Author: gean

Team Status Report for 3-6-21

This week, our team worked on our design review presentation and decided on the identity of our important hardware, and then we subsequently ordered OV7670 cameras and a DE2-115 board, which should arrive early next week.

We decided on the OV7670 cameras for the reasons mentioned previously in Jullia’s last status report: it is the analog camera that supports our requirements (analog output) and also has the most supporting literature, as it is a common camera used with FPGA. These cameras are also relatively inexpensive and only used up <$30 of our budget. We also decided on the DE2-115 (Cyclone IV) board, over other FPGA alternatives such as the DE0-CV (Cyclone V), for the following reasons: The DE2-115 board has a large number of logic elements and enough SDRAM to support storing a frame of image data as well as the necessary modules to interface with cameras and FPGA. The DE2-115 board has a sufficient number of GPIO pins to support four OV7670 cameras, with the use of a daughter board. This board is also within the ECE department’s parts inventory and thus easy (and free) to acquire and use, for the duration of our Capstone project.

This aforementioned hardware represents our current, most significant risk: successfully interfacing with four OV7670s cameras with the FPGA board. We need to link together the cameras’ control and data lines with the FPGA, which could be 72 pins at maximum. Some of these connections should be able to be linked together or otherwise not connected to GPIO pins, such as power and ground. However, this is a large enough number of needed GPIO connections that requires us to most likely need to buy a daughter board in order to have additional GPIO connections on the DE2-115 board. We have a couple risk mitigation plans if the daughter board does not work: One plan is to ignore a data line from each camera, the LSB of color data, in order to manage the connections. At absolutely worst, we can also create a holographic pyramid with less than four cameras, projecting fewer than four side-views of the object onto the pyramid.

We have also updated our schedule in order to prioritize the most critical components of our project, pushing back the implementation of image filters in favor of implementing the pyramid and live studio earlier. This schedule is shown below:

Grace An’s Status Report for 2-27-21

At the beginning of the week, I prepared for the Design Review Presentation. I added animations to the slideshow and rearranged some of the information in the slide deck to allow for a clearer presentation. With the help of my teammates, we also revised our Gantt schedule to have finer grained tasks than our original schedule. Following these steps, I practiced presenting a few times, with my teammates offering very useful feedback. Then I presented on Monday, and our team subsequently responded to and discussed the provided feedback. (This is further discussed in this week’s Team Status Report here.)

Aside from the presentation, I also spent this week starting my next scheduled task: researching image filters. I have found information regarding filters used for image sharpening, where different kernels can provide different effects. Experimentation seems useful to determine which one would “best” provide local contrast, although an unsharp mask would work be reasonable as a starting point. As for chroma-keying, the best choice of backdrop color depends on what objects our live studio will be optimized for. While green is particularly good for digital cameras (to avoid visual noise), a blue backdrop would work better to avoid color spill on subjects and improve detail retention.

My progress is on schedule, as this week was assigned to working on the Design Review Presentation. Over the next week, I will finish researching these given topics, producing a summary for all the researched information that will aid in the design and implementation of the pyramid and image filters.

Team Status Report for 2-27-21

This week, we prepared and then presented our design review presentation at the beginning of the week. Following the presentation, we received helpful feedback regarding the design of the live studio used to capture video feeds of an object. A key concern is how make it possible for an object could be rotated and shown easily, without obstructing the view of the object (as moving it by hand would do). Our possible solutions include the following: a rotating disk at the bottom of the live studio, and green tweezers that would be removed by chroma-keying. We are considering having different studio setups based on what object should be shown, and we plan to spend the next week finalizing our studio design.

Another issue we have come to realize is that our current schedule is not designed to have our MVP by the midpoint demo, but rather to have the full design only done by the end. We plan to rearrange our schedule in order to better meet the midpoint demo, which likely requires building the holographic pyramid and live studio earlier than currently planned, and building the image filters later.

Thus, going forward, our largest challenges are both finalizing the design of our studio and rearranging our schedule to better fit our needs. As our next week is currently accorded to “research”, we have the time to make these changes without jeopardizing our current or revised schedules.

Introduction and Project Summary

Holograms and holographic illusions seem the realm of science fiction, but the technology is here, and only a phone app and a DIY plastic pyramid away–essentially, holographic illusions are currently largely used for entertainment, gimmicks, and at a relatively small scale.

Our goal is to leverage this existing technology to create a highly useful and immersive presentation tool: a holographic pyramid that displays a scaled up 3D illusion of a smaller object from a local studio. Furthermore, this presentation tool would display the object using a real-time video feed, thus providing a level of interaction not possible with digital renders or simple photos; the presenter would be able to easily move the object and also to display moving objects, with no overhead of preparation or rendering time. Thus, our product would be invaluable for archeological researchers and scientists, who may need to show an artifact or small piece of equipment to a large audience. Our design goals are key characteristics necessary for a high-quality presentation tool: video frame quality and resolution, enlargement of presented objects, low latency, stable timing, and success of the three dimensional illusion.

Figure 1: Example of a holographic pyramid using a smartphone (Citation)

Grace An’s Status Report for 2-20-21

This week, I worked out the proposal presentation and details about our project idea. To do so, I contacted our assigned professor and TA in order to meet outside the regular one, in order to properly understand the expectations of our proposal presentation and our capstone project. Jullia and I attended these meetings, and we discovered issues (that we later fixed) in our project presentation, e.g. our requirements being too design-focused and too technical (and not understandable to a layperson). During these meetings (including the regular team meeting), I took notes so that the entire team could reference these notes after the fact, as we were working out our project. With my team members, I also reworded the words on our presentation in order to make the bullet points concise and easily presentable and helped rearrange information to make it organized and easy to understand. Furthermore, Jullia and I wrote down a task list and transferred it over into our current Gantt chart. I also helped with setting up our website, and I will soon post the Introduction and Project Summary after this status report. Our progress is currently on schedule.

Over the next couple days, I will be working on practicing the proposal presentation with my teammates, as I will be presenting over the next week. I may also work on slide transitions and further reorganization of information to maximize the quality of our slides. Following these presentation details, nearer to the end of the week, I may start researching image filters (chroma-keying, brightness, and contrast) as well as the pyramid design.