3D Texture Generator

The Idea

When I took a computer graphics course as part of my master's degree I learned about using textures and skins to make objects more life-like. In one lecture we touched briefly on the idea of 3D textures which can be applied to voxels in a volume or in slices to surfaces. From there I realized there could be value in creating realistic 3D textures to be used in a variety of contexts.

The world is naturally perceived in three dimension. Instead of trying to draw a realistic looking 2D picture you could instead create a realistic 3D volume and slice out whatever surface you need to display. The main advantage of this method is the ability to parametrically generate 3D volumes using actual material properties. The visual properties are essential - color, reflectivity, scattering - but even mechanical, electrical and chemical properties could be used to generate aggregate materials. For example, you could create a realistic 3D concrete texture using the properties of cement, gravel, sand, etc. A program could accept inputs for material types and mix ratios, calculate the resulting structure, and apply the resulting visuals to the structure.

By compiling a large number of such calculators you could create a software package (web-based?) that can create 3D textures for many different materials. It could be a handy tools in the belt of computer graphics programmers. It might save them alot of work, and give them a way to easily add variety to their projects. Textures could be randomly generated each time and cut down on the amount of repetition in games, movies, etc.

Progress

I'm not actively pursuing this idea right now. I'm not a full-fledged programmer, and one of my pet-peeves is bad software written by someone totally disconnected from the end-user. If my career ever moves towards the gaming industry then I will come back to revisit this.

Whiteboard Alternative

The Idea

I work in the semiconductor industry, and nearly everyone has a whiteboard in their cubicle to assist the many discussion we have about equipment, processes, statistics, etc. Whiteboards are a cheap, effective, and relatively clean alternative to projectors, blackboards, etc. But they still require consumables, and they're not totally clean.

For a while I've been wanting to see if I could develop a better alternative. It would be nice if I could improve cost and invent something manufacturable and marketable, but at the very least it would be fun to have something unique for me to use.

Progress

Giant "Magna Doodle"

This would be a 3'x4' Magna Doodle board. Magna Doodles use an opaque ferrofluid trapped inside small cells. When a magnet is touched to the surface, the iron particles in the fluid come to the surface creating dark spots / pixels.

Pros:

• No mess
• No consumables
• Variety of cheap magnets

Cons:

• Poor resolution
• Monochrome
• Wears out with use
• Expensive to piece together or custom build one large sheet
• Hard to erase just one small section

Magnetic Viewing Film

 Viewing film operates on a similar principle as the magnadoodle, but the fluid cells are much smaller, and typically green. I've never played with it in person, I should buy a sample to see how well it would work.

Pros:

• No mess
• No consumables
• High Resolution
• Variety of cheap magnets

Cons:

• Monochrome
• Slow response?
• Have to piece multiple sheets
• Hard to erase just one small section?
• Fragile 

8/9/2014 - I got my viewing film last week, just a small sample. It's really fun to play with, but the difficulties in using it for drawing became quite clear. The film is plenty responsive; it's too responsive. It can produce decent contrast, but when you pull a permanent magnet away the contrast changes as the fields move through the film. Wherever you start and stop a line will look blurry. You'd have to use an electromagnet that activates when you touch the surface. That's doable, but more hassle. The last drawback is with erasing. You have to hit the entire board with a uniform field from the backside. That's just a little too much bulk and complexity for me to mess with right now. 

E-Ink

 E-Ink is a new technology used in some e-readers. Instead of using a ferrofluid, electronic ink puts a dark ink/oil inside the microcavities along with charged, white particles. The microcavities are coated top and bottom with a conductive film. Applying a charge to the film can move the white balls to the top or the bottom to provide pixels and contrast.

Pros:

• High resolution
• Long life
• Robust housing
• Multiple colors possible.

Cons:

• Requires electricity (could use manual generation)
• Micro-fabrication is expensive and difficult

This is my favorite method. I would like to learn how they manufacture these displays so I could make one of my own. I emailed the company to see if they would sell me a batch of ink that I could put on my own surface. Of course I got no response.

