ECOIDS consist with a programmable embed circuit board which is attaced with a Xbee to wirelessly send the data to a collection hub. They are powered by solar energy and can be placed carefully in any natural environment. It provides a way for artists, scientists and engineers with a real time model of the environment to develop visualistaions, sonifications (music) and interactive projects. [1]

Our task was to put together something that would manipulate the data from these ECOIDS. So I and a class mate had seen a video of an LED cube on Youtube, which gave us our inspiration.

We set out getting hold of a load of LED lights and resistors. My class mate had or bought a Arduino board to be able to manipulate all the LEDs. We worked out that we needed a maximum of 45 lights; five levels of nine lights. This was because there are only 14 input/output ports on the model of Arduino board used for the project.

[1] http://www.i-dat.org/eco-os-workshop-ecoid-prototype/

Much like the Flash product I and a classmate created to represent earthquake data (http://ckhatton.com/i/d), I decided to create another one to suit the assignment of a different module. The task was to create a product that would grab information or communication with another computer via WAN i.e. Such as the Internet.

I had a better understanding of the Actionscript used to program in Flash - So I could really play with it. It ran on the same principle, of reading through the XML RSS feed data.

• The horizontal green line = Depth
• The breadth of green line shake = Earthquake Magnitude

I wanted to add a physics engine to it, so that blocks could shake side-to-side depending on the magnitude of the earthquake.

I looked into Box2D for Flash... http://box2dflash.sourceforge.net/

There is a Java version... http://gwtbox2d.appspot.com/ (You will need a HTML5 compatible browser)

I urge you to check out both links... they are interactive demos!

Last lesson we grouped up in four groups, to match our topic themes. From there, each group created a mind map of our group topics. Mainly to get our thinking processes running.

We went away with the task of finalising choosing a topic to explore, experiment and analyse. So I have looked further into Clones and created a mind map around the topic...

...It's a start!

Like before, I created some laser-cut heads based off the video game Minecraft. The laser engraving is slightly off because the laser was re-started to foreshorten the number of heads being cut. But I am experimenting at the moment, so they are mock-ups to improve upon. These are smaller heads than the fridge magnet version and each head is a perfect cube.

Minecraft is a video game, which has become widely popular. I thought I would try create a laser-cut head based loosely on a Minecraft character. The joints of the pieces did not match up perfectly, but they do build a cube. So I had the idea of adding cutout pieces of a thin sheet of magnet material, which you can easily buy from eBay.

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Empirical Software Engineering (ESE)

ESE is a topic I have not heard before. From what I understand, ESE is the research into helping businesses find or create software to suit their needs; a process of looking at a piece of software or technology to decide whether it fits the requirements of the business at hand.

There is an International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement held across the world.

http://www.esem-conferences.org/

Their objective is to provide a forum where researchers, practitioners, and educators can report and discuss the most recent research results, innovations, trends, experiences, and concerns.

I believe they are going to create a large collective of symposium papers from the event, into one large journal. They link to a page of papers so far…

http://www.springerlink.com/content/100262/

Integrating information retrieval, execution and link analysis algorithms to improve feature location in software

This paper looks into data fusion for feature location. Data fusion is the process by which information from multiple sources is combined to yield better results, than if the information sources are used individually. The idea of the paper is to help identify the source code that implements specific functionality in software.

Clones: what is that smell?

In software engineering folklore, ‘clones’ are considered bad programming practice. They are also identified as a ‘bad smell’ (Fowler et al. 1999) and a big cause to project maintenance difficulties. The paper analyses the relationship between cloning and defect proneness.

Effort estimation of FLOSS projects: a study of the Linux kernel

This paper describes how empirical research has shown that Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) developers tend to cluster around two roles: ‘core’ contributors and ‘peripheral’ developers.

Can traditional fault prediction models be used for vulnerability prediction?

A different mind-set is needed when finding security vulnerabilities compared to general faults in software. The paper looks at whether fault prediction models can be used for vulnerability prediction or if specialized vulnerability prediction models should be developed when both models are built with traditional metrics of complexity, code churn, and fault history.

The paper on ‘clones’ intrigues me, as would like look further into what the bad programming practices are. Ultimately, I would like to look into web apps that use physics engines or the possibility of web pages turning 3D. I will try to see if I can find any information on that subject.

Our brief was to capture some form of information and represent it differently using the Max 6 software.

The software has a range of already installed examples (represented as help files) to load up and try-out. Myself and a class mate decided to start with a music player and add the functionality of mixing individual tracks to it. The volume of one of the two music tracks had to be inverted to allow for the mixing effect to work. Methods in Max 6 are mostly calculated using maths. So we had to figure a mathematical way of inverting the volume data supplied by one track. Answer: We had to take 10 (being the max unit of volume) and then multiply the data by negative 1, to make it a positive value again. It took us so long to figure it out!

We managed to create the mixer; you could swap tracks and click a virtual button for a fill sound. We hoped to attach an Arduino board to the computer with a couple physical volume dials on it, which would interact with the software. But we could not find a working plugin that would pair up the Arduino board with the software, to allow communication. So this could be the improvement for the future. Also, during the demonstrations of project work, one person had used an Xbox 360 controller to manipulate the music generator they had created. It suddenly clicked then that we could have rigged up a Playstation 3 controller to our setup.

