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More Arduino, Post No. 3

So for a few entries, Arduino has been the topic, and essentially it seems to be the most exciting as the ultimate mash-up, with components that can track, communicate, navigate on their own. Since the quad-helicopter, this hex-helicopter is the most impressive diy by MikroKopter.

MikroKopter - HexaKopter from Holger Buss on Vimeo.

With a solid 30 Minute flight time, imagine a fleet of these conducting an aerial video survey remotely…. okay, that’s a bit much…. or is it? There’s an App For That!
It’s actually an Iphone app game based on similar technology.

Impressed yet? you can get involved at ARDrone.org

Posted 09 March 2010 § Soup-of-the-Day ‡ Comments (0) °

We Need To Know More

In 1992, GIS wasn’t mainstream and in 1994, I remember having discussions as to, it might be better to rip maps from a phone book for Environmental Mapping than developing GIS because in the end, the client’s not buying information, because all we’re doing is “selling man hours.” In ‘96, it was clear that X files was the truth. In ‘98, we didn’t think Windows could get any worst. In 2000, the world was sure to end as time would stop.  In 2002, we morned after 911.   In 2004, I made my first photo realistic, 3D Urban Model of Honolulu. In 2006, Adobe Flex AS3 introduces oops to flash. In 2008, the Large Hadron Collider opens a worm hole and nothing happens. And now, in 2010, even though “Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Software” was published in ‘94 I can get “boot up” using Antorpy, PureMVC, Flex and MooTools.

Posted 02 March 2010 § Soup-of-the-Day ‡ Comments (0) °

Reading: BYO - CNC Machine

Besides Arduino, I am reading about CNC (computer numerical control) machines. Most everyone has seen a 3D “printer” or some form of physical 3D modeling. For the geospatial industry it was just so impressive to see 3D terrain models cut and painted. However, these guys have been so busy for years, and the professional 3D printing machines way to expesive. However, the cnc technology, for DIY, might provide an interesting application of 3D geospatial information systems and a physical model. I have post a review on Amazon.

Posted 01 March 2010 § Soup-of-the-Day ‡ Comments (0) °

Data Visualization Analytics - Grammar of Graphics

Just a quick note, again for a reminder and something I need to discuss again is BirdEye as well as Protovis and anything related to the Grammar of Graphics.
http://dataspora.com/blog/dataviz-sf-salon-no/
http://code.google.com/p/protovis-js/
http://www.jstatsoft.org/v17/b03/paper

order from: Springer

Posted 22 February 2010 § Soup-of-the-Day ‡ Comments (0) °

Arduino, GIS PINS, Post No. 2

I have a wait before I get my first arduino.  So plenty to read up on.  It seems Geographic Information System and Global Positioning Systems are everywhere; But next will be the GIS and Personal Inertial Navigational Systems.  Check out this quarter size Inertial Measuring Unit by SparkFun. 2 axis gyros, and 3 accelerometers.

Posted 02 February 2010 § Soup-of-the-Day ‡ Comments (1) °

Arduino, Post No. 1

For the last week, I was trying to remember the API for working with Micro-controllers called Arduino.  This is a post to help me remember Arduino and why I am interested in Arduino.  First, I like to prototype since it doesn’t require that it works perfectly. However, prototypes are very rewarding, since it helps lay a foundation for doing the real thing.  The Arduino might help me prototype physical projects using 3D spatial information without costing me alot of money, but proving a concept to the skeptics.  And if it doesn’t, I can have some fun with it anyway, while release some stress too.  It would be really exciting to create a GIS Arduino application.  More exciting than coding a tree or drop down menus which sadly is something I like too.

Which brings me to how I remembered this Open Source Arduino project. I googled much about hobbies, kits, geek devices, with API’s for Micro-controllers. I just couldn’t find it, I remembered it sounded like the google’s android phone… which of course it’s not… for some reason I kept thinking of Tejuino, a friends band and fermented tortilla drink, which seemed silly.  However, my search did bring up something about those little tin boxes Altoids are packed in.  Maybe that would let me fit my project in it.  But Altoids sounded familiar because of android.  Surprising, I found “make something out of the Altoid Tin box” as item number 23 on the Geek’s list of 100 Must Do Things.  But down at item 95 is “How To Unleash A Laser Pointers Full Potential”, I just had to know. But there, on “Hack N Mod” listing under the 30-Days most popular hacks was the Arduino Powered 4 rotor Helicopter.  Now that’s cool.  4 rotors can provide a very stable platform, mounted with a remote video camera, and you have your very own Kino.

Although my Associative Memory didn’t kick in completely, I did find some interesting things.

Posted 02 February 2010 § Soup-of-the-Day ‡ Comments (0) °

Away3D, your sisters’ not going to like this…

I wonder why Away3D looks a lot like PV3D? Away3D seems easier to work with.   I think some of the developers started with Away3D or maybe it’s the other way around. Well both are flash based 3D viewers and both are really limited for viewing large data sets.  The main issue is flash does not access the GPU and the flash 3d viewers all rely on the painters algorithm to fake 3d content.

