Lucie's Weblog

The last recording

Lucie — Tue, 19 May 2009 21:18:22 +0000

There is my last recording for the english class!

I have chosen a monologue in Matrix (the first one). Hope you’ll enjoy it :p
This is my recording!

The second one : low-cost multi-point interactive whiteboard

Lucie — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 23:43:42 +0000

This is my second transcription, about amazing things with the wii remote… !

Hi. My name is Johnny Lee and I’m gonna show you how to create a cheap electronic whiteboard system, using the Nintendo Wii remote. Now, just like my other video on tracking your fingers using the wiimote, this project is also only going to use the infrared camera, built in to the front of each controller. This camera is sensitive only to sources of infrared light, which is why you can track things like the Nintendo sensor bar, light bulbs or candles. So if we wanna track pens on an electronic whiteboard, all you have to do is create pens that emit infrared light. The light pen is composed of an infrared LED, a push one the switch and a connection to a power supply which could easily be a battery. When you push the button, the LED turns on. This is basically an LED flash light in a pen from factory.

If you wanna make one for yourself, you just start of with a … from a normal ink pen and then glue in your components. Now behind me, is a projected image of my computer. Now if I want to interact with that image with my light pens, I have to make sure that the Wii remote can always see the tip of the pen. To do this, I have to put the Wiimote off to the side so I don’t block its view when I’m in front of the projected image. I have made this little stand for my Wiimote, but you can use any material that you have around the house to pop it up on the right orientation. Now when I put it on the shelf, I have to make sure it’s pointed at the screen so it can see the whole area. Now it’s important to remember that the Wiimote has a field of the view about 45 degrees. So make sure your back far enough to see the more screen but not too far back, cause otherwise you lose tracking resolution. Once I connect the Wiimote to the computer Bluetooth, I can do a standing 4 point touch calibration like they do on most electronic whiteboards. What this does is it maps, the camera coordinates to the projector coordinates and now the cursor will show up wherever my pen is, and I can simulate a mouse, or draw in a drawing program or manipulate my windows.

One nice thing about using the Wiimote to do this, is any surface I can project onto, I can basically turn it into an interactive whiteboard. Now what I have here is a projector mounted onto a tripod which is kind of a generally useful thing to do anyway. And its now pointing at this table top, and the Wiimote is actually attached to the projector so we can have this top-down view of this display. Again, after I do the four point touch calibration, I can now use my pen just like a mouse, and I can interact with my table like it’s a multi thousand dollar interactive whiteboard. Additionally, because the wii remote can track up to four points simultaneously we use two pens. This is actually a multi touch interactive system.

If you don’t happen to have a projector, you can still use the same technique with a liquid crystal display. You simply mount the Wii remote, point it at the display, and then do our 4 four point touch calibration. Now, we can essentially turn any liquid crystal display into a multi touch tablet surface.

So that’s how with a Nintendo Wiimote and some infrared LED light pens you can created your own really low-cost multi touch interactive whiteboard system or multi touch tablet PC. Now, in truth, the tracking resolution you’re gonna get of the camera is not gonna be as good as one of the commercial products but it’s pretty good, and it’s much much cheaper. So I hope you’ve enjoyed this video and if you like to try the software, you can go to my website and download the copy and try it for yourself. Thanks for watching.

The first transcription : head tracking with the wii remote

Lucie — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 23:39:36 +0000

This is the video I transcripted, and below, the text ! Have fun !

Hi. My name is Johnny Lee, and in this video, I’m gonna show how to perform head tracking, and create desktop virtual reality displays, using the Nintendo Wii remote. Now first what do I mean by desktop VR display? Well, if you think about most computer screens, they typically use the display of flat image, a little bit like this picture in this picture frame. Even if the picture is of something in 3D like a video game, the picture is still flat so it doesn’t change, depending on what angle you view the screen at. A desktop VR display, however, is a little bit like taking the picture out of the picture frame, and then just having the frame. Now the scene actually changes depending of what angle I view the screen at. So this essentially becomes a portal or a little window into another room. Now to do this, the computer needs to know the location of your head, relative to the screen, and this is called “head tracking”.

Now to perform head tracking, we’re gonna be using the Wii remote and the sensor bar, but we’re actually going to be using them backwards. We are gonna put the Wii remote, next to the TV and actually move the sensor bar instead. The Wii remote, actually contains an infrared camera, and the sensor bar is simply two sources of infrared light.

When the camera sees the two dots of light, it’s gonna give an approximate location of my head, horizontally, vertically and in distance from the screen.

Ok, the tricky part is now we’re going to have to find some ways to mount the sensor bar onto our head. One common trick is to get a baseball cap, and then mount the hardware to the cap and this is definitely going to work but it’s a little bit goofy. So instead, some hardware stores sell these safety glasses, with LEDs built in on the side meant to be used as headlamps. Now if you replace the LEDs with infrared ones, you essentially get your headmounted sensor bar, in a nice sporty safety goggle form factor. Once we have created our head mounted sensor bar, and have connected my Wii remote to my pc, we are ready to do some head tracking Behind me, is a demo program of a 3D room, with some targets floating in it. Now because the effect only works to the person wearing the sensor bar, I’m gonna have to show you the effects, through a moving camera.

