Category: Uncategorized

This week we are preparing to launch the alpha but it seems like our group continues to run into issues as we progress through the week, this time specifically with the HoloLens emulator not working with Windows Home edition, but thankfully we finally seem near the end of the tunnel on that issue it seems. I look forward to meeting professor Bailey this week to discuss our plans going forward and figuring out how we’ll progress.

In other news, with the recent storm, I’ve had a hard time getting work done due to power outages and inconsistent internet speeds among other things. The part of Albany I’m in lost power for a good long while and a good friend of mine still doesn’t have power and likely won’t have power until Tuesday at the earliest. I always wonder how something like that can happen and why we don’t have emergency plans in place for large scale power outages, especially since it seems like a little ice is all it takes in Oregon. At least things seem to be calming down now, hopefully they will go back to normal without too many issues.

One of my friends is a 3D modeling major and we’ve been discussing our projects lately since I’m in Professor Bailey’s shader’s class. His work is a lot more robust than mine, but it’s still interesting to see what kind of things can be made through computer rendering, it always amazes me. It’s nice to have friends in different branches of the computer industry to get other perspectives as well, here’s hoping that we both make it out of college alive this year.

Week of 1/25/21 to 1/31/21

I apologize for forgetting to upload Blog Posts up until now, I have continued to neglect remembering to do these due to my other classes applying the pressure on thick this term. I will endeavor to keep up with the blog posts from now on, however!

This term I am taking quite a lot of classes which has added to my stress immensely, especially as the pandemic rages on all classes remain online making things even tougher, but I shall strive to keep up. Our Project has had a somewhat rocky start due to issues with the HoloLens development kit and Unity, but we appear to be proceeding (more) smoothly now. I know that we aren’t expected to produce the best thing ever with a small group of (mostly) inexperienced team members, but it does feel quite stressful when problems arise. Still, I’m sure we can turn things around and produce something great.

For my other classes, I’m trying to juggle Operating Systems 2, Computer Graphics Shaders, and Intro to Computer Animation, which has kept me quite busy this term, to the point that I worry that I’m doing worse in some of my classes due to the extra stress. Operating System 2 has been the bane of my existence, but it seems like an issue with one of the projects that came up so things are changing during the middle of the term causing some confusion on my part.

FOr a fun side project though, I recently put together a Snackbox v2 fighting controller. I’m into fighting games (even though I’m terrible at them) and I wanted to try out the button only layout, so I bought the parts and put them together. It’s been a fun project, wiring up all the buttons and trying to manage the cables to make it work, even though my 20 pin connector was damaged. Thankfully the company sent me a replacement and it works fine now, though I have to get used to a whole new control scheme.

This week has been a bit rough on me with the holiday and all the due dates that are coming up, but at least I did get to spend a little bit of time with my Mom this holiday which I appreciate. I made sure to stay at home though, since the pandemic is spiking up again. Regardless, I got through it and the end appears to be in sight. I’m in the process of moving as well which has made everything feel a lot more overbearing, but I’m sure it will be nothing compared to my Winter Term workload.

After getting to finally meet Dr. Higgin’s we are cleaning up the last bits of our writing assignments for this class, and I look forward to being able to start coding on the assignment next term (I assume). Here’s hoping that it goes smoothly and we are able to deliver a satisfactory system to our client. I’m interested to see how we’ll actually be able to get the data to the HoloLens now, as that seems to be the most pressing issue we are facing, but we already have a few ways we are thinking about tackling it such as using Bluetooth or some kind portable computer like a laptop or even a raspberry pi.

Regardless, I don’t have too much to write after the long holiday weekend, so here’s hoping that finals go well and we get to wrap up the term easily.

This week has been a bit odd, the review assignment has been helpful, but it seems like there was a lot of confusion regarding it, unfortunately. Thankfully with the extension we got and gave some (hopefully) valuable feedback to team MOTUS. I suppose sometimes things like that just happen especially right now during the pandemic. Regardless, it’s interesting to see what other issues different teams are running into and what struggles they have to overcome compared to our project, and how they tackle these various issues.

