Back in March I helped out and participated in the HUB Mall Lighting Design competition, organized by Mel Geary.
The goal of the competition was to encourage experimentation with the new ETC Ion lighting console purchased for the FAB Media Room, while also allowing students to explore moving light fixtures, lighting pre-viz using ESP Vision, experiment with possibilities of the HUB Mall LED lighting rig, and of course to spur a bit of department competition!
My design was a series of chase effects programmed as step cues on the ETC Ion, all fired through QLab using Midi Show Control, timed to the music video, I Love Cats by schmoyoho. I also built the entire show exclusively using the off-line editor.
The winning design by first year BFA Theatre Designers Camille Maltais and Cheyenne Sykes earned them a free 1-year license of ESP Vision.
Overall it was a great experience, and plenty of HUB Mall residents poked their heads out to check out the shows. Typically the LEDs installed are operated at less than half their potential output, so the full-intensity fixtures were quite dramatic. We did have a few issues with some fixtures not responding correctly over DMX, probably due to the length of the runs and speed of data changes used. The wireless DMX transmitters/receivers we used to link our control station and the projection/I-Cue station setup mid-mall worked well though.
During my time at Gull Lake Centre, I put together an interactive worship experience during Senior Teens 2012. Put together in just a day using equipment on hand, the installation focussed on the theme of “light” in scripture, both in word and in environment.
Three LED PARs lit the room in different colors, and responded to the voices of people sitting in the room, as well as movement on the three video cameras. Verses could be read aloud, which colored the screens. Three video cameras captured movement in a unique way and relayed them to the three projectors.
A while back I made two quick bookmarklets to instantly get to a site I know exists, or find images of on the web.
The first, LUCKY, will prompt for a search, then instantly take me to the first result on Google (this is known as an “I’m Feeling Lucky” search!). For example, if I want to hear a song I like, I can type “youtube my favorite song” which typically gets me straight to the music video. Or, I if I want to see the Wikipedia page on mallards, just type “wiki mallards” and bang, you’re there!
The second, IMG, will just do a search for images on Google and display the results, but is handy in-class to find an image to complement your notes.
On Safari, they’re extra-great because if you put them in the first nine spots in your Bookmarks Bar, you can quickly activate them with Command-#. I’ve put LUCKY and IMG as Command-1 and 2.
Drag these links to your Bookmarks Bar to use them.
Wave consists of many different hardware and software technologies all working together to create a final product. Many different students and faculty members contributed to the final project. Below is a summary of the components I worked on.
First is a very brief video showing highlights from a portion of Wave’s development. View the full clips on YouTube.
Web App
The WaveArt.ca web app is the gateway to interaction.
Wave, the day before launch
When tapping on the “Interact” action item after scanning the QR code on-screen, they are taken to a grid of thumbnails representing the grid of cameras waveboard display. These thumbnails resize to fit the user’s device, and add labels if screen real estate permits. When tapping on the thumbnails, a request is sent to the server to “play back” the webcam on the waveboard. Should the webcams change, as they do every few minutes, the thumbnails automatically reload on the device to remain consistant with the waveboard.
When the user scans the QR code on-screen, a waveling ID and color, which is always visible at the top of the device, is assigned. Their session times out after a period of time to reduce conflicts. It is based off WebApp.net, a framework for developing mobile web applications.
Quartz Compositions
A Mac Mini running Quartz Visualizer
On the Wave Mac Pro (Wave-1), the webcams and poetry are rendered using the 8-core processor coupled with two high performance graphics cards. Quartz Composer is a visual development environment that allows complex graphical operations to be created without the need for traditional code. Despite the visual programming environment, Quartz Composer uses the same native graphics libraries in Mac OS X, which is entirely hardware accelerated.
The first composition polls a script on the local machine to generate the webcams, their names, and a word cloud related to the webcam. A MySQL database, stored on an external web server, serves as the central repository and communication between Web App, Quartz Composition, and the Wave Admin interface.
Real-time actions, such as a user tapping on a thumbnail or scanning a QR code, is activated by using the OSC patch in QC. When the user taps on their smartphone, a request is sent to a remote server, which checks the status of Wave-1, then relays the webcam request to Wave-1′s built-in web server. A PHP script on Wave-1 uses an OSC library to send out the message to the QC composition, and “playback” of the webcam is initiated. Despite the numerous “hops” needed to achieve this operation, interaction is very responsive.
Wave Admin
A view of the Wave Admin UI
In order to maintain state and store complex information about the 500+ webcam collection, an external MySQL database manages most of the data associated with the webcam composition. Scripts on Wave-1 poll all webcams worldwide every 20 minutes, downloading and storing their full size images, and generating appropriate thumbnails for the Quartz composition and web app. Each webcam’s status is verified, and cross-checked with their predecessors to ensure that the webcam is not dormant. If the webcam has not been updated in a significant amount of time, it is suspended and not checked for 24 hours to reduce bandwidth and polling time. Suspended cameras are pulled out of circulation so they do not appear on the waveboard.
Wave downloads about 1000 images a day, or about 1 gigabyte of data to keep its information current, and emails the creators when it goes offline or has an error. Wave changes colour throughout the day, and turns off automatically at night to save energy.
All of this information can be managed from the Wave Admin web interface.
