Week 17

09 Feb

As suggested by Kevin, I am task to add/edit some other functions to make the whiteboard application more 'complete'. I started by adding a timer to disable the drawing function after a period of time. The reason for adding the timer was because the user may forget where he had last drawn on the screen and continue to draw inside the radius which he might not intended to causing unwanted line to be drawn. I was researching on ways I could add a timer into the Javascript patch instead of using the stopwatch as I though it would look even more complicated if I continue to add patches into the composition. I continued to find ways to do it until I realised that I could actually make use of the timer inside the 'idling' function.

After some testing, I continue to work on the "Clear All" function as Kevin does not want the canvas to be cleared only when toggling off. After editing the "toggle overlay" patch with some help from Wilson, the "Clear All" function is now at the bottom right of the canvas, similar to the one embedded in Lightdraw.

10 Feb

Today's task was to enable marker creation on light detection. It was fairly simple to do as the codes are similar to the one used for creating markers while pointing at the palate. However, after some testing, we found problems with the colours of the markers.

The default colour for the markers were set to be white whenever the marker was created on detection. However, when the user changes the colour of the marker, the colour of the marker created on detection remains the colour that was last changed.

With the help from Ming Hong, we decided to edit the "moving" patch to take in the colours of the marker to solve the problem. Soon after, the problem was solved and we creating an offset in the composition to make the markers looks more accurate when drawing and dragging.

I updated Kevin after that and had also restricted markers from creating and dragging at the toggling area and "clear all" area as the user might accidentally create a marker on hold while toggling on the whiteboard.

11 Feb

Soon after I reached the lab, I started testing on the whiteboard application ensuring that there was no other problems with it. After that Kevin came over to the lab to discuss with us on the things we are going to present to Mr Yeak tomorrow. Went over to help Wilson with the rotation problem on the 3D visualisation application.

After lunch, we practice on what we are going to present for tomorrow for the rest of the day.

12 Feb

We did a dry run on our presentation today in the morning. After that, we went on working on our task. After lunch, we cleaned up the lab and went through our task for the presentation. After that, we did another dry run before Mr Yeak arrived. Kevin started introducing Lightdraw and what we had been doing for the past few months. We showed him the 4 player pong, Puzzle game, the tiled display and the whiteboard application.

After the meeting with Mr Yeak, Kevin told me to add a delay to the creation of marker on light detection as user may create a marker by accident. I change the codes before I left the lab for the day.

13 Feb

The task for today was to integrate OSC with the 3D application and  do a videoshoot for the whiteboard application. Leonard and I will be in the videoshoot while Ryan and Wilson will be working on the slides. Just before lunch, I transfer the latest Lightdraw and the whiteboard application into the MacBook Pro and Kevin went on telling us the script for the videoshoot.

After lunch, we took the DV cam, the stand, the laptop and went for the videoshoot at Boltzmann room. As soon as we started to test the setup, we found problems with the whiteboard application. Lightdraw seems to be breaking too often and we are unable to draw. We spent hours trying to find out the problem. Kevin and Ming Hong came to our rescue too. All 5 of us was trying to figure out why the whiteboard application could not draw. Initially, we thought there was some patches missing or Lightdraw is not working well. But done of them seems to be the answer. We went back to the lab and test the application on the Mac Pro and it was working and so we tried launching on the MacBook Pro again and we conclude that it was the problem with the composition. With some help from Ming Hong, we manage to solve the problem. I did not know what was the problem behind it that caused the drawing to fail but it seems that it did draw but it was not visible. 

We rushed back to the room and start on our videoshoot and left the lab for the day.

Reflection:

This week, I learned about making decisions and having a mind of our own. In life, we have to make many decisions, whether it work or school, making decisions is what we could not avoid. It all depends on the mindset of a person, whether you have a mindset of a leader,  a follower or even both. 

We often have a problem of following decisions regardless it was right or wrong. Reason being that often when we were in school, we tend to be with our friends and follow what they do and when we realised that there was a problem, it was usually too late. 

It is important to have a mind of our own and that does not mean that we should not listen to other people's advice. Being able to know what is right and what is not will help us in making our own decision and often, wanting to know what is right and what is not takes time.