We also managed to meet directly with Dr. Higgins to discuss the finer details of our project. It seems like we were slightly off base in regards to what he wanted in the end product, but I believe we can easily pivot to accommodate the changes as we already had a good framework in mind. It seems like being able to calculate the displacement and slip strain and being able to see that visually is far more useful than just being able to see the strain gauge output, so now we need to refine our prototypes a bit to account for the new variables we’ll be keeping track of and displaying. We also finally got a chance to see the kind of network we’ll be working with so we can begin planning around how we’ll get the information to the HoloLens as well. It’s a rather old system to interface with, but I’m confident we can find a way to get it working, probably using a laptop or some kind of portable computer to send the data.

Regardless, we have some fun challenges to overcome next term as we begin our development in earnest.

This week has been a simple one, seems like a calm before the end of the term storm so to speak. Next week our team will finally get to meet with our benefactor and take a tour of the concrete strain facility on Tuesday. I am both very excited and also a little worried with the virus spiking lately, but at least according to Professor Bailey they take virus safety very seriously. Regardless, it will be good to talk to the client directly and be able to work out some of the smaller issues as well as see the equipment we will be working with. During some of our earlier submissions we’ve had some issues saying exactly what we’ll be using since we haven’t been able to see it. Plus, going to Corvallis is always a good excuse to get some good food at least (to take home of course).

In the Computer Graphics course, we dealt with Shaders this week and I ended up making something that looked like chewing gum, which wasn’t exactly super appealing but was an interesting effect I suppose. I had a lot of issues with the project but much to my annoyance, it didn’t have to do with my code (well for the most part) but they were due to visual studio this time! I was absolutely lived at how much time I wasted trying to fix the issue when it was simply visual studio not properly finding the shader files. Regardless, I got the project turned in right on time which I’m happy about, and I’m glad that the term seems to be starting to wind down. I’m hoping that its going to be a cold winter this year, if everyone is going to be trapped at home, I would love some snow to play in at least!

This week has been a bizarre one, as it’s kind of seems like everything just slowed down. The election seems to be winding down and it made the week feel agonizingly long, especially with homework at the same time, it just felt difficult to focus this week. But at least it seems like this week’s homework hasn’t been too rough, so I’m taking time to rest up a little bit and get ready for the end of the term. My Capstone group seems to be doing the same, our chats have been mostly quiet while we work on refining the technology research. Meeting with Mike Bailey definitely helped us a lot this week, we were able to clear up a lot about the project and what we need to account for. If anything, our technology review might be a little overkill, since it seems like outside of synchronization with the strain gauges, actually reading and displaying the data should be a relatively simple task code-wise, though I’m sure there will be growing pains with using the actual HoloLens tools once we begin coding. Regardless, I look forward to eventually getting to meet Dr. Higgins and discuss the project with him in person hopefully soon.

In my Computer Graphics class, I’m getting started on the Shaders project after finishing up Lighting. Lighting was quite the pain for me at first, so hopefully, Shaders don’t give me as much trouble. I look forward to getting to the animations part of class soon though, and I look forward to getting to try my hands at more complex movements rather than just making a CG Teapot spin in place. We are also starting thinking about Final Projects and making proposals. For mine I was thinking about making a reference to some kind of game, maybe the Chaos Emerald Shrine from Sonic, or perhaps a Mario Power Star, though I’m not quite sure what my final plan will be yet! Better decide fast!

Week 5 has come and gone, and it feels like it’s been a blur this week. Midterms are in full swing for most of my classes and I can feel the middle of the term fatigue begin to set in as the cold also starts to creep its way in as well. But regardless, I feel like I am doing alright in my classes thus far at least. The coming election weighs heavily on my mind too, and I’m a bit worried about how things are going to turn out.

In my Intro to Computer Graphics course, I managed to pull out a 92% on my midterm which I’m quite happy with, thankfully I have been doing well in that course, especially since it will be integral to my capstone project. My team for the capstone project has been rather quiet this week, though that too is probably due to the extra pressure of classes with major tests this week. Next week we’ll reconvene with Professor Bailey to discuss our project again. I look forward to seeing what happens in the coming weeks, though I hope my workload doesn’t spike too much, as I have a lot to deal with in my personal life right now as well. 2020 is the year that never stops giving apparently, though nobody wants what it has to give.

As a technology aside, I was recently thinking about additive and subtractive color recently due to my CS450 class and thinking about how primary school only focuses on one aspect of color mixing. I wonder why (at least for me) the differences between the two weren’t brought up earlier in my schooling career, as it seems like a pretty interesting topic of how colors mix with light versus with dyes. I actually managed to have an interesting conversation with a friend about that (which might say something about me and my friend and what we quantify as interesting) but it was neat to be able to have a discussion about something I’m dealing within one of my CS courses at least.

