus less well vegetated.

Aim 3: To relate physical comfort levels of both Western and Chinese visitors at tourist attractions to overall satisfaction with the attractions.

You should probably have no more than 5 major aims. A detailed set of aims for each demographic or visitor profile variable, would for example, be excessive at this stage.

Page 5

On page 5 you should attempt to specify the measurement or operationalisation of the key variables in your study.

What will you measure and how will you measure it (examples follow the case).

“comfort level” will be defined by a) visitor’s rating of their physical comfort on a 9 point scale and b) by taking measures with a wet bulb thermometer of temperature and relative humidity scores and scoring these measures from thermal comfort charts

“preference” will be operationalised as visitors’ choosing one of four digitally altered photographs of the 2 tourist sites which differ in the amount of vegetation in the waiting and plaza areas of the site.

“Chinese” will be defined as people who state their residence as mainland China

“Western” will refer to people with residence in UK, Europe, United States and Australia.

Page 6

On page 6 you should write a 1 page brief of your proposed procedure. Who will you study, where, how many people or businesses, what will you ask them to do. The page 6 statement should finish with a brief timetable of your planned work. A Gantt chart would be appropriate; that is a grid of activities by the time you will work on each activity.

You should expect to receive feedback on your document within 1 week of submission. Clearly you will need to work with your supervisor to achieve these targets. Good luck with the work.

A statement saying whether or not you will have to complete an Ethics form is a required final item for this document.

Why so loud, Livescribe?

The start up sound of Licescribe is insanely loud at 2am with 5.1 surround sound...

And OH MY GOD! My notes actually work!!! They actually not only recorded but uploaded to my desktop! *has been having issues on and off since early February after an update and is now rather happy*

Just been spending time looking at references, checking out the pedro paper and also polishing off the debate. I really should have spent more time taking note of the references I used when constructing my debate. And make a note to do it as apart of my thesis as well. So far I think I've been good with regards to this blog, actually having all the links available within the posts, though I really should get a running bibliography sometime as well.

With doing the debate I think now after actually doing it, I'd be interested in trying it again. But.. not... assessment or anything. No requirement for any pressure.

Charging up the Livescribe pen currently. I started going through and listening to my debate but I hate hearing the playback of me talking. Just... sounds... awful.

My internet is down as well currently, so I just have this saved to the browser currently. I need to email off my references to another student in my debate group so hanging out for that so that they can get it first thing in the morning.

/Half an hour later

.... aaaand we're back.

Ahh, best get to bed.

PS. Posts don't make much sense on lack of sleep.

PPS. iPad is becoming more tempting with every research paper I print.

NVIDIA 400 Series Graphics Cards

NVIDIA is really stepping up not only in their CUDA technology, but cards as well.

Check this out.

This is what I currently have:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_geforce_9800_gtx_us.html

And these are the two new cards that NVIDIA launched just last Friday:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_geforce_gtx_470_us.html

http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_geforce_gtx_480_us.html

128 CUDA Cores VS 480.

512MB GDDR3 VS 1536MB GDDR5

Price point? Anywhere between $300 - 500 USD from what I've seen so far. Interested to see what the AUD price point will be.

Would love to do a full CUDA render test with these new cards. Looks absolutely amazing...

On a separate topic, currently working through BU4061... Not sure if I'm going to get much sleep tonight again.

3AM Ramble

Been getting some replies over at the NVIDIA forums regarding the glasses and maya.

Interesting reply from a user:

Since version 2009, Maya is really one of the best 3d tools to create stereoscopic movies.

Not only because it features stereoscopic cameras, but also eliminates some of the most common picture "failures" you are getting with 2 normal cameras (for advanced readers: maya is capable to use off-axis cameras with shifted sensors to create perfect matched stereoscopic pictures - with 2 normal cameras you would get frustum problems with trapezoid deformations).

The good thing is, you don't need a quadro card to use the stereo rig, but if you have one, you can see the viewport in "real" 3D if you use 2 projectors (polarization, infitec ...) or the acer one (if there WOULD be newer quadro 3d vision drivers which support the projector perfectly ).

For normal users it is enough to create a stereo rig, set the zero parallax plane, the interaxial separation and view the whole thing via the luminance anaglyph (red/cyan) option .


