Public Showing

About 120 people showed up to the Forum. We had to limit the experience to only 6 people at a time and 15 minutes per group. At one point we had a wait list with people signing up an hour in advance to experience it. For those who couldn't get inside, a web cam inside showed the people and action in the room while a second monitor relayed the live 3D AR view so people could still see what was going on and experience it vicariously.

All-in-all about 50-60 people went through. About 6 people stuck around until nearly 10pm when we "dialed in" the secret glyphs to initiate the finale movie.

We had a LOT of compliments and even had the Dean, Carl Bellone, stop by and compliment the project. James wants us to keep it open a little longer. We'll probably do that this coming week then finish documenting it and tearing it down.

Committee Review

Most everything working except the final age secret keys. Have a backdoor allowing us to access the final movie that ties all the ages together, but the movie's sound needs to be re-edited prior to the public showing on June 7th.

Stories Finished

All the movies for the various ages' stories have been exported as image sequences and entered into either the Omphalos DART application or the Oracle DART application. Still working on the sound editing and the final Age movie.

5.1 Surround Sound

Installed 5.1 Surround Sound system for the room. Tested Curtis' readings over it. Sweeet!

VOG ("Voice 'o God")

Got together with Curtis and recorded him reading the Voice Over scripts for the various stories for the Ages. Sounds good. Needs some editing, but will be awesome.

Scripts for the Stories

Finished the scripts for the remaining Ages and the final Content story.

More Elemental Phicon stuff

We reprinted and retrained the phicon marker patterns and tested them. They seem to work okay despite the lower light levels seen as a result of the electronics re-orientation.

Elementals turned upside-down

Checked the wiring for our Elemental phicons. Took the electronics and reconfigured them so that the LED now points up and the battery holder is on the bottom. This prevents the uneven light "hotspot" from the LED seen in the center of the marker pattern before. However, the marker pattern is darker, in general, now due to the change.

AR "Magic Window" Handles

Figured out how to securely attach and engineer a frame and handles to hold the AR viewer in the "Magic Window" configuration.

More Greek Altar Mods

We found that the probability of someone losing the single, central marker on the Greek Altar's tabletop very high while trying to light fire. Therefore, a set of additional symbols were printed, affixed to the tabletop, and trained. Those include four variations of symbols representing Zeus and the three astrological fire signs (Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius). Testing with the added markers seems to show that the 3D objects are securely tracked and anchored at nearly all angles, positions, and orientations around the table.

Earth Age Phicons & AR Power

Finished the other 3 Earth Age phicons (electronics, markers, & pattern training). Wired the battery system for the AR viewer.

Greek Table Fire

The AR viewer with the new lens was having difficulty seeing the edge of the fire symbol on the fennel branch correctly, so it was reprinted with more white space around its edge then tested. Seems okay.

New AR Lens

Attached and recalibrated new lens for AR viewer giving a wider FOV. Unfortunately, we couldn't use the pinhole type because it didn't let in enough light and the image was too dark. So we went with a standard lens.

The Temple

Finished the shrouds and lighting for the Temple environment.

Calibration Breakthrough

Redid the TUI camera calibration with new aspect ratio (640x480) and de-interlace. Worked on the Mayan table facade and cut the renaissance table down to size. Also recalibrated the AR viewer lens. Finished putting faux stone covering over Mayan altar pedestal. Worked on hanging shrouds and spotlights for the environment.

Mayan Table Facade and New Lens Search

Continued working on the Mayan table facade. Also searched for a new lens for The AR viewer. Couldn't find any suitable lens alternatives.

DART Plus the Mayan Table Facade

Did the calibration for the wireless color camera for the AR viewer, with less than satisfactory results. Tested DART's Wizard-Puppet template apps between the two PCs with much better results than between the PC and Mac. Started working on Mayan table facade. Discussed TUI tabletop options in light of our camera problem.

TUI Tests

Adjusted the Earth Phicon file after noticing the strange behavior of two of the faces.

TUI Camera

Changed lens to the wide angle that will see entire tabletop. Troubleshot and retrained Greek phicon markers.

Compuer Problem Solved

Housekeeping

Spent the day reorganizing and cleaning up the installation/old kiln room before we start the last phase of the project(getting it done).

Forum

Presented our project in progress at the forum.

Gavin gave us some tips on how to troubleshoot our non-functional computer.

Took still shots from the video of the calibration pattern for the black and white camera. Here are two versions of the exact same image. One is "as is", or how the camera sees the pattern raw. The other is after distortion factors were computed and then inversely applied so as to "undistort" or correct the image. This is how the video stream is calibrated--basically just an undistort filter applied to the stream before it is fed into the tracking algorithms in DART/ARToolkit.

Installed the latest version of ARToolkit on my mac so we could train the markers in the proper light tomorrow

3D Content

Exported the Greek Man in w3d so that we'll have some augmented content for the AR viewer for the upcoming forum presentation.

Kensington Lock

Got the kensington lock yesterday and today we permanently installed the projector in the old kiln room.

Technology Diagram

Created a diagram showing the technical setup of our project for the research competition and eventually our thesis paper. Completed a mock up of our floor pattern layout in illustrator for the research competition paper. Also started working on the content for the standby mode of the AR viewer.

Age Montages and Research Competition

Stephen started reworking our thesis paper to reflect the development our project has undergone over the last few months. This will also help with our CSU research competition application. I worked on the age montages that will be the standby mode for the AR viewer.

Serendipity at Radio Shack

Went to Radio Shack to buy more pc boards for our tool objects. As we were leaving Stephen noticed that amid the remodelling the store was undergoing, workers were pulling up the carpet pieces. They said we could take them so Stephen went dumpster diving and got aroung 45 1.5 x1.5 foot pieces. We spent the afternoon cleaning them and arranging them in different ways to layou the space of our installation. It really changed the energy of the space. We will probably get some white vinyl to complete the design. Also downloaded and installed Dart on the second PC. Worked on montage for the Greek age.

Camera Issues

Bought the rest of the magnets. Bought some pc boards. Installed the rest of the magnets on the table. Asked Gavin about the Camera for our second PC. The lack of availability of a camera right now proved demoralizing. Picked up an application for the CSU reasearch grant.

First Cube Wired...Success

Wired the first cube(greek/amber) today. It goes on automatically and turns off when placed on our magnet on/off base. Success!

Wiring the First Cube, Testing the Video Sender, etc.

Worked on the art for the tool cubes. Created colored arrows for the table/floor projection. Also finished and glued the Greek table marker down. Tested our new video sender. It performed much better right out of the box than the previous one, however removing the top half of the metal case and replacing it with a plastic one dramatically improved it's transmission power. We still have issues withour portable tv though, and we plan to insert some spacers inside the case to prevent user handling of it from affecting the circuitry inside.