Giant BoogieBoard

The BoogieBoard is an LCD display that does not require power to retain an image. It uses chiral liquid crystals to form a cholesteric, bi-stable display. The crystals are oriented in parallel planes which align in a cork-screw fashion. Within each plane the crystals lie flat, aligned uni-directionally. This crystal medium will selectively reflect light depending on crystal orientation. I found the actual manufacturing process in a whitepaper written by Kent Displays. I have enough information on this idea to actually try building a device.

Micro Magnet Array

Giant grid of magnets with poles all in the same orientation. Pull forward or push back. Same principle as magna doodle only with magnets instead of iron. Magnest would have to be small enough and far enough apart to reduce their influence on each other, and that will limit resolution.

Dirt Drawing / Sand Writing

Writing in dirt may be the oldest form of written communication. For this project I'd use sand. I'm sure there are several ways this concept could be realized. You could have a tray of sand and use it like they do in the high contrast, flat sand art. Or you could have a packed surface using etched lines. I would need to think of a good way to make a vertical unit. It would be heavy.

Generalizing the Principles

Okay, now that I've gone through a few different ideas I think I can start distilling the underlying principles by which these devices operate. Basically you are creating contrast between a background medium by adding or moving another material. The forces being applied are electric, electrostatic, magnetic, and direct physical contact. If the background medium is liquid, and the secondary material can diffuse in the medium then the secondary material must be physically isolated to keep it evenly dispersed. If the secondary material can freely move, then you must deal with a mess or have a recycling method.

Types of Forces:

• Applied
• Direct
• Pneumatic
• Hydrolic
• Friction
• Spring
• Gravity
• Electromagnetic
• Electrostatic
• Magnetism
• Nuclear

Job from Hell, Reversed

Homer in Hell. Fair Use. The Simpsons is Copyright Fox.

Why This Post?

Sometimes our choices don't always turn out the way we predict. Even things we enjoy on the surface might not yield the same satisfaction when taken to more extremes. I've discovered this to be the case with my career choice of Chemical Engineering. I like the school work initially, but as things progressed deeper I enjoyed the coursework less. Work pays well, but I find that a paycheck alone isn't enough. I'm not like Homer Simpson in Treehouse of Horror IV. He was sent to hell and force-fed thousands of donuts as a punishment, but he still enjoyed it. 

This post is an exercise to help me identify a career for which I can be passionate. This is yet another exercise from, "I Could Do Anything: If Only I Knew What It Was," by Barbara Sher. The exercise is to write down the job from heaven, or if you have a hard time with that, the job from hell. I have a very difficult time thinking about the job from heaven and still have the job be a job. I find it much easier to do the job from hell. Does that mean I'm pessimistic?

The Job From Hell

At the job from hell I have to wake up and be to work early every morning. It's in the middle of downtown and I have to fight an hour of heavy traffic every morning just to get there. There is a mandatory morning meeting with the sole purpose of making everyone feel that they are doing a horrible job, but the actual business is ignored. Every day feels exactly the same as the one before because I do the same thing every day, day after day. My managers ask me to do loads of extra work that have no impact on the business' bottom line. I'm never allowed to be creative, or inventive or think outside the box. I have to write reports all day that no one ever reads or uses. All the technology I use is antiquated, the software doesn't work, and support from other departments is non-existent.

There are several meetings a day, but most of the time is spent arguing. People don't listen to each other and never work out solutions that will help everyone accomplish their work. As a result there's always too much to get done. Because daily work is so inefficient, my boss stays late every night and expects everyone else to do the same thing. Even when you leave you're always on-call. Vacation, sick days and anything outside of work is treated with contempt.

Because the company is trying so hard to save money, I don't even have a dedicated computer. Instead they are rotating pods, so you can never setup your workspace individually or efficiently. Everyone in the entire company sits in the same huge room, and everyone can see everyone. It's terribly distracting.

