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VRLU 2002 - Planning

General Tasks

Similar to former years. A short first introductory project and then a longer development project with two check points. The short first one will now introduce into OpenInventor and Studierstube. It will consist of a small scripted application instead of a pure OIV program. It might include tracking as well (to teach some OpenTracker, ARToolkit skills). The second one will be a part of the research projects. Topics are described in Dieter's notes.

Time table

Week What Details
1. from 1.10 - 6.10    
2. from 7.10 - 13.10 start up meeting  
3. from 14.10 - 20.10 vrlab excursion  
4. from 21.10 - 27.10    

5. from 28.10 - 3.11

    
6. from 4.11 - 10.11 first example hand in hand in on monday 4.11
presentation on wednesday 6.11
7. from 11.11 - 17.11    
8. from 18.11 - 24.11    
9. from 25.11 - 1.12    
10. from 2.12 - 8.12    
11. from 9.12 - 15.12 second example - beta version hand in hand in on monday 9.12
presentation on wednesday 11.12
12. from 16.12 holidays start on 19.12  
13. from 6.1 - 12.1    
14. from 13.1 - 19.1    
15. from 20.1 - 26.1 second example - final hand in hand in on monday 20.1
presentation on wednesday 22.1
16. from 27.1 - 31.1 exam week etc.  

Phase 1 : from oranizational meeting to first hand in.

Should form groups and present their start example at the first presentation. The groups also have to tell at that presentation on what project they will continue !

Phase 2 : from first hand in to second hand in.

Work on prototype and understand and solve technical issues for their project.

Phase 3 : second hand in to final hand in.

Finalize project to have a working system at the end !

Group work

The lab exercise is done in groups of two or three students. The number may larger, if a project requires that. However bigger groups didn't work better. Two people appear to be an optimum, three if the communication works between them.

Every group has a supervisor with whom they meet at least every two weeks to report on progress and problems. Especially problems need to be resolved rather quickly otherwise no progress is made. Definitly press a group for progress reports, don't be fooled by 'everythings working fine'. It will probably indeed work, but not exactly the way you want it to.

Deliverables

Every group has to pass the three hand ins. In addition to that they have to build a website that documents and present the project. This web site will be used at the demonstrations as a background to explain their tasks (this should force them to build them on time). However one or two pages with some images are enough (should not take away too much time).

The deliverables are either send to the tutors or are installed on the required hardware before the dead line. We then have two days to check and grade them. After that we hold the presentation where the groups present their results.

In addition to that each group will measure parts of our building for half a day. This requires some organization on our side. Other issues :

Repetitoriums

To give the students a good start, we provide several lectures on topics needed for the VRLU.

Communication

Main communication mode is probably the VRLU forum on our website. Anything that is of permanent interest should be posted there. In addition to that we will use a basic mailing list, but only to reach all participants with a quick mail. We should encourage them to use the forum for their own discussions.

Registration for the VRLU should be done only one way this time (to not confuse ourselves like last year :) ! The only registration will be via the web form available at our web site !!

Assistants

Dieter and Gerhard are organizing the lab. As main project supervisors we also have Hannes, Joe and Istvan. This group of people is responsible for supervising student groups and meeting with them at regular intervals (about two weeks).

In addition to that we have the following student assistants (tutors) :

We can probably delegate some groups to one or the other tutor. In addition to that they should help us with answering technical problems in the forum, setting up the lab computers etc. and running the demonstrations and hand ins.

Tasks :

Resources

Software

Basic resource for the lab exercise is Stb 3.0 CD. Projects not dealing with the Studierstube platform need to define their own software environment. We will produce a Stb CD in time for ISMAR, so an up-to-date CD should exist. This will also be installed on the famous vrlu account on all lab computers. CD should be finished by wednesday 9.10.

software included on the CD :

Software setup for vrlab workstations :

Hardware

Again depends on the project. Everything that is in the vr-lab and somewhere else. Students should also be able to work at home. There should 5 workstations in the vrlab and maybe some more in the START labs. Maybe we can do a mobile room ? but might require also other tracking system like ART.

Can we get a key for the START lab rooms ?

A key to the labs (#51) is availabe from Gerhard/Hannes. This is typically given out on a daily basis or for special purposes over the weekend etc. This waystudents can have access to the lab almost at all times.

Do we have an additional key for Joe/Istvan or the secretary ?

We also borrow (3 + 1 from Michael) USB web cams to the students against a deposit. This is organized by the secretary.

Do we have enough firewire web cams / pc boards for all workstations ?

Projects

AR Medical Workstation

PDA Interaction

AR Conference Table

Remote Desktops for Stb

Outdoor Signpost

Indoor - Outdoor Networking

Construct3D Planar Mode

AR Videoconferencing

Virtual Try On Mirror

Documentation

Documentation included on the VRLU CD and provided online as well (wherever possible)

ToDo

Done