The Education Grid

Here is the front page to the Education Grid (TEG). It gives a run down of everything involved in the page, Starting with a table of contents. 

The History Section gives a synopsis of how this all began, starting with the announcement of its creation at Harvard university in 2007. Then goes on to highlight significant milestones. 

The legal liability is a run down of the rules and regs pertaining to both faculty and student's usage. 

It continues on to explain how secure the site is, the broad access everyone has to it and the freedom to move about. 

Here it's touting itself for being an open source venue, listing the networking involved. 

And finally explaining how it's interactive amongst its users and free. 

FInal #4 High Resolution Avatar

This is Final #4: High Resolution Avatar. For this final I had to use the Poser software to create my own avatar since I spent more time trying unsuccessfully to download the Makehuman one. I played around with the software to learn about 3 different Avatar types . It is a final exercise from the Immersive Education course that I am taking at Boston College. The course is called Discovering Computer Graphics. For details, visit the immersive BC portal at http://ImmersiveEducation.org/@/bc  

My first choice in Poser was Ryan. you start off with the basic naked form. 

Messing around with all the tools, I was able to give him some gnarly hair, a rad tank top and some stylin jeans. 

Low and behold they had weapons amongst the props, so Ryan got a wicked bad looking cyborg gun

Not only can you put clothes and big guns on, you can change the poses. 

Next I switched to Roxy. You can manipulate skin color, tone, augment body parts with simple keystrokes. 

Deciding on what to do. 

First chose a bathing suit and some hair

Then added shorts and a tank top

Then gave her a crazy "come at me bro" look 

Lastly I worked on Sydney

I decided to pose her before clothing, this had mixed results 

Once you put the clothing on, you can also reposition it to match the pose as close as possible

More pose changes

It took a bit but I figured out how to remove the clothing choice and change to a different one

Kinda like a Picasso

This was my final choice. 

Final #2: Monocular Depth Cues

This is my work for the #2 Final. It is a Final exercise from the Immersive Education course that I am taking at Boston College. The course is called Discovering Computer Graphics. For details, visit the immersive BC portal at http://ImmersiveEducation.org/@/bc

Size Difference

 Take a look at the fins inside the black box. The one on the right looks to be a different size, but they are identical. Each cone is the same scale, but placed in different locations, thus giving an illusion of different sizes.

Occlusion

Occlusion occurs when something we're closer to blocks or occludes other objects. This aides us in telling which objects are closer than the others. In the above photo the cylinder is occluding you from seeing the 4 red cones behind them.

Lighting and Shading

In this one you can see the shadows of the trees, it goes even further where you can see individual branch shadows. The darker colors depict the shadows whereas the vibrant greens show us lighting.

Texture Density

In the first circle by my avatar's foot, you can see the fine detail of the shingles.
Looking at the circle to the right, they are the same exact shingles, however they don't look as defined and are clearly more dense. 

Linear Perspective 

To look at the land mass within the red oval, it appears to be just a sliver of green.
But if you walk all the way to the water's edge, it's the same width as what I am standing on near the tree. 

Atmospheric Perspective

The leaves on the tree just above my right shoulder are sharp and you can see details of each one. The trees in the second circle in the distance have the same rich texture, but  you cannot tell in this photo. It looks fuzzy and a bland color. 

Immersive Libraries and Museums

Immersive Libraries and Museums. For more information please see the Journal of Immersive Education website  http://JiED.org The Journal of Immersive Education (Immersive Education Libraries and Museums Technology Working Group (LAM.TWG)) is the source information referenced in the forthcoming writings.




The Libraries and Museums Technology Working Group (LIB.TWG) is ultimately responsible for the defining, implementing evolving and maintaining applications and open standards related to the provision of library and museum services associated with Immersive Education (Mission Statement) 

Essentially, this group is tasked with taking the old fashioned brick and mortar library and museums and transforming them into virtual worlds where anyone, anywhere, at any time can come visit. Combining this with online education can take schooling to a whole new level. 

The group's aim is to design and develop library and museum-specific, client-side virtual worlds. Design a platform of support, products and service to that end. Define and publish the best practices for IE in library and museum services, as well as defining and practicing interpretation of accompanying metadata. 

The bar has been set by initiating research into immersive libraries and museums. Set up an optimal list of goals to best design them. Summarize ones now in use to use as a guide. Figure out the best way to set new ones up. Setting up a system to benefit at risk youth. Finally to maintain current digital libraries. 

From a layman's view this seems like a long drawn out process, set up this and step up that to study how this will work and work on that. Seems like a lot of redundancy but hopefully it can be implemented quickly. 

For your own learning benefit, check everything out here:
http://JiED.org

Class 9: Exploring Second Life

This is my class 9 exercise. It is a class 9 exercise from the Immersive Education course that I am taking at Boston College. The course is called Discovering Computer Graphics. For details, visit the immersive BC portal at http://ImmersiveEducation.org/@/bc

Look here y'all, took a trip to Second Life. 

Started with a relaxing moment on the beach, overlooking the waves. 

Skipped on under the surf for an aquatic peek at the shipwreck

Got into the unzipped world

Yeah that's a sweet dragon!

Like a digital art gallery

Digging old glory in the background 

Reminds me of the Colosseum 

Great place to practice a lil Thai Chi

Conversing with Alice, spying her wonderland

Flying high

I fell in the pond. The frog was mocking me

All this exploring got me hungry, headed back to the 50's for a nice diner.

Class 9: M 3D Rocket in Meshmoon

This is my class 9 exercise. It is a class 9 exercise from the Immersive Education course that I am taking at Boston College. The course is called Discovering Computer Graphics. For details, visit the immersive BC portal at http://ImmersiveEducation.org/@/bc

Here is the start, the cylinder becomes the body of the rocket

Then using the two texture cone shape, I created the nose cone of my rocket

Playing with the scaling I made the fins from a one texture cone

Since I am a moron and put it on a slope, I had to get creative with the placement of the fins

Here's my crappy rocket, I attempted to launch it, failed miserably, back to the drawing board. 
 

Class 9: Customizing my Avatar

Changing my Avatar

 Entered Meshmoon

Got together for a quick picture after working on my avatar