About Me:

I am a rising junior here at Clemson studying Computer Engineering.

Project:

Campus Basemap

Mentors:

Patricia Carbajales-Dale and Blake Lytle

Week 1:

This first week was spent getting familiar with the other interns participating in the REU, my mentors, and learning general knowledge of how the summer will go. Since my project is to create a map of Clemson’s campus, I also spent some time familiarizing myself with CityEngine through the use of ArcGIS site and their tutorials. This was very helpful with learning basic essential skills.

 

Week 2:

This week was spent attending seminars to learn more about the researching computing using the Palmetto cluster, Scientific Visualization, navigating Linux and the command line, and GIS.

After finishing all of the tutorials about CityEngine, I was able to start making some process on building the foundation for my map. This week I was able to import the terrain and the buildings that were already made. However, the terrain isn’t as appealing as I had hoped. Next week, my focus will be making the streets and sidewalks.

 

Week 3:

This weeks focus was bringing in streets and sidewalks. However, things didn’t go as well as planned. I ran into multiple obstacles with the CityEngine software. I was able to bring in the streets, but not able to modify them to my liking. This task will have to be finished in the first few days of next week.  After more complications, I was able to load my scene onto the Gear VR for the sprint review.

Additionally, this week was spent working on the intro for the research paper. This along with streets will be continued next week. I will also be preparing for my midterm presentation.

Week 4:

This week I had the pleasure of working with a new GIS intern. She is very knowledgeable when it comes to CityEngine, and were able to collaborate on adding the remaining street networks to the project. This week also consisted of adding athletic fields and trees to the project .

 

I had my midterm presentation this week which went pretty well. This presentation was very helpful in determining how far the project has come and what the next steps will be. Next week will be spent adding grassy areas and bodies of water to the project to be ready to present at the ESRI conference.

 

Week 5:

This week was spent adding the final touches to the project before the ESRI conference. We were able to successfully add the grassy areas, bodies of water, and parking lots to the project. Ellie, the newest addition to the GIS team, added a multi-use facility to the project that she will be presenting at the project.

Additionally, I spent some time researching articles to continue working on my research paper.  These last few weeks will mainly be dedicated to working on my research paper.

 

Week 6:

This week we visited the ITC Research Park in Anderson to learn a little more about the Palmetto Cluster that some of the REU students had been working with this summer.

This was the beginning of the push to the end. I spent some time writing rules to better the grassy areas and parking lots in the project. I also analyzed more articles for my final report.

 

Week 7:

This week were attended a few leadership sessions to sharpen our skills in the workplace. One was designed to help our elevator pitches and the other to identify our “color” in the work place. These sessions were very beneficial and gave a more introspective view of how we work with others and gave me more confidence in communicating my skills and accomplishments to others.

This week I experienced many technical issues. I spent a lot of time reapplying rules to all the models in the project after CityEngine continued to crash and it seemed as those some of my work was lost. I also had problems aligning the shapes to one set terrain after modifying the rules applied to the  grassy areas and Clemson area boundaries.

 

Week 8:

This final week was dedicated to the fine tuning of the final presentation and the final report. I was able to meet with Dr. Wole for some last words of wisdom regarding the final report. I added to my midterm powerpoint, and we had a chance to practice presenting these as a group for feedback. We also had a group dinner at Sole on the Green. It was great opportunity to relax from the stress of the final project and spent some time together.

 

Final Report

 

 

 

Project: Capturing our world through interactive virtual reality field trips

Abstract: A wide range of emerging technologies are available to create virtual reality experiences that can take us on journeys to explore regions of the world that we might never otherwise be able to visit – ranging from polar ice caps to tropical forests. In particular, 360o imagery is becoming increasingly easy to capture, edit, and annotate to engage people in deeper, interactive virtual field experiences. This project will evaluate different techniques and methods for creating interactive virtual reality field trips, including experiences that integrate imagery and other content within the setting of the virtual world with an emphasis on educational field experiences.

Mentor: Stephen Moysey

About: I am a rising senior currently studies Digital Arts at Stetson University. I am also pursuing a minor in Computer Science and Business System Analytic. I enjoy creating interactive experiences and want to use this summer to learn more about the techniques used in the creation of VR experiences.

Weekly Reports

Week 1: The first week, I wanted to setup my work environment and begin familiarizing myself with Unity. I created a basic scene that allowed me to pick up objects and teleport. Next I explored custom interactions which allowed me to snap objects to certain orientations and spawn items that are automatically grabbed.

Teleportation – Snap Grab

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teleporter uses a raycast laser to find a location and project the reticle at that location. Once the location is selected it is a simple transform to the location of the laser to teleport there.

The Snap Grab required a me to create a class that allowed me to overwrite the builtin Vive Controller functionality. Once the overwrite class was made I simple made special interactions that are dependent on the object being interacted with. To create the arrow snap effect we transformed the arrows location to that of the controller  with a offset to compensate for its size/desired orientation and parented it to the controller.

Week 2: I met with my advisor to get a better idea of what is expected of me. Finished the project charter which outlined what I would be doing during. Started Literature review and collected all of the sources that will be used. formatted this web page and added the images. The project has shifted from creating a project to researching ways to make future projects and how the mechanics used in virtual reality can be used in geologic education.

Week 3: Continued to gather sources for my research paper and created the research introduction. Broke up the aspects that I will be researching which are movement, interactivity, and imagery. I have started on the movement category and have been collecting examples of mechanics being used.

Week 4: Finished gathering all of the reports needed to start the analysis for the movement section of the paper. Started working on the Midterm presentation and worked on the methodology section of the research paper.

Week 5: Finished gathering information for the imagery section of the paper and started to write out the bulk of the paper. The interactivity section of the paper was lacking in information, which will be my focus next week while working on the geoscience part.

 

Week 6: Finished all the research necessary and started to write it all out in the research paper. Started the research poster which acts as a summary of what is contained inside of the research paper. Created a demo using 360 imagery in unity. Started working on a photogrammetry demonstration went to the location and captured the room. Next week will have the first draft of the poster and paper done. I will also try compiling the images into a 3D mesh using Photoscan.

Week 7: Continued to work on the research paper, and started the final demo. The final demo is a platform inside of the Grand Canyon that allows users to pick up rock samples and see which layer the rock sample belongs to.

Week 8: Last week of the REU, finished the Grand Canyon demo and created a video demonstration for it. Updated the midterm presentation to include all of the work that has been since then.

Final Report