Week 15

26, 27 Jan

Public Holidays!! Happy Lunar New Year!!

28 Jan

Update Kevin early in the morning as we reached the lab. The tasks were split clearly based on the 2 teams. I continued working on the multi-user function. While I was working on the multi-user function, Kevin asked me to run the whiteboard application for single user. He told us that everything is fine except for the eraser which we had to give an online of the eraser so that the user would know the size of the eraser and where they are erasing. 

We had also handed-in our individual write-up to kevin for comments. All of us sat together, including Cheng Teng and Kevin and he asked us to read our own write-up aloud. It has been ages since I last did that, upon reading I had found lots of mistakes and was not really to the topic. Others did their reading too and we all received comments from Kevin. New rules were imposed: Speak only english.

Before I left the lab for the day, I added an outline to the eraser as mentioned.

29 Jan

We updated Kevin on what we have learnt from listening to podcasts and we went on working on our tasks. Leonard and Ryan is researching on the different 3D file formats, Wilson is editing the article and for me, I continued working on the multi-user function.

30 Jan

Today had nothing much, was working on the multi-user function the whole day with the help from Ming Hong but it is more complicated than what we expected.

Reflection:

This week, we learnt about podcasts. The difference between podcasts and the other media is that podcast is total free. We could use podcasts not only for educational purposes but also entertainment. If you do not like some of the podcast that you are listening to, we can just simply unsubscribe it. 

Week 14

19 Jan

We started to discuss on how we should write our article as soon as we reached the lab. We were unsure how we should write it, whether is it better to write it in an question and answer style or as a 3rd person. After discussion, Wilson and I went for a "photoshoot" for Kevin's Lightdraw paper while the rest started on the article.

After that, I went on working on the multi-user function for the whiteboard application and Wilson went helping the rest to do the article. We also tried the Macspeech Dictate, a speech recognition tool for Mac.

20 Jan

Today was spent to work on the multi-user function.

21 Jan

Today is a short day as Wilson and I have to go back to Temasek Polytechnic for a feedback session with the director. I started working on the multi-suer function as soon as I reached the lab since today I'm leaving early. Later Wilson and Ming Hong came and Help out with the multi-user function. I tried to test whether the split()  function in Quartz Composer is working by reading it directly as a string and it was proven that it had worked. With some research done and the help of Ming Hong we found a way to convert string to integer by just adding a "+" sign before the string. 

Then Terence came in and we showed him our progress on the whitebpard application.

After lunch, we left for TP.

22 Jan

Wilson was testing the toggle on/off function in the morning but it does not seem to be working as what it should be. After that I continued to work on the multi-user function for the rest of the day. I'm not very sure what is the problem with Quartz Composer. It hung alot of times today. I'm suspecting that it was the javascript that I was writing was way too long or maybe it because Cheng Teng was encoding the video for Lightdraw in another account. While in the shuttle bus on the way to the MRT, Ming Hong said maybe adding a prev in lightdraw would make life much easier.

23 Jan

Leonard and I started to do some "spring cleaning" at the lab as lunar new year was round the corner and the lab look really messy. Ming Hong started changing the codes in lightdraw, adding a matching algorithm inside it so that doing multi-user function would be easier. 

After lunch, Kevin came it and asked us to tidying up our lab and he is "moving" into the lab. We were split into 2 teams, Ming Hong, Wison and I would be working on the whitebpard application and Leonard, Ryan and Kevin will start working on the 3D loader application. We will only join them after we are done. Our desk and seats had also changed. Wilson and I were shifted to seat beside the Mac Pro and Ryan and Leonard will be using the iMacs.

Ryan had also got himself an iPhone 3G. Kevin started talking about podcasts and told us to look for some interesting one that we had listen and learn from it. We also commented on the article we wrote for the newsletter and shows us some examples of how other had wrote it and wanted us to write our own individual experiences in IHPC which will be due after CNY.

Reflection:

This week, I have learnt that it is not easy to write a good article. This reminds me of what a lecturer had said: "Everybody can read a book, but not everyone can write a book. Even if you can, it may not be a good one". It is unlike the reports we have wrote in schools. We were given a template and we just have to follow it. It definitely not as simple as it seems. 

Week 13

12 Jan

Leonard showed us how we could invert the colours to negative on Mac as should as we reached the office in the morning. When we were just about to go out for breakfast, we were approached by Daryl from Corporate Comms to write an article about our experiences in IHPC for the IHPC newsletter.

We aimed to complete the whiteboard application for single-user this week. 

