Avatar / Mini Me App

Background

During my Master's studies in Electrical Engineering I took some programming courses. One course that I enjoyed was called, "Visual Interfaces to Computers." It was about the many ways that computers can obtain and use visual data from the real world. Since that time I have had several ideas on novel ways to use visual data.

In a completely unrelated line of thought I often think about pictures that people use to represent themselves in chat windows, gaming icons, Facebook, forums, and the many other virtual worlds. These little self-representations are called avatars. I always have a hard time figuring out what picture to use. I don't like pictures of myself, but I can never think of any one thing I like SO MUCH that I would use that as my avatar.

The Idea

Create a cell phone app (I guess there could be PC / MAC and online options as well) that will take a front and side image of you and create a virtual likeness of yourself. To be clear, this is not a 3D scanning app. This would be something much more rudimentary. The app would identify the location and shape of head, body, arms and legs. It would create a cartoonish figure by matching the shapes from the picture against a database of common shapes. Then it would analyze the head in more detail to get shape and color information on the hair, ears, eyes, nose, mouth, etc. and match those features against the database of features to find matches. The output would be a cartoon, 3D likeness of yourself that could be dressed up, altered, colored, etc. You could rotate and zoom the model and save pictures that could be used as avatars.

The part that makes this idea novel from existing versions is that it creates the avatar based off real-life images.

Progress

12/02/2014 - Some similar ideas already exist, but not in exactly the way I envision.

• Yahoo used to have an avatar generator that was very limited but is no longer supported.
• Nintendo Mii Characters were introduced on the Wii.
• Second Life has the most detailed avatars.
• Awesome 2.5D face from photo at Site Pal.
• Other sites

But I haven't found anything that makes a full 3D avatar from from pictures.

A Study of Adhesion Strength in 3D Printing

Background

I'm having terrible adhesion problems on my new 3D Printer. It's keeping me from making progress on other projects that rely on 3D printed parts. While researching a fix I discovered that this is a universal problem among hobbyists, and everyone has their own solution including glue mixtures, taping schemes, heated beds of varied temperatures, cleaning solutions, various print bed materials, calibration routines, etc. I understand that everyone has a slightly different build, and those builds will add variation. But I think that excuse is over-used because of the lack of usable data. The common theme seems to be people trying one thing after another until they find something that works. Very unscientific.

I really don't want to take a "shotgun" approach to this problem, but I don't really want to use my free time systematically designing and running experiments to collect the necessary scientific data. It would require a force gauge which costs around $100 for a decent unit, and I would rather burn that extra money on something more fun.

As an engineer I get this type of data from companies who are dedicated to performing experiments to collect data on heat capacities, enthalpies, transfer coefficients, etc. etc. etc. We just pay someone else to collect the data. I haven't found an entity in the 3D Printing world that has undertaken the science of all these little problems that hobbyists face.

The Idea

Since I'm losing my job in June 2015 I'll have some free time. I could probably dedicate myself to a systematic study of 3D Printing problems. I'd design and perform experiments on print adhesion using different substrates, temperatures, filaments, surface treatments, etc. Then I could publish and hopefully sell the information to pay for my time and the capitol required to perform the studies.

My big concern is how to distribute the content in a manner that will help pay for the time and capitol invested into the project. I'm a big believer in publishing this stuff for free, but there's so much work to be done I don't think I could afford to go unpaid for that long. Maybe I could get funding up front via KickStarter so I can reduce the risk of recovering a personal investment. That would also help reduce the risk of people just copying and redistributing the content. If it was paid for up front then I could just post the results for free. Otherwise I'd have to look into a distribution method to protect the copyright, like a website or cell phone app.

Progress

 11/10/14 - Just an idea so far. How do I gauge the potential interest from the community?

Sopwith for Android

The Idea

I was going to download a soundboard app to use with my Halloween costume when I saw an ad for a pixelated toy airplane game. The "8-Bit" genre is a fad right now, one that I like. The game looked like fun (can you tell that from a single icon?) and it reminded me of an old DOS game that I used to play called Sopwith. You fly a Sopwith Camel biplane, drop bombs on the enemy base and try to shoot down enemy airplanes and tanks. I loved that game (I had to be younger than 8 years of age).

So my nostalgic adult self wished to play again, but on my phone. Of course nobody else is going to make an Android clone, so I will have to take it upon myself. I've been wanting another project to improve my programming skills, and this is something simple enough I think I could deliver an app in under a year (at the rate I usually complete my projects).

Progress

It turns out I was wrong, someone already made a clone called Sopwith Barons. Despite being an upgrade, the graphics look very "paintshop"-ish. It is done with basic 3D geometries on a 2D game stage. Personally I would have gone for 8-Bit genre keeping it a 2D sprite game to give it more tie back to the original with the modern feel that I've grown to enjoy.

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?

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.