I'm sure I could add in more details, but I've written enough that I have a fairly good understanding of what really bugs me in a job. I hate when people waste time and energy on each other instead of on the problem at hand. I also hate limitations, especially the ones that are arbitrary. I hate monotony.

Double-Negative

This would be the Job Not from Hell:

I get to live wherever I want, because I get to fly a helicopter or airplane to work. And sometimes I can work from home, or just check-in while traveling with the family. The software systems at work are brilliant. All of the metrics necessary to track success as an individual, group and company are effortlessly generated and communicated by computers, so there's no need for mandatory morning meetings. When metrics predict any course deviations then people just get together to make early corrections. They do this because they are intrinsically motivated. They like making things run smoothly and minimizing problems.

There's basically no need for bosses. Conflict isn't eliminated, but my co-workers are able to resolve conflict without it becoming personal. They address problems objectively, then execute when a compromise has been reached.

I get to do a variety of things. And when I get bored of one thing or feel I have mastered my work, I get to learn something else. My work is technically challenging, but I'm surrounded by talented and experienced people and we help each-other improve our abilities. My work provides products or services that make people happy in a way that I get to see and sometimes experience with them. The company has a vision that is intrinsically understood by it's employees. Because we work on the same level with our customers we don't have to worry much about money, it naturally comes a result of our desire to create value.

Because we are innovative, creative, and do things before anyone else, I can afford to take time off, be sick, go to my kids' activities, and go home at a decent hour. But work is so engaging, that sometimes I like to stay a few extra hours when I'm making a breakthrough on something new.

It's funny, while I was coming up with this flipped version of a job, I thought to myself, "I want to be Kevin Flynn at the end of Tron (1982)."

Meaningful Work

Why This Post?

When I discovered Barbara Sher, and that I am a scanner, I bought two of her books: "Refuse to Choose" and "I Could Do Anything: If Only I knew What It Was." Even though she wrote "I Could Do Anything" first I finished reading and doing the exercises in "Refuse to Choose" because I had to learn about and activate the true scanner inside of me.
But now I started on "I Could Do Anything" and I'm working through the activities she suggests in that book. The first one I'm doing here is to define what "Meaningful Work" means to me. The premise of the book so far is that inside we really know what we want to do but have built a wall of reasons that keep us from actually doing anything. The purpose of the book is to identify and address the bricks in the wall, or the hurdles in the race or whatever mind blocks and barriers we have devised for ourselves.

My Nebulous Concept of Meaningful Work

So what is meaningful work? Right now I work in manufacturing making low power computer chips that mostly get used in consumer electronics like cell phones and laptops. My job is to help improve the yield from our manufacturing line. I frequently feel like my work is not meaningful, that it doesn't improve anyone's like for the better. I mean, whoop-dee-doo I helped make your battery last 5 minutes longer (indirectly). So I apparently think that meaningful work improves the quality of people's lives.
You could argue that making cheaper and faster cell phones and laptops makes them more accessible, and that technology and information improve people's lives. But somehow I feel like it's not making an impact in an area that really matters or to people who really need it. So nested in those feelings are two more concepts. First, meaningful work involves improvements that are considered more than just convenient. Second, meaningful work serves people who have greater than average need for improved life.
Somewhere in my brain is the idea that meaningful work is also something that could be universally recognized as "Good." Somehow, if others can't recognize the immediate value of a labor then to me it doesn't seem to merit the label of Truly Meaningful Work. This would be opposed to the concept of immoral or amoral endeavors, so I think there is an implied morality in my concept of meaningful work. There should be some underlying principle, motivation or cause that underpins and gives a foundation upon which the work is based.
That's really nebulous, I know, but that is what's in my brain. Sorry for being simple-minded?

Examples of What I Would Call Worthy Work

The following list is not perfect, not complete, and not necessarily things I want to do as a career. But it is a list of things that I tend to think of as being meaningful.

