We’ll build our first prototype in a few weeks, stay tuned!

Last blog post, we mentioned that we had encountered some development issues. Those issues has been resolved this week!

When trying to merge the code from the Kinect to talk to the code created using MediaPipe & OpenCV, there were errors with the codes running together. The Kinect’s RGB camera would only run for a few minutes before crashing.

When testing it on a different computer, this issue resolved. Turns out, there was a hard drive issue on the previously tested computer. Therefore, no major change to the code was necessary. When the hard drive was cleaned of unnecessary files and programs, the Kinect stopped crashing. This lead to a speedy development of merging the two codes together!

We are making good progress as we continue to develop the code for actual gesture recognition! Stay tuned for more updates as we get closer to QRB2!

Come to the third week and our first QRB. This week, we presented to a committee of Dr. Karl Gugel, Dr. Philip Jackson, Dr. Jorg Peters, and Dr. Andrea Goncher the current progress of our program and the plans for the rest of the semester. We have received a lot of feedback and suggestions from the committee, some of which are already being used. External reviews and suggestions really helped the project along.

This week, we managed to get the software to recognize the hand in the image captured by the webcam and provide real-time output and feedback on the development side.

At the same time, we also encountered some problems in the actual development. Based on the advice received in the QRB, we will actively seek outside resources and help to solve the problem more effectively. We will continue development and testing over the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

Hello everyone! We are back from break and ready to be productive! Us on hardware have already obtained the Azure Kinect DK and downloaded all the necessary software to start working on the gesture recognition application. The team has started to work on developing software and hardware as a way to kick start building our project.

We started making our plan for the semester to stay on track for building, testing, and debugging. We will presenting our plans on Tuesday during the first QRB of the semester. Stay tuned!

The last big event of the semester, the SLDR(System Level Design Review), will be held next Tuesday, December 8, 2020. Over the past few weeks, we have integrated all of the learning and research throughout the 2020Fall to write an SLDR report draft.

We are also getting ready for the SLDR presentation in the next few days. We have updated the presentation with more visual content to give the audience a more intuitive understanding of our design proposal.

On this Tuesday, December 1, 2020, we have presented it to other IPPD members and received a lot of feedback from them. In the next few days, we will continue improving our presentation content and structure based on the feedback and confirm the final version of the SLDR report with our coach, Dr. Goncher.

Looking forward to presenting SLDR next Tuesday!

This week, the team presented our prototype demo video to different faculty members. We received a lot of valuable feedback on how we can improve our presentation as well as some extra design decisions that will strengthen our prototype.

One design consideration to increase accessibility is to modify the existing Intuiface interface to allow the user to customize the screen to make the systems fit the users ability level. Another design consideration was to also make the buttons on the interface closer together so the user doesn’t have to use too much movement to navigate the system.

As the team moves forward to the System Level Design Review in the next couple weeks, the feedback received will be contemplated.

We hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!

We have started preparing for Prototype Inspection Day. Our presentation will include a video demo of our prototype. The idea is that we set up a projector to replicate the touch table with Intuiface. One of us will act as the museum user and controlling the touch table with the gestures we are planning to incorporate in our system.

Today, November 13, we worked on filming the demo and this weekend, we will be working on editing the video together.

Besides creating the presentation and video demo, we have been working on our Design Report all week. We talked to our coach, Dr. Goncher, for guidance on the best way to make our report flow. We are finishing up the Design Report in preparation for Prototype Inspection Day.

We are excited to show everyone our prototype!

The FLUX team continued to discuss prototype plans this week and identified some ideas. In general, we wanted the prototype to show the audience how our product works, the user experience, and some predictable ways in which the software works.

We will present our prototype in the form of a video demo. Intuiface, the exhibition software used by Harn Museum now, a projector, and a computer will be used to create the prototype. We will show the main interactive gestures in front of the projection and display the corresponding interaction effects through the mouse in the back-end to achieve a kind of “simulated” prototype.

In addition to showing off prototypes, FLUX also hopes to get some feedback from viewers. We want to know if the way we design our interactions is natural enough for first-time users to use them directly and easily. We also want to know if our product is logical, attractive, etc.

With less than three weeks to go until our prototype inspection day, the FLUX team works on a prototype demonstration. We were told that we didn’t need to do work that wasn’t helpful to the actual project for the prototype presentation, but we needed to demonstrate how the product prototype worked fully. So we’re not going to build product models or renderings that will not help the actual project. Given that we have less than three weeks to prepare the prototype, the FLUX team will not plan to complete any mature hardware or software systems. Still, it will demonstrate how the prototype works through existing equipment and software simulations. We may use videos and clips to give viewers an idea of how our product works, but the plan is still updated.

Look forward to our prototype demonstration!

After several weeks of research and preparation, we finally reached the IPPD’s first milestone, the PDR presentation. The FLUX team met with sponsors and liaison from the Harn Museum for the PDR presentation on Wednesday, October 20. The team coach, Dr. Goncher and IPPD Director, Dr. Latorre, also attended the meeting.

We presented all the current research results, project plans, and prototype ideas to the guests. The presentation went well, and we received feedback from our sponsor, Eric, and liaison, Matt. The FLUX team will refine some issues based on the feedback.

Next, we will work on the design and development of prototypes. We look forward to seeing our prototype!