Now to do this, I’m literally just going to hold the sensor bar at the base of the camera and move it around. Just a quick note, to power the sensor bar, I simply turn on my Wii, after I’ve connected my Wii remote to my pc.

First, I’m gonna show you what it looks like without head tracking, which is what displays normally look like. You can see that although it’s a picture of 3D room. The image looks very two dimensional and bound to the surface to the TV.

Now with head tracking turned on, the TV actually looks like the entrance to a real room, just like in real life, by moving our head around we can look behind objects. If you look really closely, some targets actually appear to be floating up in front of the screen, reaching into the real world. If we get closer to the screen, we get closer to the objects, and we can even get behind the ones, floating in front of the screen.

As I pull the camera back, keep an eye on the front most target. Head tracking provides the illusion that the target is actually floating directly above the laptop screen, far in front of the TV. Now using this picture of a football stadium, if you move right, you can see more the field, if you move left, you can see more the stands, and if you get closer to the screen, you see more of everything just like a real window.

If I use my IR glasses and keep the sensor bar on the TV, I can use a second Wii remote to point and shoot like any Wii game, while also doing head tracking, so now ducking and shifting your body is actually meaningful to a game. You can also see now, how the perspective is incorrect if you are not the one wearing glasses.

So head tracking for VR displays is only gonna work for one person at the time, but for that one person, the 3D experience is gonna be far more realistic and immersive, than anything else we see in homes today. So if you are watching this and you are a Nintendo Wii game developer, I want to see some games. Anyway, as usual, you can visit my website to download this software and find out more information about my other Wii remote projects

Thanks for watching.

Stand by me

Lucie — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 13:43:22 +0000

I really like music and especially playing guitar and someone sent me this video. I wanted to share it because I think it’s really moving… The same song, all around the world, sung by very different people.

TOTO – Africa

Lucie — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 13:22:58 +0000

I found this video last week, and I think it’s pretty amazing the way of playing… This guy is so talented! He is alone but he plays everything, it’s so similar to the real song… For me, the most impressive is that this video last more than 4 minutes and during all this time he keeps being passionate and concentrated. I love this video…

World of Warcraft

Lucie — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 12:55:22 +0000

Hi !

As everybody knows, I’m a World of Warcraft gamer

So that’s why I did a presentation about this game. And now, I suggest you this video. This is an advert for the game, with Verne Troyer, an american actor. It’s pretty funny because in real life he is a dwarf and in the game his avatar is a gnome, the shortest race of the game. Moreover, thanks to this video, you can discover the environment of the game, and particularly the Mage. This class is very popular and amusing because you have a lot of powers as sheeping (turn somebody into a sheep!) or freezing.

Corrections

Lucie — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 19:06:27 +0000

First of all, I read Ludivine’s blog.

Few students had ever been to her blog to clean it up so I just noticed she used “interessant” to say whereas I though we had to say “interesting”…

Next, I was on Marilyn’s and Mathieu’s blog in which I found no mistake.

Finally, on Matthieu’s blog, all the mistakes had been corrected by the other students.

Congratulations for your blog

Transcription : The linguist

Lucie — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 17:51:35 +0000

Hello, this is Steeve Kaufman here.

I’ll talk about something a little different today, … related to language.

We’re here at thelinguist.blogs.com

Today I went for a haircut. My barber talks a lot. Sometimes he even stops cutting just to talk which I find mildly annoying.

On the other hand I am always entertained for thirty minutes while he cuts my hair. He does a good job and charges me 18 dollars which is not the cheapest but not the most expensive haircut in Vancouver.

He told me that he came to Canada as a 16 year old 20 years ago. He went to hair dressing school and then worked for a chain of hair salons for 5 years in different locations in the city.

He got to know the personalities of different kinds of clients. He did not like working in the heavily Chinese district of Richmond because in his words the customers would arrive late and expect to be served right away. If they were not served immediately they assumed that the customer who was being served in their place had paid extra. He did not like the pressure of that situation.

He eventually opened his own shop in North Vancouver. He said that he made sure to learn all about the subjects that his clients were interested in from fly fishing to the stock market. He knew that if customers liked him they would come back.

After 20 years in Canada dealing with English speaking Canadian clients, his English is just terrible. His pronunciation and use of words, structure, you name it, are all quite poor. When he talked about a leading politician and his wife, “he” and “she” were regularly used wrong. I had trouble understanding whom he was talking about. People who are not used to Chinese accents must have trouble understanding him. His English is poor even by the standards of his native Hong Kong.

So what is the conclusion? He doesn’t represent everyone but just being immersed in the language and talking the language will not necessarily improve your language skills. You need to want to improve. You need to have a deliberate program of improvement and you need to listen.

On the other hand, my barber has been successful at building up a customer base and he did not seem to feel inhibited in any way by his poor English. He was a communicator although a better talker than a listener. I have not suggested to him that he join The Linguist.

Video about a web design company in Montreal

Lucie — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 09:55:29 +0000

*****

If only I could be their project manager…

Me and my life!

Lucie — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 20:29:59 +0000

You want to know who I am?! My name is Lucie and I’m a student, at the engineering school IMAC next to Paris. This school is a mixt between multimedia, video, web development : an artistic and technical school. I’m very interested in creating, developing, and realizing multimedia projects like websites or movies.

I will post an audio presentation of myself, when I will find how to post it !!!

See you soon…

This is My presentation