For this project, we were shown how the Xbox 360 can be used to capture 3D space and for motion capture (aka ‘mo-cap’). The device is about £120, and is used on the Xbox 360 console for playing interactive games where your body is the controller. Our lecturer stated that technology like this before the Kinect came out would cost about £18,000! So there have been massive leaps in technology, in terms of motion capture. The Kinect camera was not built to be used on computers; it is only thanks to open source software and plugins that we are able to use the camera on devices other than the Xbox 360. (Update) Microsoft has recently brought out a version of the Kinect camera built to plug into Windows PCs; at near double the price, but it has better motion capture accuracy [1].

The Kinect camera works by shooting thousands of Infra-Red points as it scans its view plain and then records the depth from the reflection. For colour, it is like any other camera. So you end up with a one side facing 3D room. If you have two cameras pointing at one central point from different positions, then you can start to build a bigger picture. The motion capture is down to the software used. The software scans for an identifiable figure shape (stood-up straight with arms stretched out to the sides), and from there records the progression of movement. On screen, the body movement is represented as a skeleton wireframe. The motion captured can be imported into 3DS Max with a dummy figure attached to the skeleton, which can be placed in a virtual 3D environment.

Our brief for the project was to creating any form of media using the Kinect camera. So for example, an amalgamation of 3D heads like a Mount Rushmore or a motion capture of someone dancing.

I and a class mate chose to take a series of shots of me walking up towards the Kinect camera. With that we then created an animatic to represent some sort of walking mud man. The Kinect camera is not that accurate at scanning, especially at great depth. So the people look like a big blob figures.

So we started the shots of me walking. The Kinect takes a few seconds to process each shot, which meant I had to pause walking every part-step. We took a total of 16 shots and imported them into 3DS Max. During the transfer we had to do a couple of processes to convert each 3D captured shot. The Kinect captures by dots, so each dot in 3D space has to be joined up into a wireframe.

Once in 3DS Max each of the 16 wireframes needed centring, scaling up in the 3D scene, and animated. The animation involved changing the opacity of each 3D shot so that they animated sequentially, merging into one another. We realised later on that a texture had to be applied first before changing the opacity of each shot, which meant we had to start the process again. We chose a lava texture with a bump map applied to it. The bump map made the texture seem bumpy, to represent real lava [2]. Ideally we wanted an animated lava texture [3], but because of the way the wireframe was not one complete shape, 3DS Max would not show the animated texture. Once satisfied, we added spot lights and virtual viewpoints in the scene to capture/render the scene.

After 9 hours of rendering 3 different viewpoints at 213x120pixels (my laptop fan was running so loud!), we had the footage to piece together in Adobe After Effects and Adobe Premiere. Because the film was silent, we searched the Internet for free sound effects to use. We found sound effects for howling wind and bubbles blown in a glass of water. The sounds were stretched out to create a more low-pitched and prolonged sound. [4][5]

To improve upon it in the future, we would probably render it at a higher resolution with more time. A definite feature would be figuring out how to add a moving lava texture. Also we could probably look at the motion capture route; though it would mean we would lose the shapes (blobs) that the Kinect creates from still shots.

Since starting the project I have learnt how to use the Kinect camera, its linking software, 3DS Max, Adobe After Effects, and Adobe Premiere - All of which I had never used before.

[1] http://uk.pc.gamespy.com/articles/121/1217718p1.html

[2] Lava bitmap - http://ayelie-stock.deviantart.com/art/Lava-texture-2-67168268

[3] http://www.3dm3.com/tutorials/ps/

[4] Drone Airy Hollow Swells Distant Steam Releases Alien Planet Lava Bed - http://www.soundsnap.com/node/55470

[5] Bubbles - http://www.soundsnap.com/node/35302

It was demonstrated, by the lecturer, that we can grab raw data from a RSS feed and import it into Flash. From there, we can use the data to manipulate shapes and lines. So our task for the next three weeks was to find an RSS feed and visually display the information.

Partnered up with one other, I found an earthquake RSS feed that held the data of earthquakes over the past 90 days. With that we managed to grab the data, by getting the Flash to read through the XML data, and then represent the data as a red circle and lines.

Each part was defined as follows:

• Red Circle = Magnitude
• Cross (X) = Depth
• Verticle Line = Longitude
• Horizontal Line = Latitude

Great thing with RSS Data, it is always live and updated. Problem was, our Flash example did not display much useful information. Plus, the time it takes to display the next bit of information is too short - So it looks really rapid.

We had thought of displaying the Latitude and Longitude information on a global map. But it is hard to position because of the fact the world is round and the screen is flat.

For future improvements, I reckon a physics engine should be added. The magnitude data of the earthquakes could shake the stage to make objects fly around or sway the stage side to side. It could be a fountain of virtual liquid pouring out from a triangle shape representing a volcano; as the magnitude increases, the length of liquid jet coming out the volcano increases. (I took on this concept in a different module… link below)

In a different module, I took this project a bit further... http://ckhatton.com/i/e

This is a first of a series of garden paintings.