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Description

James Cameron made a movie in 3D, so it's only fair that Cameron Hall gets the same treatment - we're a little more deserving than a Pocohontas parable. Having a 3d representation of the clubs would be good to have for a variety of purposes, including but not limited to..

  • A historical document for the Cameron Hall clubs in a tangible, graphical form
  • An opportunity to mess with modern computer vision algorithms
  • Vanity shots can be taken as those expensive DSLR cameras a number of UCCans own are shown off in a similarly vain manner
  • Bragging rights - doing new things to keep us ahead of other historic clubs with electronic coke machines
  • .. and if you're into that sort if thing, playing various PC games on a map of Cameron Hall - "Bomb has been planted!" as you flashbang unigames or "SPY AS UNISFAN" as a dispenser goes down

The technology

Computer Vision techniques are used in the complex task of having a computer understand the world from visual snapshots, and in recent years, there have been lengthening strides of advancement. Photosynth is an example of recent technology taking 2d photos and using them to form a 3d snapshot. This has already been done for the UCC clubroom (requires the Silverlight plugin) by Samuel Spencer. Photosynth is a great way of navigating your photos in 3d, but the point cloud that is generated is of note as it can provide a 3d shapes for objects and surfaces.

A number of feature detection algorithms exist to pick out features in 2d images, some of which are patent encumbered and/or usage-limited. However, the same process is at work regardless of the specific algorithms and code used - find features in photos, match these features between multiple photos, extrapolate a camera position for them then process the scene as desired.

While it may be annoying for those taking photos, the more-the-better principle applies here. The more obscure angles (close in on the bookshelves, from down on the floor or from up in the loft) the more detail and less issue with blank sections that were occluded. So, with that in mind.. if you'd like to take photos, don't be surprised if you're asked to get into weird positions and pull a muscle :)

The people

  • [TPG] tpg, John Hodge
  • [CJS] spartan, Chris Squire
  • The poor souls who have to figure out the archaic data format many years from now, if it's timecapsuled
  • .. and hopefully you

Stay tuned for updates!