UGOtag:www.usergeneratedorbit.com,2008:/blog/22008-03-07T08:40:48ZUser Generated OrbitMovable Type 3.35UGO to Californiatag:www.usergeneratedorbit.com,2008:/blog//2.3862008-03-07T08:14:13Z2008-03-07T08:40:48ZI just moved over to California to work with the talented group of people over at NASA's Ames Research Center (ARC) in getting NASA's web presence up-to-speed and prepared for the future. Sofar, I've been blogging about my experiences over...
I just moved over to California to work with the talented group of people over at NASA's Ames Research Center (ARC) in getting NASA's web presence up-to-speed and prepared for the future. Sofar, I've been blogging about my experiences over at tobedetermined.org but I'll probably set up another blog instance in the near future to document my personal experiences over the long run. As far as UGO is concerned, I did make a plan over Christmas to distribute all the code I have sofar, but I'd like it to be at least usable so this will take some time to tick off. Whenever I get a weekend to spare here in sunny California I'll post it, and with that, hopefully get inspired to do more of it. If not, and in the meantime, do check out OgleEarth and GEB for more updates on GE and other virtual worlds and let me know if you have any special comments or requests regarding UGO.]]>
Where is my demo?tag:www.usergeneratedorbit.com,2007:/blog//2.3062007-11-04T01:55:34Z2007-11-04T02:08:32ZWe're coming up on the 2-month intermittent posting here at UGO. Both me and Jurryt had to go back to work in first life and because of some silly delays in getting a server up and running to at least...
We're coming up on the 2-month intermittent posting here at UGO. Both me and Jurryt had to go back to work in first life and because of some silly delays in getting a server up and running to at least develop a demo to distribute, we basically put down all our activities on UGO. A couple of days ago we were discussing picking it up again where we left of end of the summer because we both agree it would be a shame not to release at least something after we've come so far into our first demo. We are both strugglin' a bit with the actual use of the tool which also does not seem to help in increasing the priority over other pressing needs but I have good hopes so let me report back again when stuff is (really) happening.
Ending AFUGO (Away From UGO)tag:www.usergeneratedorbit.com,2007:/blog//2.2792007-09-15T11:46:56Z2007-09-15T12:19:48ZIts been rather slow on the UGO side down here due to other obligations and a re-orientation of where we'd like things to be going from here. At the same time we've been working on some technical (server) issues and...
nearby.org.uk has just released a technical preview of something quite similar to UGO. He calls it the 'Google Earth Black Box Recorder' (what's in a name ;) Apparently, the update issues with the network link have been resolved in the new Google Earth release as it seems he implemented BBR with a network link to his server to do the conversion and recording as I originally planned back in May. He finishes his blogpost announcement with an interesting statement we have come across as well a couple of times ;)
… technically it could be used to record movement in any mode, however it only records the camera position, which is almost ideal for the flight simulator, but not so useful otherwise.
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UGO Video 2tag:www.usergeneratedorbit.com,2007:/blog//2.2582007-08-15T18:44:35Z2007-08-15T19:07:40ZA follow-up post with some additional images of UGO-created 3d objects. Below I started playing around with another randomly picked image (this one), creating 3d sculptures while flying around. They have a certain architectural feel to them if you ask...
this one), creating 3d sculptures while flying around. They have a certain architectural feel to them if you ask me :). Btw, you can see the rudimentary GUI of UGO on the top right of some of the screendumps. ]]>
UGO Videotag:www.usergeneratedorbit.com,2007:/blog//2.2572007-08-15T17:40:13Z2007-08-15T19:25:52ZLooking at ways to utilise UGO's ability to provide position feedback in Google Earth, I keep returning to a project by Berlin based ART+COM called 'The Invisible Shape of Things Past'. Some 10(!) years ago I saw a presentation of...
ART+COM called 'The Invisible Shape of Things Past'. Some 10(!) years ago I saw a presentation of the project by Joachim Sauter. In this self-commissioned work, they developed an exceptionally beautiful way to build 3d representations of video footage in a virtual world. The first image below for example shows how they recreated a 3d video structure from a video clip shot in Berlin (be sure to check out their other images & videos).
Replacing my earlier 3d models with 'flat' 2d images, creating a 3d video object build from individual frames seems to be an interesting possible use of the UGO code. Of course there are several hurdles to overcome in order to get the right position and orientation of each individual frame, but in principle this should be feasible given the right time/attitude correlation within the video footage (not that different from photo geocoding). Below are some screendumps of tests I did a few weeks ago where I more or less picked a random image and started flying around in Google Earth.
