Hope ..

I thought of trying out some crazy experiment that might help us find a good compliant surface for the hardware. We decided to meet in college before our first meeting at ITWorx to integrate our tasks and try them out, also a chance for me to see the results of my experiment. The shock was to find that the hardware doesn't work! All circuit connections were totally messed up. The camera didn't work. It was horrible!

The camera issue was fixed a7l (!!!) The hardware will need a proper reconstruction. Fouad and Mahmoud paid El-Nekheily a visit and bought a few electronic-circuit-slim-boards to hold the LEDs. We tried one of them so far. Using them seems promising.

The good news is: My experiment worked a7l!!! (I'll discuss that in a later post isA)

After the continuous failure to fix things, we had to hurry to ITWorx. Mihan and Essam were so nice, they are so helpful as well. They both mentioned two hardware stores where we might find some parts for our hardware construction. They sent me details to check RS and Maamoun stores; we should be doing that in the coming few days, or after we're back isA.

Meeting Summary:

• Assign roles between us - to be discussed.
• Create a task-list - suggestions: Google Notebook or GoogleDocs (Excel Spreadsheet).
• Start writing the requirements document till we get the templates from ITWorx.
  
• Start writing the WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) of the project.
• Source Control.
• Meeting timing will be changed - hopefully to Tuesday isA.
  

For source control, I will be hosting the source code at home on my desktop PC where I have Visual SVN installed and a dynamic dns account to access it. We will be using TortoiseSVN on each client - tested and working now a7l, just finished that!

Regarding the tasks due last Sunday:

• Fouad: Done - awaiting a live test.
• Roaa: Had a killer bug in the detection code, solved a7l - tested .. Still we have some memory leaks though (undeleted pointers).
• Alaa: Tracker is done a7l! There were some surprising special cases that are handled now - awaiting two live tests: with Mahmoud's application and the hardware.
• Mahmoud: Done - awaiting a live test.

We're kinda behind schedule, and we've got lots to do for the acmASCIS Student Chapter when the next semester starts isA. We will be traveling next week isA. Working on the project will be resumed after that isA.

Back on track ..

We're done with the exams a7l & the so-called vacation has started .. It doesn't seem like anything close to the word "vacation" except that we finally could sleep with no worries that we'll have to wake up & study the next day .. lol

So, next Sunday isA is our first meeting @ ITWorx. We planned a few tasks to finish till then:

• Fouad: Get done with the bottom architecture and the camera issues and fixes ..
• Roaa: Kill all memory leaks and change the data structure for storing the blobs into a linked list ..
• Alaa: The blob tracker!!!!
• Mahmoud: Demo application for visualizing tracked-blobs in terms of (x,y) coordinates for every blob (with ID for each) ..

I have suggested a change to the way we store blobs and discussed that with Fouad, the sorted-linked-list will save us much effort in tracking and will end up with better performance isA (will discuss that in a later post) ..

I also read, again, about how many people convert from FTIR (Frustrated Total Internal Reflection) to DI (Diffused Illumination) - used in Microsoft's Surface Computing btw!

The most obvious conclusion was that FTIR provided better output (fine, clear, well-illuminated blobs) than that of the DI .. yet, it provides worse tracking of "moving" blobs; as it's really hard to move around ur fingers while pressing them hard against the acrylic sheet - with DI u don't even have to touch that hard!

DI is also much easier to "get-it-to-work", even though a practical life-long setup is usually hard enough to accomplish .. the setup of FTIR on the other hand has the only difficulty in applying the theory - a yes/no question ..

FTIR would definitely beat DI if the "tracking" story was solved out - in other words: finding a proper compliant surface, & that is still under huge research so far .. We have a several candidates for a good compliant surface; we're waiting to experiment with them .. (I started a small secret test at home, hope it works!) .. More details about that will be discussed in later posts isA ..

Tim Roth, from nuigroup, has a blog post discussing FTIR vs DI .. Check it out for more details ..

Reminder: We need to find a different time for the weekly meeting (either Tuesday or Wednesday) coz Sunday's causing a conflict with the 2nd semester's schedule!

Sample Website & ITWorx's weekly meeting

ITWorx required that we start a blog (already done; you're here as long as u're reading this), a user-group (we created one) and a website (which is currently under construction).

They have also scheduled our weekly meeting to be on Sunday, 4.00pm to 5.30pm ..
Seems suitable for the first week of vacation, as we shall start on the 27th of Jan isA. We won't make it on the second week for we'll be going on the faculty's trip isA.
There's a chance that we might need to change the time for the weekly meeting if there's a conflict with the second semester's schedule (each two of us are from a different department).

Timeout ..

We're having a break till February due to the increasing intense of the exams which will leave Touchwork at sleep for a while ..

Here are the news updates for the past, unblogged time:

• We now have the project sponsored by Microsoft and ITWorx.
• We have two supervisors from ITWorx: Essam Salah and Mihan Samy, who both seem to be so nice, helpful and interested in our work.
• Project proposal has been updated.
• Our third seminar, which was supposed to be on the 29th of Dec., was postponed to the next term .. a7l!!!!!!!
• So far, we're good according to our time-plan, which reminds me of adding the legend to the proposal as I added the timeplan schedule without one (A).

See ya after the exams .. Ciao!