2012年2月3日

Video projection mapping test

Video projection mapping has been around for the last few decades, but it is only in recent years that the technique to create dynamic projection installations. Amazing projections have been made for advertising purposes, and they work in giving the audience a huge impact with the illusions possible.

Video Mapping BLOG has an extensive list of such video projection projects made all of over the world, and inspired by them, Eyes, JAPAN has jumped onto the bandwagon.

I have played around and tested projection mapping onto two walls in the basement of Eyes, JAPAN’s office. From my quick research, most use VJ tools like VPT, Modul8, etc, but I did not have the luxury of time to play around with new tools for the time being. I made do with what I had – Autodesk Maya 2012, and Mitsubishi’s XD600U-G projector. There was lots of trial and error, and some cheating, but the simple test looked great!

In the near future, I will be testing the possibilities of projecting anaglyph (3D onto 3D geometry!), and I also like to look into how VJ tools can improve my workflow for larger projects. A how-to/tutorial will be shared web3dnews.org soon. Look forward to it!

Ying Tong

投稿者 yingtong : 18:15 | コメント (0) |

MOD Live

先日、Eyes, JAPANの社長である山寺さんが会社へ持ってきました。そのとき少し興味を持ったため、調べたことを書きたいと思います。

MOD LiveとはRecon Instruments (カナダ) が販売を開始した、スキーゴーグルなどに内蔵するAndroidベースのコンピュータです。速度や高度、気温、GPSナビゲーション、ジャンプの滞空時間 や距離・高さの表示などの基本機能があり、リアルタイムで様々な情報を即座に見ることが出来るます。また Bluetooth で接続することで、着信通知や発信者IDの表示、通話、テキストメッセージの表示やプリセットから選択して回答といったことも可能になります。操作はリス トバンドなどに取り付けるリモコンで行う仕組みです。なんといっても、これの興味深いところはリアルタイムでそういった情報が視覚的に取得出来るというこ とでしょう。Androidベースということで、開発次第では様々な情報が非常に効率的に直感的に即座に知ることができる可能性もあります。そういった意 味で非常に興味深いものだと思います。

もし機会があれば、いろいろやってみたいと思います。

投稿者 nagamine : 0:04 | コメント (0) |

2012年2月1日

比較

会社にも新しいデザイナーが増え、職場がより画期的になってきました。ですので僕のデザインに対する最も重要だと思う事を述べます。少しでも参考にしてくれればな、と思います。

——

デザイン、及び生産物において最も重要すべき事は“比較”です。

日常使っている製品や、広告等をいかに消費者目線からデザイナー目線に切り替え、分析し現在時運が行っているプロジェクトと“比較”するか。

これはより良いデザインをするための必須条件です。

戦争で大砲に的を当てる時、一発外したら、二発目は真逆の方向へ弾を撃つそうです。

要はその誤差範囲から焦点を絞り、徐々に的へ近づけていくからです。

“比較”も同じです。

良いもの、悪いもの、美しいもの、力強いもの、色々なものを“比較”し、自分のデザインがどの位置にいるのか検証しながら進める事で、より市場に認められるデザインに近づけていく事が重要です。

これらを意識する時に、脳と眼の感じ方を変えましょう。常に「これって何故こうなってるんだろう？」を解決していく事が重要です。良いものを見たら「どうやってるんだろう」、悪いものをみたら「どうしてこうなったんだろう」と常に意識にアンテナを貼る事が、よりよいデザインを産み出す為の第一歩でしょう。プログラムも原理は同じだと思います。

皆さん是非自分のアンテナの感度を高めましょう。

余談ですがこのブログのデザインも変えたいと思ったのですが、これ、1997年からずっとこれなんですね、恐ろしい…。残しておくのも意味があるなー。

投稿者 gyoda : 11:00 | コメント (0) |

2012年1月31日

You Have No Mails

Email is one of the most used forms of communication for many people in the internet. Even without taking Spam as a factor, the amount of email we have to cope with everyday has become overwhelming for many users. Sometimes people are even afraid of opening their email client in fear of the great number of (unread) emails that have accumulated in the inbox.