Good luck while trying it and don't forget to read the autodesk stereoscopic filmmaking whitepaper to understand the whole 3d functions:

http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/ster...per_final08.pdf

and

http://www.motionmedia.com/downloads/pdf/M..._Whitepaper.pdf

Quote: MCX

I like this idea of using two projectors to see "real" 3D. It'd be a wonder on how to set it up though. And so, so glad that a quadro card is not required. All I need now is my 3D monitor and I can start playing around and developing. Hurray!

Proposed Work

I got woken up from my sleep at midnight despite going to bed at 8:30pm... so... this may or may not make much sense in my sleep deprived state..

So, over the course of this week, have got a lot of work to do.

*nods*

To do list:

1. Finish off BU4061 Script to submit Tuesday
2. Finish reading Pedro by Tuesday (mostly finished)
3. Select 3 papers for presentations (CP5080)
4. Finish off Critical Review for XML paper (do we just go up there and talk, use palm cards? I'm not sure on protocol)
5. Finish off Project Proposal (draft) Friday - can't remember due date...
6. Figure out other assessment that's due
7. Find a better filing method other then "throw-in-the-corner-and-deal-with-it-later"
8. Figure out what to do about laptop + Brisbane
9. When in Brisbane, start modelling things in Maya (see above)
10. Finish reading this paper: http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/stereoscopic_whitepaper_final08.pdf

Now, off to sleep.

Stereomovie Maker

http://stereo.jpn.org/eng/stvmkr/

Looks intriguing... Must find out more.

3D Glasses + HDTV

Ahh, so last night's attempt at trying to get the 3D glasses running kind of failed.

Tried both the TV and a laptop monitor (just to a. see if we could prove NVIDIA wrong and b. see if we can get the glasses to run at half the frame rate)

The TV itself was actually only a 60Hz signal, (supposedly uses backlight flashing to double the rate to 120Hz?) despite the manual saying otherwise (NVIDIA was right on this one) and as for the laptop, well, after getting the up-to-date drivers (CD ones are outdated) and running the installation, it actually just stops midway through and says "Your laptop panel is not 3D enabled" and closes down the installation.

Doesn't even let you attempt to try it at a lower rate. Which is a bit of a let down.

Can't get the monitor this week either. Apparently I have to claim hours at JCU for payment, so it's not like Cairns which was done automatically. *laughs* Oh well, another 2 week wait I suppose.

Been looking at a lot of things surrounding the glasses and modelling. Will post information as I come across it anyway.

Oo! Random 3D Maya Find!

Old topic, but looks interesting.

Maya 2009 (and all Autodesk products) are adding 3D Stereoscopic tools - report from SIGGRAPH

Posted by Pat Howk on August 13, 2008

http://fireuser.com/blog/maya_2009_and_all_autodesk_products_are_adding_3d_stereoscopic_tools_report/

Monday, I caught the end of the Autodesk event and got to see a little bit about the new Maya 2009! The first thing I saw was the new particle system. It was really easy to recreate fluid effects, smoke, explosions. Everything done in the demo was created without writing expressions. To me this was the one of the best parts. They also demonstrated some real-time collision detection. But the good parts were the new Stereoscopic tools that are coming out for all of Autodesk's products. I'll focus on Maya since I'm a Maya user. The best thing was Maya 2009 has a built in stereo camera rig. Some really cool options for this camera rig are real-time 3D so that you can animate and model and do everything you want to do while wearing your 3D glasses! That way you don't actually have to render you scene just to see if you stereo is working properly. The next cool thing is the camera can actaully project a red color and a blue color right onto the screen. What this does is gives you a reference for the 3D. Meaning that everything in front of the red plane is going to look like it's coming out at you and everything behind blue is going to be in the background. This also will increase your work flow by allowing you to get a good idea of what your scene will look like before you even render your first scene. As it is now you had to make your own rig and continually render a scene just to see how far the depth is and if you need to tweek more. The whole Autodesk pipeline got a stereo upgrade to help make stereoscopy an easier thing to do.

The industry right now looks like it is getting behind theses 3D/stereo technologies 100%. Dreamworks reps claim that their moving to it and ALL of their upcoming 3D movies are going to be in stereo. These tools just make that transition a whole lot easier for pro's and students alike. If your a 3D student today then you can't afford to not be working on stereo projects in school. It's doesn't matter if you like it or not, from what I've seen the industry if moving at full steam with stereoscopy.

Oh, and for those that don't know.

Avatar: http://download.autodesk.com/us/mnevideo/avatar/movie_trailer/avatar_trailer_658x330.html

The movie was developed using both Maya and MotionBuilder.

Great stuff.