As a side note, its at this stage unfortunately not possible to provide a .kmz file to give you a first hand view of these tests in Google Earth because sofar loading a .kmz file with multiple individual positions only loads the corresponding 3d model into the first position. I'll be looking into this. ]]>
Wagging the dogtag:www.usergeneratedorbit.com,2007:/blog//2.2562007-08-15T16:25:32Z2007-08-15T16:40:22ZThat's weird, I just see there have been quite some hits (relatively speaking as they're only in the 10's) on a URL ending with /blog//blog on this domain. I can't seem to figure out what the originating source is in...
That's weird, I just see there have been quite some hits (relatively speaking as they're only in the 10's) on a URL ending with /blog//blog on this domain. I can't seem to figure out what the originating source is in Google Analytics. In fact, it seems the originating source is /blog//blog itself...? Anyway, I've fixed it with a proper referral in my .htaccess file.]]>
2d UGOtag:www.usergeneratedorbit.com,2007:/blog//2.2542007-08-14T17:01:11Z2007-08-14T17:12:17ZWhile doing a search for 'tobedetermined, Amsterdam' in Google maps, I happen to stumble upon a UGO I uploaded back in May. Its one of the first times I experience kml search at work as it was announced some time...
tobedetermined, Amsterdam' in Google maps, I happen to stumble upon a UGO I uploaded back in May. Its one of the first times I experience kml search at work as it was announced some time ago. Good to know how it works...
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A day in the life of a UGOtag:www.usergeneratedorbit.com,2007:/blog//2.2512007-08-11T02:53:51Z2007-08-12T14:15:40ZWhile I am figuring out how to get UGO going on the mac, I've also been playing around on the Windows side of things with the new functionality of getting a realtime visualisation of your UGO position in Google Earth...
earlier post). Its still hacking away, but the experience of seeing your positions materialise "right here, right now" is quite a powerful one when it comes to the immersiveness of a platform like Google Earth (aka virtual worlds, or better, mirror worlds). Below I have included some screendumps of different configurations, using Sketchup as the tool for 3d modelling. Getting my inspiration more from Photosynth than from Second Life, my initial choice on how to represent myself was for a pyramid with the bottom plane directed towards the viewing direction. The first one shown below is one of the initial tests of the new code set next to an "old style" UGO (orientation was not yet taken into account at that time). The other ones are subsequent stages of just having fun flying around and getting a feel of the new functionality using a SpaceNavigator. And of course I couldn't resist playing around with some of the standard 3d models provided by Sketchup. I wish I could show them all here but I guess you get the picture so I've uploaded all the other stills to my Flickr UGO set. (Update 12Aug-> just noticed the settings of my Flickr account prevented the download of full-res images. I changed it into a CC license so now all sizes are available for download/sharing)
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UGO on OSX: Status Updatetag:www.usergeneratedorbit.com,2007:/blog//2.2412007-08-06T13:13:36Z2007-08-06T16:12:38ZWith summer finally catching on here in the Netherlands, I spent some time figuring out how to get UGO onto OSX. With Jurryt Pietersma now part of development, things have unmistakably become more Python-centric (not to say: Pythonic) so my...
Pythonic) so my aim with the Mac port is to use Python where possible.
First off: the Google Earth - Applescript API. Using OgleEarth's announcement as a starting point, it turns out to be fairly straightforward to read out Google Earth coordinates using GetViewInfo. Even better, these Applescript commands can also be called directly in Python without having to write too much Applescript code. Next: the GUI. Where I've used C# sofar to build a GUI on the PC side, Apple comes with XCode, Cocoa, Objective-C and ApplicationKit, so this will take some time to get into. Best thing to note at this point is that the PyObjC bridge will allow me to stay as close as possible to Python, using Xcode mainly as the IDE to develop the UI.
As an appetizer, this .kmz file shows the first UGO made on a Mac (see the difference? ;-)). Its generated with my original python script of 3 months ago, adapted to accommodate the Applescript API to read out the viewer's viewing coordinates. Building a OSX GUI around this script will be up next. Looking ahead, it seems the limited API functionality on the Mac side will be the main hurdle to get UGO running on OSX as we have it on Windows, but more on that later...
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UGO Tour Of Amsterdamtag:www.usergeneratedorbit.com,2007:/blog//2.2272007-07-24T19:29:17Z2007-07-24T19:39:27ZThe city of Amsterdam is offering its Google Earth representation up for improvement. Here is a .kmz file with a UGO vis of the highlights tour they currently offer at Amsterdam3D, including the extruded and non-extruded UGO and the original...
offering its Google Earth representation up for improvement. Here is a .kmz file with a UGO vis of the highlights tour they currently offer at Amsterdam3D, including the extruded and non-extruded UGO and the original tour courtesy of Amsterdam Geo en Vastgoedinformatie (I guess...).