Besides the usual tips for unsubscribing from unnecessary mailing lists and using the anti-spam functionality of one’s email client there are other things one can do. The main problem is not only the amount of emails coming in, but the non-existence of a storage logic to organise the email flow.

As proposed in David Allen’s book “Getting Things Done“, a very efficient way of managing emails is to basically split emails into four categories for which you might have special folders in your email client (this is not a citation):

• Waiting for reply
• Needs an action of myself (which takes more than 3 minutes)
• Archive
• Irrelevant

As soon as a new mail is noticed in your inbox take a look at it. Don’t push it back with thoughts like “Oh, those 2 mails I can take care of later”. Check the email as soon as you notice it and think about into which category you can put the new arrival.

An email that is of no interest whatsoever after you read it, delete it immediately (TRASH). An email that needs you to take some action should be processed immediately if the work to be done doesn’t take you longer than 3 minutes (delete it afterwards or move it into ARCHIVE if you need it for future reference). If it takes longer you can move it into a folder named ACTION to take care of once you have enough free time on your hands. Emails that you cannot process because you have to wait for a reply of a third party should be moved to the folder WAITING.

With this you will keep you inbox empty at all times and store the emails which you really have to take care of neatly in distinct folders. You should make it a habit to check those folders (INBOX, WAITING, ACTION) regularly and process them as soon as possible. The empty inbox will help you to stay focused and your mail client will not give you the shivers every time you open it. Just like your clean and organised desk at which you are working

投稿者 sascha : 17:18 | コメント (0) |

2012年1月27日

臥薪嘗胆

Some days ago, a Japanese friend posted the phrase on the facebook. At the beginning, I was surprised that he knew the Chinese phrase.  After I searched in the internet, I found that it also is used in Japanese.

The Japanese explanation is short, it is 辛苦に耐えて雪辱を期す. Mean that perseverance; endurance of hardship(s).

The story behind the phrase is interesting and can give a lesson to the people who are trying to get success.

During the Spring and Autumn period （770－476BC）, the State of Wu launched an attack against the State of Yue. The King of Wu was seriously wounded and soon died. His son Fu Chai became the new King. Fu was determined to get revenge. He drilled his army rigidly until it was a perfect fighting force. Three years later, he led his army against the State of Yue and caught its king Gou Jian. Fu took him to the State of Wu.

In order to avenge his father’s death, Fu let him live in a shabby stone house by his father’s tomb and ordered him to raise horses for him. Gou pretended to be loyal to Fu but he never forgot his humiliation. Many years later, he was set free. Gou secretly accumulated a military force after he went back to his own state. In order to make himself tougher he slept on firewood and ate a gall-bladder before having dinner and going to bed every night. At the same time he administered his state carefully, developing agriculture and educating the people. After a few years, his country became strong. Then Gou seized a favorable opportunity to wipe out the State of Wu.

Later, people use it to describe one who endures self-imposed hardships to strengthen one’s resolve to realize one’s ambition.

投稿者 will : 17:29 | コメント (0) |

2012年1月26日

How to store custom binary builds in a convenient way

Reason

Recently, I found myself in building an creating dozens of binaries for the same project which I had to test simultaneously, so obvious task for me was to make it more convenient and efficient way.
Note: this post might be interesting for those who knows how command-line magic works

Use-case

I like examples. It’s always better to show once, then explain in theory again and again. Last time I was building mesa library from sources, so let’s use this as an example for this nice blog post.
Usual sequence of commands for building something from sources:

$: ./configure
$: make
$: make install

With this setup, however, majority of applications are installed to “/usr/bin” or “/usr/local/bin” , i.e. system-wide. So, unless you absolutely sure that it works, it is better to test stuff locally, say
in your own user’s home folder. To do this, we supply ./configure script with “–prefix” option, where we set path below which we would like to install files. I usually, put such kind of stuff to “$HOME/opt”
directory. There I put stuff I don’t want to install system-wide. Going back to our use-case, and assuming that we testing how mesa library would build, let’s assume we have 7.11.1 and 7.11.2 versions.