13 Jan

We went on to test the whiteboard application when we reached the lab and we found problems with the create new pen, drag and draw. 

As shown above, the laser and the image of the marker seems to accurate when its in the middle however as the laser moves up or down, the position of marker went off. Luckily, with the help of Ming Hong, we managed to solve the problem before updating Kevin.

Kevin gave some comments after that, he suggested to change the UI of the whiteboard as it seems to take up too much space. We also discussed on how we should do the multi-user function. After that, I went for the video-shoot for Cooliris and then went on touching up the application with Ryan as Leonard and Wilson went on designing the new UI.

14 Jan

These are the new markers that were designed by Leonard and Wilson. It looks simple and cool. While they were busy working on the images, I started working on the multi-user function for the whiteboard application. As soon as they have finished the images, they showed the images to Kevin and Ming Hong. Ming Hong suggested that they should smoothen the edges of the images and I suggested that we should just use a large-size image for each brush instead of different images of the sizes as it would make the application even more complicated.

15 Jan

As usual, I continued working on the multi-user function with Leonard while Wilson and Ryan worked on the sliding in of palate when toggle on. Then they started changing the images for the palate and brushes and started testing on the sliding palate and they seems to have problems with it. Luckily, they were able to solve it with the help from Kevin and Ming Hong.

Once they are done with it, Wilson and I took note of the new coordinates of the palate and did some testing for the rest of the day.

16 Jan

Ryan went for his NS Medical Checkup today so he was not around. I went on working on the multi-user function which is really complicated whereas Leonard and Wilson went on writing the article for the IHPC newsletter. Wilson and I went on adding some new logic to the whiteboard application such as disabling toggling when dragging or drawing, disable changing of colors and sizes when drawing.

Initially, we wanted to change the "dragging and draw" function but Ryan isn't here so we gave up, afraid that we might mess up the codings. Luckily he was back in the afternoon to help out.

Reflection:

This week, the main focus was to get multi-user function to work and also to complete the whiteboard for single user. Other than that, we have to write an article for IHPC's newsletter which I would consider this week as a hectic one. Luckily, we were able to split the task well making all the tasks given to be completed. However, multi-user still does not seem to be working well. I have also learnt that the design of the UI is also important as it would make the user want to try playing the application one have done.

Week 12

5 Jan
Early in the morning, Leonard and I took the application that we had integrate with OSC and tried integrating with Ryan and Wilson's part. After that, we went on testing our integrated application the 'WhiteBoard App'. Here's a picture of our testing:

After multiple testing ensuring that everything works out fine, we showed Kevin the application we had integrated and Ming Hong came in saying that he found a 'hack' that would allow iSight to work with iGlasses and so after the update, we went to see what Ming Hong had done. 

So these are the plans:

• Drag and draw within the pen
• Transparency of images
• Getting Quartz Composer to work in Cocoa
• Dragging the pen out of the palate
  

6 Jan

I saw the macbook pro that I was using gone from the desk early in the morning. I guessed it was Ming Hong and Kevin who took it to test the iGlasses to change the settings of the iSight to work with lightdraw. Meanwhile was discussing with Leonard on how we should change the thickness of the brushes.

When Ming Hong returned with the macbook pro, I started working with the dragging of the pen out of the palate which in other words, creating of a new pen.

After lunch, 5 of us, including Ming Hong went down to sim lim to purchase the parts to assemble Wilson's new PC and spend the rest of the day assembling the PC.

7 Jan

We were searching for the products that was introduces on MACWorld and we found something reaclly interesting. Introducing the new MacBook Wheel:

BUT this is just a hoax and we initially thought it was real until Bernard told us.

Back to work, we started adding the image of the palate, Change the brush size of the whiteboard application when mouse over at certain area and also chagne the images of the marker when mouse over at some area of the palate.

After that, I went to take a look at what Wilson and Leonard are doing. They seem to have problem with the initial position of the application so I tried taking a look at the Cocoa code and did some changes and it works. This is what I wrote:

NSRect screenRect = [[NSScreen mainScreen] frame];
screenRect.size.width = 1400;
screenRect.origin.x = 1680;
screenRect.origin.y = 0;

However, that's not the only problem. There seems to be problems with the toggle on/off function. Then we went to the pantry for Terence's birthday celebration. After the celebration, we went to take a look at the video shooting for lightdraw

8 Jan

We started integrating all the individual parts into the application. After the integration, we change the coordinates of the functions according to the image of the palate. 

Just before lunch we had a short  lesson given by Ming Hong about matrices and vectors which we had not touch it for quite some time or not touch it before.