• Researching Cures for Physical Ailments and Disease
• e.g. Cancer, Malaria, Ebola, Infant Mortality, HIV/AIDS, Polio, etc.
• Work involving disabilities
• Education
• Counseling, Social Work, Community Improvement
• Energy Research, Improvement, Innovation
• Community Services, Fire Department, Police, Military, etc.

The Gist of this Exercise

The interesting thing is that practically none of the occupations that interest me fall under this classification. I'm more interested in technology, making things, video games. But when I think about those jobs I get a nag in my mind that says, "Those are just fanciful pastimes. They don't actually make people's lives better, and they have plenty of negatives associated with them."
In her book, Barbara basically says that this self-made picture of worthy work may be working as another impediment to doing the work that really makes us happy. Should be interesting to see if such an important seeming concept can really be altered.

Life Tracker

Background

I've always liked the idea of keeping a journal, but I wish it could be easier. Putting my thoughts and feelings on paper not only makes them more real to me, but also gives me a chance to reflect on what happened and make decisions for the day to follow. My problem, as I've mentioned before, is that I hate writing. I have a difficult time coming up with the adjectives that accurately describe what I'm feeling and thinking. The time it takes to actually write the words down feels like wasted time, and I don't really enjoy the physical process of writing, I rather abhor it. Finally, even when I get started on a journal, I have a really hard time remembering to stick with it night after night. I think most of my ideas come from my laziness.

 

 The Idea

What if there were a way that I could have a journal without having to sit down and write everything out, and without having to remember to do it every single night? Maybe I could set an alarm that goes off every night to remind me to write? And as long as I'm going to use technology, why don't I type my journal instead? In fact, why don't I just have the computer send me an email that asks me stuff every night, and all I have to do is answer the questions? And what if I could customize the questions? I could track personal goals, feelings, health, wellness, physical fitness, relationships, pretty much anything important that I might want to track on a regular basis. A web form could be used to simplify the entries as much as possible, then spit out an entry using "normal language" (computer-generated).

Now I've got all this data that could easily live in a database. I might as well do something useful with it and apply some statistics to try and find correlations. Does my mood shift seasonally? Is my blood-sugar or well-being affected by my diet? Do I really struggle with meeting my physical fitness goals based on the temperature outside? By drawing correlations the computer can flag me of associations that I should look into. Knowing yourself is one step to improving yourself.

It should all be part of a website with associated mobile apps. You get to choose everything. Notification method (email or app), times, types of questions to fill out. There would have to be a big list of options, and efficient way to present them (maybe a dichotomy). It would be subscription based, and there would be a separate section for analytics.

And of course there must be a script that recommends other adjectives based on the ones you type.

 

Progress

 12/12/2014 - Sometime last year I actually sat down and created a USB drive with a mobile server and WordPress installed. I spent a week trying to figure out the backside of WordPress and decided I hated the whole thing. If I'm going to build a site myself then I'll probably need to write it from scratch. My questions is whether I should invest the time to learn PHP or just stick with ColdFusion. There is probably better front-end support for PHP, but that's a time investment.

I wiped the USB drive and will start fresh with PHP and MySQL. Maybe I should pay someone to help me get started?

Sound Test Website

Background

Back when I was reviewing computer hardware for BenchmarkReviews.com I had the opportunity to learn about audio equipment, performance and files. I only wrote one article that dealt with surround sound, but I quickly learned that it's a format for which there is not a wealth of resources on the internet. At the time I really wanted an objective way to compare the quality of different surround sound formats. I happened across audiocheck.net, a website run by Stephane Pigeon that provides exactly what I wanted, only for stereo sound. I talked to Stephane about adding support for surround sound, but he had a different vision for his site.

The Idea

 What I would like to do is create a website much like his that includes audio files that can be used to test surround sound systems to make sure they are working correctly. I also want a blind test section that plays different audio clips that transitions sounds from one channel to the next (like footsteps, or a driving car or something) and have the user take a test to see if they can correctly identify the motion of the sound. This would provide one objective method to rate different pieces of hardware and different suround sound technologies.