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UGO @ nighttag:www.usergeneratedorbit.com,2007:/blog//2.2252007-07-24T16:41:35Z2007-07-24T17:05:11ZA couple of screendumps using the Earth city lights overlay in the new NASA layer in Google Earth. This layer is hidden inside the Featured Content layer (I lost the original .kmz file. Seems this was one of the tests...
Earth city lights overlay in the new NASA layer in Google Earth. This layer is hidden inside the Featured Content layer (I lost the original .kmz file. Seems this was one of the tests using a networklink on the mac side, where, due to a bug, it updates 15 times a second, giving a nicely smooth UGO. Can't use it (yet) for the app though cause it would quickly overload the server)
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UGO point2pointtag:www.usergeneratedorbit.com,2007:/blog//2.2232007-07-24T14:46:44Z2007-07-26T23:16:57ZThe original UGO idea of visualising people's virtual travels in Google Earth (earlier post) is still intruiging me. Its for example quite instructive to see a visualisation of a GE-provided flightpath (Google Earth Orbit?) when flying from say Amsterdam to...
earlier post) is still intruiging me. Its for example quite instructive to see a visualisation of a GE-provided flightpath (Google Earth Orbit?) when flying from say Amsterdam to Tokyo. See this .kmz file for a visualisation of a tour around the world using such virtual point2point travel.
Point2point travel in the real world is considered one of the holy grails of suborbital spaceflight, so it seems only natural that we get used to this type of travel through a virtual interface like Google Earth before we eventually hop on a suborbital Virgin Galactic 1-hour flight from Amsterdam to Tokyo. The actual flightpath of the Virgin Galactic craft of course does not have to resemble the GE-provided flightpath cause the latter is not bound by physics. Would be interesting to do a comparison to see what the GE camera algorithms are based on.
Doing a Google on point2point, I happen to stumble on a new prize announced just a few weeks ago, the v-prize, for a Virginia2Europe point2point hypersonic suborbital spaceflight ;)
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UGO work in progresstag:www.usergeneratedorbit.com,2007:/blog//2.2222007-07-24T14:12:36Z2007-07-25T11:02:56ZIts been a while since I last reported in. Early July, I spent a full weekend working out a way to make the app give its position back to the user in realtime. That's more or less resolved now. Returning...
back in May but pretty soon I found there are still some bugs with the update speed using such a networklink. That's one of the reasons I digressed to c# and a stand-alone GUI. During the weekend, I brought the python scripts back to life with C# simply sending over the GE data given through the API. With the python scripts back in place as cgi scripts on the server, I finally had the pleasure of simultaneously chasing a friend around Google's Earth late that Sunday evening.
From there, I have been playing with the app, looking at intuitive ways to use it. Later in the week, my old former collegue Jurryt Pietersma from NLR joined me in further developing the UGO idea. This is currently still ongoing. We'll be back with more...I've also yesterday got access to a new domain www.usergeneratedorbit.com. Its probably not gonna be the eventual name, but for now its a good ref.
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Creating an installer for UGOtag:ugo.businessconnect.nl,2007:/blog//2.2132007-07-05T00:48:18Z2007-07-05T01:18:11ZTalking with David Massa, a product manager over at AGI who stumbled on my UGO blog, I find out c# doesn't give as quick a build as Delphi did. Given that STK is one of the original inspirations for UGO,...
AGI who stumbled on my UGO blog, I find out c# doesn't give as quick a build as Delphi did. Given that STK is one of the original inspirations for UGO, I am happy to send over a draft UGO build, so I am just figuring out how VisualStudio will actually allow me to do that. Think I figured it out, just needs a quick 'to-be-sure' test tomorrow. Below is a quick throw-up of a couple of UGOs to test the VSsolution-build after installing. Btw, looking forward to that AGI blog David! (.kml file).
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Google Earth camera visualisation part IItag:ugo.businessconnect.nl,2007:/blog//2.2002007-06-24T19:17:37Z2007-06-24T19:35:01ZAlong the same path as the previous post, this .kmz file shows a visualisation of the GE camera movement in the rare case you are planning a hiking trip from Stanford to Stockholm (including the swimming part ;)...
.kmz file shows a visualisation of the GE camera movement in the rare case you are planning a hiking trip from Stanford to Stockholm (including the swimming part ;)