9 Jan

The coordinates seems to be off so we change the coordinates. After that, we headed down to Temasek Poly's Open House since there will be a power shutdown for the day.

Reflection:

This week, I have learn more about Cocoa programming and also hardware interfaces. How different hardwares would affect the performance of the computer. I have also learn sometihng about video-shooting and editing. Also, I have also learn something about vectors and matrices althought it was really complicated. These were all the stuff we had learned from our internship this week. Other than that, I have also learned not to leave work to the last minute because the esip system has a time limit on when we can update your task weekly.

Week 11

29 Dec

As mentioned last week, we created a simple application using the patches from GLTools to change the coordinates of the GL Line using left and right clicks, soon as I reach the lab, I started to research more on the GL Tools. We started to create the drawing applications using GL Tools. 

Soon, as we start on it, Leonard found a patch that would allow drawing in Quartz Composer and so, we took the patch, did some modification and it was able to work. Initially, we were trying to draw using only GL Line but the effects was not as smooth as if it was really drawing on it. So Ming Hong suggested we cound draw 2 additional circle at the start and end point of the line so it would look better. 

The original patch was using GL points to draw the image, each coordinates of the point are stored and the more points that are stored, the slower the frame rate. But the modified patch stores only 2 coordinates each time which makes the frame rate to be much faster than the original.

At the end of the day, all least we were able to draw something out.

30 Dec

We continued on our application today, since yesterday we were able to do some drawing, today, we will be doing the erasing function and somehow, it is not as simple as we think it is. Well, we thought its just a change of colour of the brush to black and that colour should be a layer above all the other colours but we were all wrong. 

When we tried erasing using black, it may seems okay but when we tried to draw again using other colours, we realise that the black ink still remain on top. The reason why we had the colour black on top of other layer is because in this way, we can erase any color drawn even after an eraser is previously used. 

And so, we had asked Ming Hong for help, and soon, his solution works! The eraser draws black as usual but it changes the opacity to transparent when it detects black. After few rounds of testing, finally we tried integrating with OSC.

Just before we left the office of the day, we had OSC working with our application.

31 Dec

New Year Eve! its a half day today, we did a few round of OSC testing today and also did some research on Cocoa application as Wilson had a little bit of problem with the toggling.

1 Jan

Happy New Year!!

2 Jan

It's the first day of work in 2009! Kevin and Bernard is back from their leave. We showed Kevin the progress of our application and we went on working on our applications. drawing and erasing are done. Now its changing of brush's colour according to the palate.

After we did the changing of colours, we had it integrated with OSC and Ryan and Wilson to help us as we had to integrate it with theirs too but we had not complete our parts and we did this for the rest of the day.

Reflection:

This week, I had better understanding on the patches in Quartz Composer. I could write simple script in Quartz it could work just fine. My conclusion, things are never easy in the beginning but as you learn on the way, things seems to get a little easier to understand. The lessons and things learnt in IHPC were difficult when we just started, but as we move on, things turned out better. I believe all four of us would agree that the things we learnt are things that are priceless.

*the idling feature should be disabled from esip, the clock hit 12 AM and I was unable to post the weekly reflections after re-login 

Week 10

22 Dec

The four of us will be alone in the lab for today as Kevin is on leave and Ming Hong will only be back tomorrow. So Leonard and I started looking for patches that would allow us to draw in Quartz Composer which is needed for the Overlay Board (WhiteBoard app). 

After some research and trying out some patches found, we found another patch which is called 'Kineme Particles Tool'.  Just before we left the lab for the day, we managed to do some 'drawing' using the patch after some editing to the patch itself. 

23 Dec

We continued testing the drawing function of the application and we found that the frame rate will drop drastically as we continue to draw. We told Ming Hong about our findings and he told us that it was because the patch stores the number of points in order to do the drawing.

And so he suggested us to store 2 coordinates instead of all the points. He also explained how we can use of viewport, ortho in our drawing application. We started create a simple application using all these patches that we change the first coordinates of the GL Line using the left-click and the 2nd coordinates using the right-click with the help from Ming Hong.

24 Dec

Today is Christmas Eve and we will only be here for half a day. We researched more on the use of GL tools because the 'Line', 'Point' will automatically be drawn once the patch is drag into the project.

25 Dec

Merry Christmas!

26 Dec

A day off was given by Kevin

Reflections:

This week, I learn more about GL Tools and a little about 3-Dimensional Graphics. I also managed to get a better understanding how Quartz Composer work and their limitations.