Progress

07/07/2014 - Part of the problem when I first envision such a site was poor audio support by the browsers. Everything had to be performed via download and client-side software. With HTML5 and updated browsers I think this is now a real possibility.

09/13/2015 - It took me a year, but I finally decided on a language to learn. I'm taking the Full Stack Web Developer Nanodegree from Udacity. When I'm done I'll make this page in Python as part of my beginning portfolio...eventually.

Fashion Consultant App

Okay, so I am fashion impaired. I have a terrible time picking out what to wear just from the limited wardrobe I already own, and an even worse time trying to select new clothes. I don't really want to do all the reading required to teach myself how to dress so as to not be an eyesore. Socks and sandals? Who CARES?

Tonight Jenn is asking about what clothes I need. She showed me some shorts and asked which ones looked nice. "I don't even know where to start."

Then it hit me. I need an app to help me dress, and to help me pick out new clothes. At the very basic level I need to be able to input my wardrobe and have the app tell me good combinations for outfits, tell me what I'm missing to make some good combos, and give me advice on what to buy. It needs to integrate with the camera so I can take pictures of the articles of clothing (of course there needs to be a simple camera color calibration). Clothing recognition would be nice, but I've done some coding work on that and it's pretty tough.

Then next time Jenn asks me what I think about a pair of shorts I can just take a picture and have my expert consultant tell me how it fits into my wardrobe.

Maybe you could take it to the next level and take a picture of yourself and have it recommend styles of clothing for you.

Could you really distill a fashion consultant into an app? Maybe not high fashion, but to get an engineer dressed appropriately I think some fashion basics knowledge would be quite feasible.

Build a Scooter

The Idea

For quite some time I've been wanting a kick-scooter that I can use as an adult. I live in suburbia with friends, neighbors and family all within walking distance (I consider a mile to be within walking distance). Some trips require the car (dropping the kids off at school), and others and definitely walking trips (dropping the kids off next door). But some trips fall into that gray area where you're not sure whether to walk or drive or ride a bike. It could be that you're in a hurry, or lazy, or the bike is hung up in the garage, or whatever. For these trips it would be super-awesome to have an adult kick scooter to just grab and go.

I've been planning to buy one, but today while cruising Instructables I remembered an old pair of broken rollerblades sitting in my closet. My problem is that I don't know how to weld (yet), so I'll have to use wood. It was the pallet projects that sparked the idea. So I'll be stripping off the wheels and seeing if I can come up with a sturdy but functional scooter frame.

Progress

11/2/2014 - Just found an awesome, inspiring design. It's a scooter worn like a belt. I'm definitely going to go with something like this, I just need to find some cheap parts...like a curved scrap of metal or high-grade plywood...

5/30/2015 - I'm going to start working downtown. The drive is miserable, so I'm planning to ride the train. But I still have to get to the train station on both ends. Through some more research I found what are called "Last Mile Solutions."

Bolt: ~$600 Skateboard
Solowheel: ~$1,400 Unicycle
EcoReco: ~$1,000 Scooter

05/30/2016 - Over a year later, and I'm still working on this one. I decided to build my own electric long-board using RC parts. I have purchased the following parts:

• Bigfoot 160 5335-245KV Electric Motor
• Zippy 2650 20C Li-PO batteries (x2)
• FVT 120A ESC, 2-6S
• Wii Wireless Nunchuck
• Wiiceiver (from austindavid.com)

The batteries will be wired in parallel through a switch to the ESC. The speed controller communicates through the wiiceiver to the wireless Wii nunchuck which will act as throttle control.

With a friend I built a fiberglass longboard deck to hold the electronics. The piece that has taken me a year to finish is the bracket to mount the motor to the skateboard. Since I have read from others that torque is an issue, I chose to use Caliber trucks which has a distinct truck shape. The difficult part is cutting a mount to match that shape without CNC. Sure, I can spend $100 to get the part, but I'm a cheapskate. So instead I did the far more reasonable thing and bought my own milling machine for $250. Hope to have the bracket milled out within the next couple of weeks!

