My contribution to Senior Projects report template

In order to help students from IMMI group, we are creating a report template that will not only provide uniformization to senior projects reports but also give students the main topics they should focus on their reports.

This morning I reviewed the latest version of the template proposal and add some contributions to it.

Demonstration Tool for CALI

At IMMI group we use a calligraphic recognition library (CALI), developed a few years ago by Professor Manuel João da Fonseca. Several researchers and students are currently using this library in several applications successfully, some of them with little knowledge of the technique behind the recognizer.

In order to illustrate how CALI works, I am developing a simple demonstrator that lists in detail the features extracted by CALI for each scribble. A preliminary windows version of this application is now available for download (ZIP [379KB]). This is a compressed stand-alone executable file. Installation or configuration is not required, just unzip and run.

Screen-shot of CALIdemo preliminary version.

Updating Senior Projects Home Page

Our senior students must create a web page for their senior project, "Trabalho Final de Curso" (TFC) in Portuguese. Moreover, these pages should respect a given template and must be stored in a single place. This is my responsability. Based on the Computer Graphics and Multimedia (CGM) web pages I developed a template for TFC's pages and I am now gathering and publishing these.

Some of these pages are already accessible in a temporary address, while the CGM server aren't up and running.

Fourier Descriptors

After spending some time studying Zernike Moments for shape classification I concluded that to fully understand this technique I must also study the Fourier Descriptors (FD) method. However, it is not as simple as it seems, maybe because I don't remember Fourier Transforms.

I start my research at the CVOnline entry on FD. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

Backing Up MSDN CD's

Today I need to return the MSDN CD's  with  Visual Studio .NET and libraries to IST computer and network services (CIIST). Thus, I decided to make a backup copy in order to have some indepence from the CIIST when the MSDN disks are necessary to install or update something in my computer, which occurs frequently.

I get some empty CD's and started the copy proccess. However, despite my attempts to write at the maximum recording speed (48×), the writing took always about twenty minutes by CD. When I verified the writing speed I noticed that it were 4×.

During the duplication of the last CD, I started labeling the new discs. Then I discovered why the copy was taking so much time. Instead of CD-R discs, I am using CD-RW discs "compatible 1×, 2× & 4×". Damn!!! How can such detail get unnoticed!?

Conclusion: a task that should take a few minutes, consumed more than one hour plus the time I spent trying to "fix" the problem. At least I made some bibliographic research while backing up the CD's.

Zernike Moments...

Today I was supposed to write one or two paragraphs about the use of Zernike moments in shape classification and retrieval, preferably comparing this method with CALI. However, at the end of the day I came out with nothing but a colossal headache. I believe that understanding Zernike moments takes more than one afternoon.

Requesting sponsorship to attend WSCG 2006

Two weeks ago we submitted a paper to the 14th International Conferences in Central Europe on Computer Graphics, Visualization and Computer Vision (WSCG 2006).

Although I do not known yet if this paper will be accepted for publication, I need to apply now for fundings in order to have some chances to obtain any sponsorship to attend the conference. Thus I spent this morning preparing the documentation to request funding from Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and from Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

Presentations at 13 EPCG

Last week I've been in Vila Real attending the 13º Encontro Português de Computação Gráfica (13 EPCG). There I presented two short-papers: "Recuperação de Desenhos de Moldes Combinando Imagens e Esboços" and "Simplificação de Plantas de Arquitectura para Classificação Automática". Besides showing our work and get some valuable feedback on it, I saw what other Portuguese researchers on computer graphics are doing.

Listening questions from the audience at 13EPCG

Submitted paper to WSCG 2006

Uff... It was a tough week. Finally, at the limit of the deadline, we finished and submitted the paper to the 14th International Conferences in Central Europe on
Computer Graphics, Visualization and Computer Vision (WSCG 2006).

Our paper, titled "A Calligraphic Interface for Managing Agents", presents the approach followed during the development of the editION prototype. Unfortunately, due to lack of time, it do not came out as good as we would like to, but we think it was pretty acceptable. Let's wait for the reviewer's comments.

QiQA first prototype

The first working prototype of Quick Quotation Assistant (QiQA) are finished. It includes only the basic functionalities in order to be properly tested.

Screenshot of QiQA first prototype

QiQA interface low-fi prototype

The Quick Quotation Assistant (QiQA) is a tool to support the quotation process in the mouldmaking industry, developed within the scope of the Euro Tooling 21, an Integrated Project (IP) of the EC 6th framework programme. Today we finished the final version of the low fidelity prototype for QiQA's user interface.

QiQA Low-Fi Prototype

Updating from VC++6.0 to VC++7.1

I've been using Microsoft Visual Studio 6 for more than five years. Now its time to move on. Therefore, I installed Microsoft Development Environment 2003. Then, I made the necessary changes in some of my projects in order to compile them with MS VC++7.1.

Below I list a simple change that was necessary, but took me lots of time to figure it out:

Where before was:

#include <fstream.h>

Now must be:

#include <fstream>
using namespace std;


So, if you try to compile code in MS VC++7.1 that uses fstream don't forget to specify the namespace you are using. I hope this helps you save precious time.

Replacing text in multiple files

Because I changed the GUI framework, I now need to replace in all my source files the string 'wxWindows_2.4.0' by 'wxWidgets-2.6.1'. To that end I devised a small bash script that replaces a string by other in all files of a given path and its subdirectories recurively.

The exec_sed.sh bash script is available here. Feel free to use it and distribute it. If you find any errors or made some improvements, leave a comment here or contact me by e-mail.

Updating from wxWindows to wxWidgets

After a couple of years using wxWindows 2.4.2 on the development of my C++ applications, I decided to upgrade to the latest version of this open-source, cross-platform GUI framework. Due to complains from Microsoft about the wxWindows name, it was changed by August 2004 to wxWidgets. Thus, I now downloaded and compiled wxWidgets 2.61 without major problems.

More information about this library can be found in the wxWidgets project page.

Developing editION

After several weeks without major advances, I'm now working fulltime in the editION prototype. Last week I developed a dummy framework server and implemented a preliminar comunication protocol, while GAIPS team focus on the real framework.

At the same time, some improvements were made to the user interface. For instance, is now possible to change the code associated with each action.

Screenshot of framework dummy server and
editION user interface while editing action details.

Summer Holidays

The deserved resting time was over. For three weeks I've been out of office, in my summer holidays with my wife and my son. Now I'm back to work.

Sandra and Tiago at the end of our holidays.

Master!

Yesterday I defended my MSc thesis. Now I am "Master Alfredo", eh eh eh...

Seriously, if you want to view the presentation used for the defense, it is available for download with demo video (ZIP 13,9MB) or without demo video (ZIP 3.8MB).

Presenting my work.

Another Basket Game

Following the success of the first event, Frederico organised another IMMI group basketball game. Twelve members of our group showed up, including Professor Joaquim Jorge. The result doesn't mather, what is important is the fun we all had.

Playing basketball... or, at least, trying to.

Preliminary presentation for MSc thesis defense

I have just finished the preliminary version of the presentation for my MSc thesis defense. A PDF file with the presentation is available here. I will appreciate any comments or suggestions on it.

No more CG exams to evaluate!

After three entire days evaluating Computer Graphics exams from a second year course and one morning publishing the results, and I've reached the "end of the tunnel". No more exams to evaluate this semester. Yesss!!!!