So, we will build them like this:

For 7.11.1 version:

$: ./configure --prefix=$HOME/opt/mesa/7.11.1
$: make && make install

For 7.11.2 version:

$: ./configure --prefix=$HOME/opt/mesa/7.11.2
$: make && make install

Then if we look inside the “$HOME/opt/mesa” we find the following structure:

$: ls -1 $HOME/opt/mesa
7.11.1
7.11.2

Now we are at the goal of this blog post. How this setup is easy for testing? Answer is obvious: It’s flexible!

Let’s create symbolic link to the library version we would like to use:

$: cd $HOME/opt/mesa
$: ln -s 7.11.2 current
$: ls -1a
7.11.1
7.11.2
current -> 7.11.2

The we can enable library from within .bashrc or .bash_profile ( in case of BASH shell ) adding lines below:

$MESA_HOME=$HOME/opt/mesa/current
$MESA_LIB=$MESA_HOME/lib

# In case of Linux
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$MESA_LIB:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

# In case of Mac OS X
export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=$MESA_LIB:$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH

Conclusion

Setting up custom builds one makes in his home folder is very flexible and reliable if done this way. Mainly because
all the build are installed below specific directory and already categorized. Also, when one needs to select different version all he need to do is
to delete existing symlink at “$HOME/opt/mesa” and create new one, running “ln -s current %some other version%”

投稿者 denvazh : 17:10 | コメント (0) |

2012年1月25日

医療ハッカソンに参加してみませんか

来たる２月２１日・２２日、医療機器関連産業の展示会であるメディカルクリエーションふくしま2011が日本大学工学部において開催され、数々の医療機器設計・製造展示と最新技術セミナーが予定されています。

このイベントと同日に開催致しますHealth 2.0 JAPAN・医療ハッカソンに関しまして、重ねてご案内します。

ハッカソン（Hackathon）とは、プログラマーやデザイナーなど開発者が一堂に集まり、チームを組んで、決められた課題をクリアするためにソフトウェアやデザインの制作（今回はこれに加えて、医療に関するアイディア創出）を行い、出来栄えを競う大会です。実質24時間という極めて限られた時間の中で、集中して制作作業を行うことが特徴であり、各個人の技量が試されることになります。今回は、日本の医療をよりよいものに改善していくためのテーマに基づいて、競技を行って頂きます。「我こそは」という皆様、腕試しに参加してみませんか？

なお、18才以上の方であればどなたでも応募でき、学生の方はもちろん、社会人の方も参加可能です。各部門毎に、優秀なチームには賞金も授与され、プログラミング部門で一位を獲ったチームはアメリカで開催される世界大会へのエントリーのチャンスを得られますので、優勝を目指して頑張って下さい！

開催日時・場所などの詳しい内容・参加登録については、こちらからご覧下さい。大会運営事務局一同、数多くのご応募をお待ちしております！

 

投稿者 shimizu : 18:14 | コメント (0) |

2012年1月24日

Adapting to the cold

Coming to Aizu I was already prepared for a cold wintertime like in my hometown in Germany. Having every year a few days of -10 degree celsius in winter time and a lot of snow, it is not so different in climate.

But how was I surprised to see that German standards for building houses are not the same in such a cold region of Japan. I feel like being back in the 80s or so.

There is no thermal insulation or whatsoever for Japanese houses, or at least in the regular apartments. Warm tap water without spending time and water flowing until it is heated by the gas boiler, a mere German luxury.

Having oil or hot water heating with radiators in every room is what for Germans make common sense. Why this has never established in Japan is not in my knowledge.