05/20/2017 - Yet another year gone by, but my board is finally finished! And BOY is it fun to ride!!! It's powerful up a hill, and goes scary fast. I finished the board last year, but I haven't gotten around to posting until now.

03/31/2019 - Well, I rode my board so much that it bit the dust. One of the magnets dislodged from the rotor of my motor. These are cheap motors, so it's difficult to find replacement magnets. I'm now trying to decide what I will do for Mark 2.

One of the most difficult and scary parts of riding an E-Board is stopping or dodging in an emergency. I have electronic brakes that are VERY effective. I can make the board stop almost instantly, but if I'm not balanced right then I go flying off the front. over the last few years it's happened at least twice at high speeds. Luckily I managed to stay on my feet and not get hurt.

The second most difficult part is managing rough and uneven terrain. Even with my 70 mm wheels, I often have to watch where I roll. It's impossible to cross train tracks, and you'd be shocked by how many sidewalks have at least one bump in them over a couple inches high.

The new thing downtown is the Lime and Bird electric scooters. They are just sitting around on the sidewalks and you can rent any one through your cell phone. My original idea was to make an electric scooter, so I think I'm going back to that for MK2. Or does that just make it another MK1?

I'll probably use an adult razor scooter as my platform. I'll see about finding one on the cheep.

TV Screen Protector

I did this project years ago. It's a cheap way to protect your big-screen TV from flying objects (toys specifically). I just recently got the motivation to start sharing past projects, so I wrote an Instructable.
TV-Screen-Protector via Instructables

Update 7/9/14: Yay! I guess they liked my project enough to feature it on the homepage! It's kind of addicting to get positive feedback. Now I'm wondering what else I can make and publish.

Build a 3D Printer

Intro

3D Printing is a manufacturing method in which a "printer" type machine is used to create objects.  Printers can get really fancy and expensive printing things like ceramics, metals and plastics. As a hobbyist I'll be focusing on Fused Deposition Modeling or FDM. This method pushes melted plastic out of a small nozzle and creates plastic objects layer by layer.

This page is just for me to store stuff about 3D printing. Honestly, most of my useful pages are stored in bookmarks on my browser, but the exceptional stuff I'll post here for others to reference.

Printers I Evaluated

• Prusa i3
• Rostock Mini Pro
• RichRap 3DR
• Kossel Mini
• DeltaPrintr
• PrintrBot Simple

What I Bought

I ended up buying a Rostock Mini Pro kit from 3DPrinterCzar. Happy Early Birthday!!! I could have sourced all the parts myself, but I want to spend time building and tinkering, not sourcing and purchasing. I also didn't document the build process, because many others have already done that (e.g. deltarap.org).

Things I Want to Print

• Cell phone grip for playing games
• Cell phone mount for game controller
• Toy gears for the kids (and me)
• Legos
• Construx
• Action Figures drawn by Lewis
• Hobby Boxes
• RPG Figures
• Modular Storage (jewelry, tackle, hardware, electronics, etc.)
• Headphone Stand
• Custom Sun Glasses
• Disposable Tweezers
• Car Rack Mounts (to carry wood for example)
• Parts for rubber-band guns.

Heated Bed

 The Rostock that I ordered does not come with a heated bed that would be required to print using ABS or nylon and other various materials. I perused various options for buying or building a heated bed. I'm going to either buy or make a round kapton tape heater. In the theme of DIY, reprap, etc I liked this post on using resistive wire. I think it might be cheaper to use an aluminum clad heater, but this one is easier for me to do. If I do it this way then I'll use thinner gauge resistance wire, but print a template for laying the wire. I'll put kapton tape over the template and lay the wire into the template grooves so it sticks to the tape. Then peel the template off and press the tape onto the bottom of the print table. It's all theoretical, of course, but I think I'll give it a try.

 Useful Links

• Jérémie FRANCOIS's 3D Printing Blog - He's got some good articles on printer settings, materials, improvements, etc.
•  RepRap.org
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