In the past, maybe security concerns or the lack of 3d capable graphic cards kept 3D Viewer plugins from using a more robust 3D engine.  I’m not an expert, although  I have been looking into web 3D viewer technology since 2003.  Because none of the viewers seemed to meet the need, I helped Precision Lightworks prototype a 3D Viewer plugin which I integrated with a Flex GIS application.  Our prototype views large 3D urban model datasets, textured buildings and ground maps.  It does this and a few other things really well.  However, it would be ideal to have a flash based 3d viewer that used the 3D processor which are now on most computers.

A robust Flash 3D engine would be nice, but it would be good to have an underlying access to 3D from the browser environment, so lots of different apps or plugins in different languages could easily get access to 3D features to drive their displays.

Recently, Thunderhead (Mansour Raad) had developed a 3D Route Finder using Papervision3D, which I am a fan of.  But in discussion, he suggested looking into Away3D, so I did.   Away3D provides a professional web presence and good tutorials, but I really was glad to find “Switch on the code” which provides a good tutorial on how to get started.  Away3d comes with zip read and write utilities by Dave Chang which I may have seen in PV3D as well. The comparison needs to be completed yet, however, what really caught my eye was the use of Haxe which does some cool stuff related to OpenGL.

There is not any easy explanation, a lot is going on with the anticipated release of the new web standard of HTML 5, and the subsequent javascript innovations for SVG and 3D content, which is expected to be released mid 2010. This is a huge undertaking, and if “Fully Successful”, makes the use of browser plugins obsolete.  The Khronos Group, who manages OpenGL, is expected to develop the WebGL. The Khronos Group, is porting the OpenGL library to a web standard called WebGL, which will make it possible to access the graphics processor.  You can read about it on Draw Logic.  This isn’t really “news”, since the standard has been under development for sometime now.

However, After Chrome’s release, Google is hosting an HTML 5, SVG, and Canvas experiment, with a moderate list of samples developed by some of the web’s best known web-3d developers.  One of these samples uses Sandy, one of the sisters, to export the Sandy 3D Flash content into JavaScript using Haxe.  (By the way, be sure to check out Mr. Doob’s samples. He’s always modest, and one of my favorites.)

Even Adobe is discussing their concern, and it seems Adobe Flash customers don’t need to worry (i.e. Flash will write IPhone Apps in CS5).  I bet Adobe is thinking “it’s about time” and moving forward with their own plans to expose their own version of OpenGL in AS3.  Remember hydra? Hydra was the first indication from Adobe Labs that Adobe was working on accessing the graphics card

Well, I am sure all of it is going to be discussed at Adobe’s LA 2009 Max conference, so stay tuned.

A parting thought, Adobe Flash Player plugin is going to develop further into the 3D viewer arena as far as I can see, and even new plugins, like Silverlight, are going to fill obvious gaps that HTML 5 and JavaScript WebGL cannot fill.  While Unity3D and Torque 3D present some compelling gaming authoring environments, I feel encouraged that so many innovations are being developed.

Posted 03 October 2009 § 3D Viewers ‡ Comments (7) °

Honolulu Transit - EIS and 3D

The Honolulu Rapid Transit Project uses 3D maps and graphics to educate the public. It is perhaps one of the most innovative uses of 3D urban models for helping people understand where the rail is and how it will impact the community. The website, honolulutransit.org host a map which links to many of the planned stations. For some reason, there is no link anywhere on the site to find it!  Below are two screen shots:

Posted 01 June 2009 § 3D Renderings ‡ Comments (0) °

What? Are You Insane?

I am so glad, I didn’t say this. However, I need to hand it to Tom Arah, he really provided a convincing blog entry. I you haven’t read the blog on “I’m Sorry, Dream Weaver ….” I can’t even write it. You could at least have skirted the “in your face” issue by focusing on the reality of how many tools are needed to actually develop web applications.

Posted 18 March 2009 § Websites ‡ Comments (0) °

Invest Wisely, Don’t Gamble, Promote Health and Prosperity

Wow! It’s good so much attention is being brought to shine on financial guru’s. The buying and selling decisions over other business is not my focus and it’s not my intent to promote a particular investment. But if your growing a company, if we’re successful enough, the test of fire from the short seller is going to draw attention sooner or later. Look, investment money has long been known to be a two edged sword. There needs to be simple values we all agree on. The reason all of us are working is to foster a good life for ourselves, our family, our friends, our neighbors, our world. Yes and eventually our enemy too. Focusing our short lives on a negative outcome is not a good thing. The details of investing our out of my realm to judge. I do believe each of us is called upon to lead with good and right decisions. Those decisions need to be made with honor and in-line with our values. All should do so with a full measure of empathy for all parties and hope their actions are not the root of anyone’s misfortune. I really appreciate this wikipedia article on the subject of Socially Responsible Investing.

Posted 18 March 2009 § Beginners Luck ‡ Comments (0) °