Viewing PowerPoint Presentations on LG KU250.

:-)

On last Saturday the provincial elections on North Western and Central Province were held. Being it in the middle of a exam season I did not had much of a enthusiasm to cast my vote but anyway my parents suggested me to have a visit if any means. Well I had no objections other than the fact that I will loss almost a whole day on the road in which time I could go trough some lecture slides.

OK there is possibilities to read while travelling. Printing slides, Reading on the laptop or on a ‘Smart’ phone.. I didn't feel like printing it just for a one day use. (Not because of Green IT but I’m not a fan of papers) neither I wished to carry my heavy weight laptop. I’m not wealthy enough to have a ‘Smart’ phone either.

But I figured out that I can save my PowerPoint slides as .jpg images so that I can have a look on the go in my LG KU250. So yet you can read office docs (with some conversions) on your non ‘Smart’ phone if you are smart enough.

And yet I can do multitasking as well. Listening to some music and/or browsing the web… As I always say It’s freaking brilliant. So then I have found one more usage of my beloved mobile phone.. and I could read some slides on the way back and forth home.

[Posted using Windows Live Writer on Windows 7 Beta]

Using the spare laptop as a secondary monitor.

:-)

Yeah.. I’m all about multiple monitors. Which means more work space, more windows visible and… increased productivity. This comes very handy when doing something like Video editing or in my context MRDS programming.

And today most of us generally have a Desktop as well as a laptop. Now using the monitor of the desktop as a secondary display for the laptop is not a big deal. But suppose you need to do the other way round i.e. need to use the laptop screen as a secondary display device for the desktop PC.

Well there are few tools for this purpose. MaxiVista which is a commercial tool works as a separate monitor driver on your PC and extends the desktop to another PC/Spare laptop over the LAN. ZoneScreen which is a freeware developed by Vasily Tarasov can be also used to mirror or extend the desktop to another PC/Spare laptop over the LAN.

Extending the Desktop to a second monitor

First we need to add a second monitor (Virtually) to the PC. In Windows 7 (Should be similar to Vista) Right click on desktop –> Screen resolution –> Detect

Multiple displays -> Connect anyway-> Apply

Again Multiple displays –> Extend these displays –> Apply

Select the appropriate resolution for the secondary display.

Run the ZoneScreen Configuration wizard and select the display you want to stream over the LAN.

You can run the same wizard in the client mode on the spare desktop/laptop and connect to the server to view it’s display.

And now I can work with more windows at once. Freaking brilliant!

Simultaneously viewing code window and VSE on MRDS

Since the desktop is captured, streamed over the LAN and recreated at the destination end this is generally ideal for the static text windows. But it is quite acceptable for small sized videos as well. Following shows the screen recording of a video on physical monitor. Video Source : http://mindstorms.lego.com/eng/Movies/Movies/FightMovie/QuicktimeHigh.aspx

Following is the same video as displayed on the laptop monitor.

Although there is not much appreciable difference in the videos it should be noted that these are recorded using a mobile video camera under 15fps QCIF resolution. In practice there is a noticeable performance difference but yet acceptable for normal use.

Links

http://www.zoneos.com/zonescreen.htm

[Posted using Windows Live Writer on Windows 7 Beta]

Another Exam Season again… – Good Luck from Future!

:-)

Hmm there is another exam season again… All we need is just the time. But fortunately this time, time is on our side. Well you may wonder what the hell I’m talking about. OK here it comes guys… I’m here from the distance future (not much far don’t worry) with the first 3 questions from CS4430 which will be held in few days time. So good luck from future!

By the way you may wonder how did I do this right? Well sorry guys, this is definitely not time for a lecture on relativity theory.

[Posted from 5th dimension]

Q1.

(a.) Define the term “optimal threshold” with respect to segmentation of objects from the background in computer vision. (3 Marks)

(b.) Using probability distribution of object and background intensities, explain situations where the optimum threshold cannot be determined. (3 Marks)

(c.) Can optimal threshold be used under non-uniform illumination? Justify your answer (5 Marks)

(d.) Suppose you need to detect a contour defined by the equation y = ax³ + bx² + (x-d) where a, b, d unknown parameters in a binary image. Explain how the Hough transform can be used to detect this contour. (9 Marks)

Q2.

(a.) Describe why the variance of the gray level histogram of an image becomes reduced when the image becomes out-of-focus. (6 Marks)

(b.) With relation to biological vision systems, explain why Computer Vision is considered to be a difficult task. (3 Marks)

(c.) Briefly explain the term “Circle of Confusion” how it’s effect on the resolution of an image. (3 Marks)

(d.) A high contrast image is captured using a image sensor with 8 bpp gray level depth. The imaging sensor is known to be introducing normally distributed random noise with zero mean and variance of approximately 4 gray levels. The histogram of the captured image shows a normal distribution with a mean value of 128 and standard deviation of approximately 64 gray levels. If the image to be used for a computer vision application that requires detection of objects, explain how a fast operation like “Bit-slicing can be used to reduce the extent of noise in the image. (8 Marks)

Q3.

Suppose that you are required to develop simple object tracking application for a sport like tennis. Assume that images are from a static background and you have a video stream with two players on two sides and the ball moving one another. Propose and briefly explain suitable algorithms for the following operations.

(a) Segment the background from the object. (5 Marks)

(b) Detect, identify and isolate the moving ball. (5 Marks)

(c) A method to predict the trajectory and location of the ball in future time. (5 Marks)

(d) If the images are captured at high-resolution, a scheme to increase processing speed to support real-time operations. (5 Marks)

Fat and Bloody (Greasy) – iRobots playing Sumo…

Follow up to the post Coaching iRobots to play Sumo. B-)

:-)

On the 31st Jan the submission SDK of the Imagine Cup Robotics & Algorithms challenge was published. And… this time the opponent – RCChallenger is no more a newbie in the game and really offensive. This causes fast battles between the robots and in most cases one goes other or both topples over. So I had to spend about 2 days testing some new methods to take care of my robot toppling over. Even though almost all the methods that I tried out were incapable of handling the speed the things happenes in a battle, I could turn the odds to my side.

So at the end I decided to go for a submission run hoping that the luck will be on my side. Fortunately during 1st round I could recover from a toppling over situation and push the opponent out. The impact caused a bumper in the opponent to malfunction and on 2nd round it goes out itself. With the 3rd round also going well it was a 3-0 win.

Following is the playback of the match from the recorded file. My robot is the blue colored tagged one.

Any sumo masters to take up the challenge???

[Posted using Windows Live Writer on Windows 7 Beta]