Tanya and I were the only people that came to the mapping field trip. We drove to the proposed location where the project’s narrative will be taking place. Volker brought some form of DJI Phantom drone that holds a GoPro pointing directly at the ground.

The idea is to capture a whole bunch of photos from an aerial perspective and use software to stitch them together to create a huge 3D model of the area. I had wondered if it would be easier for the software if the camera was angled and was able to more easily capture a larger surface area, as well as the sides of any structures on the landscape. It didn’t really matter that much because it was hard to get the drone further than this off the ground. The drone is expensive and it was not handling well with all the wind near the ocean so it was dangerous to take it any higher (we were envisioning a light wind picking up and depositing the drone in the bay).

All was not lost, instead we took a whole bunch of photos of the landmarks nearby. We then used the 123D Catch app from Autodesk to do all the hard work analysing and converting the photos to a 3D model. I’m quite surprised how well it turned out.

The software promises that all you have to do is upload two orbits (from different angles) of the object you want to model and it will create a 3D model. I only did one orbit of each object (less than one in the case of the museum) and it still turned out pretty good. Not great, but it’s definitely something to work with. Besides, a faithful recreation would be boring, it’s much more interesting to look at a melting, deformed and grotesque building.

The one that turned out the best is the tower, probably because it is a simple shape. I was impressed that the software was able to pick out the indentation of the windows from just my photos. I think if I did another orbit, maybe with the camera on a stick, the model would turn out with even better quality. It might also get rid of the strange artefacts at the sky at the top. It is possible to manually remove the sky but having used the software I now have a better idea of how what to capture.

I’m glad COFA decided to take a week off this week, because CSE certainly didn’t. I spent the week frantically doing computing assignments and not much else. Jack worked up the courage (I wouldn’t have) to ask if we could do a more technical assignment and it looks like it’s all going ahead.

Pros: we’ll do stuff like messing around in Unity to deal with projection on the special immersive surface and other cool technical things (this is pretty much the reason I signed up to this project).

Cons: we have to meet up during the holiday next week.

Oh well, I have a feeling it’s going to be worth it. I would love to work with more people from iCinema. I’m looking forward to the drone exercise too, sounds fun.

Generally my presentations are pretty bad if I haven’t rehearsed enough or if I don’t know what I’m talking about. This was one of those occasions. I could tell a few minutes in that my brain was not functioning properly and I was droning on about R’s and remembering and lifelogging while skipping important points and not really saying anything of importance. Luckily I switched tone halfway through and managed to veer on to the topic of Google taking over the world, which stimulated discussion because everyone has a point of view about that.

I discovered in my research that Google’s entire business revolves around logging everything you do and helping you to ‘Remember intention.’ They want to provide all the information you need just before you need it. Pretty handy but most people are afraid of the ramifications of Google’s rampant data collection (and you should be too, with a healthy dose of skepticism and research).

There were other presentations, but my brain was cooling off so I didn’t manage to absorb much from them. I remember there being wine though. And not many people turning up.

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Some key points from the presentation:

There are the Five R’s of human memory.

Recollecting is to do with the location of lost objects, faces, names and specifics like that. An Autographer or SenseCam can help with that. Reminiscing is a specific form of recollecting and is done for sentimental purposes. Facebook is good for this, as is the share functions on most things. Retrieving is for getting specifics like documents or other information. Cloud storage and other business tools are examples of tools that deal with retrieving. These tools are not visually oriented, they are primarily utilitarian. Reflecting is used to discover useful information from patterns in past information.It can be for learning and self-identity. Remembering intention is the final R, its deals with prospective events and planning the future. It is not relevant to the objectives of most lifeloggers, although it seems to be the way online services such as Google are heading.

I wasn’t paying too much attention to this lecture as I was trying to get a boat load of other assignments done for the week. We discussed the project and where the location for shooting might take place.

We watched Memento, which I happened to watch at the start of the course before we had any classes. It’s helped me to understand the how that particular type of amnesia could affect a person, I think the concepts presented by John Sutton and Amanda Barnier were easier to understand having seen the film.

We were also reminded that the assessment task would take place next week. Unfortunately I haven’t yet prepared for it…