A little update on what I am doing. Today is a pictureless day, too bad. Moving away from Mayavi2 I have been moving towards ActionScript and Flash. Why this switch? Well Mayavi2 is a real cool scientific visualization tool, but most of the focus is on on-the-fly visualization of data that is dense, but also a computer that is powerful. This does not really serve useful for the purposes I would want to move towards.
Ok, this took a while but the results are not bad. So I guess it’s worth it. First of all, a big thank you at [Ok, this took a while but the results are not bad. So I guess it’s worth it. First of all, a big thank you at](http://www.gis.usu.edu/~chrisg/) who is very possibly unaware of the fact that I have been using his classes on Python and Open Source GIS.
Ok. 3 weeks down the road of my minor thesis and what do I have to show for? Well, a lot of paradigms and concepts for starters. Furthermore I have never been able to finish a document like research proposal so quickly and of such quality. But enough of that. I have more or less abandoned the idea of a mobile application for now. Because having a mobile application like Junaio scores high on the cool list, it doesn’t really in the sphere of performance and handling large data sets.
It seems that my minor thesis will focus more on the user experience of augmented reality. The EIA’s have raster outputs that can be converted to 3D spaces. These spaces can then be given Locations. The Raster is already georeferenced which would make this easier (I think). The best method of viewing these things would seem Augmented Reality browsers such as Layar or Junaio. So I would have to brush up a bit on what is possible in which browser.
Another consideration is if using Augmented Reality (AR) how to implement it and what method of going about it. ARToolkit has different spin-offs that look quite interesting. One of my favourites are FLARToolkit and possibly SLARToolkit. The flash toolkit. But then I am not very proficient in Flash and ActionScript. Also I tend to avoid Flash as much as possible as well as writing stuff in C#. But the office I work in makes it easier to use C# then any other binding.
A quick update on my project of using a Gaming Engine to process GIS data. After some googling and reading other peoples blogs and workspaces it seems that some engines are more fit than others. Tim Germanchis et al. (2005) has done a brief overview of different game engines for this particular usage. Amongst which are the Quake III, Unreal Runtime 2, CryEngine and others. The CryEngine apparently suited the writer the most.
For my minor thesis I am thinking of a project for processing Environmental Impact Assessment in a way that is more easily comprehensible. For this project I intend to use Augmented Reality. Hopefully some form of 3d visualization. And I am looking at the possibilities of using gaming engines. First and foremost, this is a preliminary research. I am not in any way an expert. And only just learning about the amazing possibilities.
Today I had quite an epiphany while I was working the oven (a gas oven that is). I love gas. It is by far the best way to cook. Electric cooking has always seemed a bit gay to me. And I know usually gays are quite advanced and up to speed with fads and ins and outs. But I thoroughly believe that they are wrong on this account. Electric cooking always requires you to think ahead whilst you are cooking.
Today, after a long time of keyboard-silence, I return with a cheerful blog post on death. Why? Well, yesterday my grandfather passed away, which reminds us of our last foe. He was a (war)hero, at least to me he was. Strangely enough I stumbled upon Johnny Cash album: VI – Ain’t No Grave only an hour after hearing the sad news. This is a beautiful recording of someone who wasn’t afraid of death.
Some things lie outside our command, some things outside our understanding. Or better yet, only some things lie in our command and understanding. Our eyes are limited, and our mind even more so. We see things that are not there, do not see things that might be there, speculate about how events take place in the (Super)Natural world. And all the while we think a real big deal of ourselves, whilst forgetting that we are very tiny.