I heard some rumors saying that Japanese apartments are just not that long-lasting enough to invest into something like that. Its more common to rebuild them after 10 years or so, if due to earthquake or humidity problems or anything else I do not know either.

It is worth mentioning that the newer single-family houses build by the owner of the house itself follow another concept and mainly have some kind of insulation and central heating system.

 

So how to “keep” it warm in winter?

If you are lucky there is an aircon in the apartment, otherwise you need to burn kerosene or if you are rich you use an electric heater which demands extremely high electricity bills every month.

One pleasant solution is the use of a kotatsu, which is basically an electric heater installed under a table covered by a huge blanket which keeps your legs warm.

For burning kerosene you have to open your window at least once per hour, which makes the whole thing ridiculous since its getting cold again.

Due to the absence of an insulation the whole heating thing renders pretty useless anyways.

So you just keep running the heater until you go to bed and then wrap yourself into the warm futon.

After some time you adapt to a freezing cold room every time you wake up and a freezing bath room while showering. At least it makes a nice start in the day since you really wake up even without a coffee.

 

Daniel

投稿者 daniel : 12:22 | コメント (0) |

2012年1月23日

To Advance Knowledge for Quality of Life

These days, I was thinking about the purpose of my current life, and the essential meanings of joining the community with others.

In spired by the motto of my graduate university, to advance knowledge for humanity, here it comes my personal opinion to both of the aforementioned two puzzles: I am getting together with others to advance knowledge for quality of life.

1) to improve the quality of life (whether others’ or only my own) is my continuous dream all the time. There are always unlimited upgrading space to improve the people’s life quality, and the endeavor should never be stopped.

2) There are bunches of ways to improve the quality of life, while our resources to support the quality life are insufficient in most cases; therefore, we need proper solutions to optimize the limited resources.

3) knowledge is the most powerful tool to provide good solutions, while individual’s knowledge and power are always quit limited; that’s why I am joining the proper community to exchange knowledge and to conceive the most proper solutions.

Right now, I am not confused with these two puzzles any more, and the next step is figure out the proper knowledge for quality of life.

投稿者 yilang : 14:02 | コメント (0) |

2012年1月20日

Health 2.0 Hackathon open for entries

In conjunction with Health 2.0 Fukushima Chapter Vol.2, the first medical-related Hackathon will be held in Japan to be held in February.

Eyes, JAPAN is the organiser of the Hackathon event on top of being an exhibitor at the Medical Creation Fukushima, and with just one more month to go, and our staff are busy preparing for the event, from designing the panels and awards, to seeking cooperation from the authorities and local universities, and in spreading the word about the event. Eyes, JAPAN has had numerous experiences exhibiting at various conventions such as Tokyo Contents Market and the new version of it: Creative Market Tokyo, and has been a regular presence at Medical Creation Fukushima and other medical-related conventions. However, this will be our first time as organisers, and we are working hard to ensure that everything will go smoothly on the day itself.

I am not directly involved in preparations, but the mood in the office is tense and tinged with excitement, and it is infectious. I try to help out wherever I can – mainly with translations – and hope to ease some of the burden of those in-charge.

Just for your information, more about the Hackathon:

Date/Time: 21st January, 13:00 to 22nd January, 15:15
Venue:　Nihon University Incubation Center

http://monodukuri.net6.or.jp/access/index.html

Categories:
- Codethon
- Designthon
- Ideathon

Prizes of up to 100,000yen to be awarded to the best team for each category, and the winner(s) of the Codethon will even be eligible to participate in San Fransisco’s Health 2.0 Developer Challenge in September later this year. Judges include professor from an art university, and professionals actively involved in the Health 2.0 scene in Japan.

Entry: http://health2con.jp/health-2-0-fukushima-chapter-hackathon/
Entry deadline: 7th February

Check out the website for more details! http://health2con.jp/hackathon/

投稿者 yingtong : 16:01 | コメント (0) |