Its week 3 and so far, the term has been going well, though I’m definitely starting to feel the pressure when it comes to my assignments now. I still find that doing class entirely online makes it harder for me to focus, I definitely felt like I learned better when I was in physical classes, but my health and the health of my classmates is much more important than my frustrations at online zoom classes. I do wonder how long this kind of learning will be the norm. Will we have some kind of vaccine or treatment anytime soon?

For our capstone project this week we finished writing our Problem Statement for the project, which wasn’t too hard at least. It’s a nice feeling to be able to use the work we had already done on our individual projects and just combine our documents to make a cohesive plan. Thankfully we were all on the same page so it went smoothly, and we got it done quickly and submitted. The individual assignment felt a bit tougher, since it felt like there were less guidelines on how to write the requirements document. I tend to get lost a little bit when an assignment or project is super open-ended, but I managed to pull it together. Hopefully my work will be up to snuff. The technology Review next week seems like its going to be rather involve so I plan to try and get a head start on it if I can (and if my friends don’t keep trying to pull away) and knock it out quickly.

My other classes are going smoothly at least, I’m rather enjoying learning about OpenGL in Professor Bailey’s course. I’d like to look into doing some learning with Blender on the side since 3D modeling seems like a fun (if sometimes tedious) skill to learn. I’ve always wanted to make my own Mario 64 rom-hack or some kind of game with 3d models, so I’d need to get started somewhere!

Hello Again! Week 2 has come to a close and the capstone projects have gotten underway. I am excited to dive into my project, though I am always a bit anxious getting started on something new like this. I hope that this long project will go well and that we will be successful in our endeavors to make an Augmented Reality Software for Concrete Strain Visualization. My Team Members seem nice, and I’m glad that we all share a class together this term (that was actually requested by our project benefactor surprisingly).

Augmented Reality as a concept is really fascinating, and I hope that as time goes on the technology involved starts to become a bit cheaper since I could definitely see myself owning something like a Microsoft Hololens in the future. The possibilities almost seem endless for something like this, from using it to visualize changes at a work site like our project, or even something like giving doctor’s real-time feedback when operating, or even something mundane as a Heads-Up Display giving a user useful information about the weather. I’m excited to see how the technology grows as time goes on and what potential applications people find for it.

I am also glad we got to speak with our project leader, though I am also glad Professor Pfeil made the word count easier on us this time, as the time constraint might have been rather rough with my other classes otherwise. Covid-19 has certainly made classes a lot harder for me to focus on, which I’m not a fan of, I miss being able to go to lectures in person, but I’m glad lecture is being delivered safely at least. Hopefully, I’ll be able to go the distance these last 3 terms, since I’m ready to be done with my education and head into the working world!

Hi! My name is Conner Rhea and I am a student at Oregon State University currently taking CS 461. To this end, I will be writing blog posts here about development and whatever project I end up getting assigned to!

I am currently a full-time student at OSU, and while I was working a part-time job previously at Fred Meyer, I decided to take a step back and focus on my schoolwork since its my senior year and also due to safety concerns regarding Covid-19. I’ve always been a fan of computers since I was a kid, though sadly my parents didn’t support my wishes to study them until I reached college, so I always feel like I’m a bit behind, especially when compared to some of my classmates who have been programming since they were kids! But I’m the stubborn sort, and I’ll claw my way through regardless of how long it takes.

My CS option is game development and simulations. I’ve always been a huge fan of computer games and the joy they can bring to people, though I must admit I am somewhat loathed to work in the industry itself due to a lot of the crunch horror stories I am always hearing about, though one day I aspire to make my own independently developed game! I am also very interested in the application of simulations for important real-world applications such as using projections for building new structures like one of the projects that were proposed or even perhaps eventually working on a team making medical simulations to train doctors which is another application of technology I find fascinating! Regardless, I look forward to one day being able to put my skills to use creating software for people that need it, regardless of whether it’s for fun or for the benefit of others.

For some miscellaneous information about me, I have 2 pet cats, a mother and son duo named Beverly and Maxwell who are quite the handful, and in my spare time lately, I’ve been playing Monster Hunter and FFXIV Online (when I can find the time to do so of course).