Hardware
Wave contributors place the last cover, sealing up Wave
Two 60″ LCD displays are used in Wave, connected to the Mac Pro via HDMI. A Mac Mini powers a third, smaller display, which provides patrons with facts and information about the installation. Finally, a fourth monitor is setup inside for administering Wave both locally and remotely.
A private Wireless LAN is used to join the two Macs and allow administration. If one computer has become disconnected from UWS, the other one can be used to reinitialize its WiFi connection.
We’ve recently improved Bearbook Books to allow students to list their textbooks for sale quickly and easily, with any ads being shown directly to students who will be needing them for their courses.
Listing a book for sale on Bearbook Books is quick and easy!
Our Fall poster campaign kicked off today, with about 100 posters being distributed all over campus. We even reused the old ones from last year to save paper! Around the same time, we pushed right past 8000 users on Bearbook!
A few of the 100 Bearbook Posters distributed during the Fall campaign.
As a last bit of news that came as a bit of a surprise, Bearbook is featured twice on the brand new UAlberta.ca website! Bearbook is listed under Student Involvement on the Current Students page, and under Featured on the Keep in Touch page. Thanks to Jennifer Chesney at U of A Web for all the support!
Bearbook featured on the new UAlberta website.
Bearbook listed as Student Inolvement on UAlberta.ca
Via Flickr:
Folk artist Elise LeBlanc performs for LTDs (Leaders in Training and Discipleship) on the beach at Gull Lake Centre near Lacombe, AB.
I have been working at Gull Lake Centre for the summer, putting together videos and shooting photos for all the campers who come through the gates. It has been a wonderful opportunity to practice my photography, especially on days like these!
Wave was unveiled in the atrium of Enterprise Square (old Bay building in Downtown Edmonton, owned by U of A). Several convention attendees and students of the MACT program, along with friends and colleagues attended the launch and tried their hand at being a “waveling.”
Wavelings can connect via their smartphones, tablets, or traditional computers to a special web app, which allows them to explore webcams from all over the world, based on the McLuhan concept, “the global village.”
They can also view their image as a silhouette amongst a series of “renga” poetry written for Wave. This interaction explores McLuhan’s “the medium is the message.”
The Wave will be in Enterprise Square until November 2011, and will be continually updated and developed with software and hardware updates though out its stay. Stay tuned to the @wave_art twitter page for the latest news.
After about 6 months of waiting (which seemed pretty out of character) my Panic goods have finally arrived!
-Transmit (FTP client) stylized T-shirt
-”Loading” T-Shirt (been wanting something this geeky for a while!)
-Team Panic T-Shirt
-Full set of 4 Panic faux game boxes (so awesome!)
If you have never heard of Panic, they’re a great Mac software company that has been around since the beginning. Personally I use Transmit and Coda on a daily basis for all my website development work.
I finally opted to re-invest in some new photography equipment, this time in the optical area.
New Nikon 35mm F1.8 Lens
I contemplated between the new 55mm and the 35mm, since the 55mm certainly has a unique close-up perspective (and from what I understand a slightly better portrait shot) but since I already have a 55mm in manual form, and 35mm seemed a bit more versatile, I opted for it in the end.
Nikon E-series 50mm F1.8 (film, full manual) Tokina 80-200mm F4.5 (film, full manual) Nikon 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 (kit, full auto)
Most of my comparisons will be to the kit lens my D40 came with, the 18-55mm stock zoom that is pretty much the cheapest lens Nikon sells. My first impressions are that this thing produces very sharp pictures. Perhaps I just haven’t picked up my DSLR in a while, perhaps I just haven’t been using RAW often enough, but these look pretty sharp to me. Thanks to the F1.8 aperture size, plenty of light can enter the camera in low light, which makes it easier to capture a shot without dropping shutter speed to blurry-inducing levels, or increasing the ISO on the rather limited sensor of the D40.
To compare, check out the two shots below, first with the 18-55mm at about 35mm at F4.6 (largest allowed at this zoom point) and 1/200 shutter speed. The next is the same image shot wide open (F1.8) with the 35mm prime. Both were shot at ISO 800 on the D40.
Shot with 18-55 Kit lens (F4.5 1/200 800)
Shot with 35mm prime lens (F1.8 1/200 800)
My goal was to be able to shoot in lower light without being forced into high ISO ranges, so this should help out quite a bit.
I just performed a quick checkup on the TV Wall setup at EIA. Everything was running quite cool with no burnt out devices or overheating. I realize I didn’t checkup on the DVD equipment tucked away underneath, but they were running smoothly until now.
The three key tasks were to shift the TVs over slightly to improve symmetry (not possible before as we lacked a wooden wedge), flip the light strips to improve continuity and cable management, and adjust the volume on a pair of TVs so that it is audible through the case.
All of it took just under an hour, and I managed to wipe down the static-charged acrylic from dust at the same time.
Reactions have been very positive; as several people shot photos while I was servicing, and the MasterCard saleswoman told us it’s a big hit with travelers. She even picked up a book on McLuhan!
The TV Wall is on display in the departures lounge of the Edmonton International Airport until November 2011.
Back in March I helped out and participated in the HUB Mall Lighting Design competition, organized by Mel Geary.
