GSOC 2016: Cloud Point Visualization for Liquid Galaxy

GSoC 2016 project proposal

Ismael Arroyo, Liquid Galaxy LAB, Spain

Cloud Point Visualization for Liquid Galaxy

Short bio

My name is Ismael Arroyo Campos and I am a last-year PhD student in the University of Lleida (Spain). My PhD is about analyzing the performance of a Cluster Display-Wall under Master-Slave and Client-Server architectures and make a model that represent its behaviour. My aim is to reduce the hardware requirements by optimizing the applications used on it by analyzing the performance and also trying to predict the behavior of a given hardware. I use Liquid Galaxy to achieve these objectives

I really love challenges and I am not afraid in learning new technologies because I am already used to do it.

As for my methodology, I always want to keep my code clean and as simple as possible to let anyone use my code with ease.

Past GSoC projects

2013: System, Network, and Caching Performance Benchmarking (Tour monitoring of Google Earth)

2014: System, Network, and Performance Monitoring for Liquid Galaxy web-based applications (Tour monitoring of Peruse-a-rue)

2015: Mentor of Rafa Duran

LAB / LG collaborations

Member of Devfest staff in Barcelona
Endesa fair in Madrid
Bring LG to Euskal Encounter (Lan-Party)
Exhibition of Joan Oro in Lleida
Maintenance of the Liquid Galaxy in Lleida
Bring LG to Lleida Drone events

LG related experiences

New York 3 months working at End Point for GSOC14 and my PhD
Sydney congress
Elche (Spain) congress

PhD Related

Multiple LG exhibitions during special events at the University
Developed scripted ioquake launcher and performance analysis for ioQuake3
Usability tests using Tobii Glasses 2
2 weeks stay in Eindhoven (Holland) to share experiences with CAVE at the University of Eindhoven

Project description

This is an ambitious project that tries to bind Cloud Point and Liquid Galaxy.

A given scenario is captured using Tango, LIDAR or any other Cloud Point scanner.

The visualization in the Liquid Galaxy can be achieved by using some middleware as NodeJS with Unity Web Player and Chromium.

Another middleware must be used to be able to represent Cloud Point Data into a web player, such as iTowns http://itowns.github.io/ , and taking a look at other solutions such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHxe8GrPapo https://github.com/alfski/ViewSyncEffect proposed by Liquid Galaxy mentor Andrew Leahy.

It is possible that the Cloud Point web player does not support the Space Navigator and, thus, a Javascript implementation of this device is expected to be done in the scope of this project.

We have a Project Tango tablet and a LIDAR available, with which we will be able to make some real tests and deliver demos.

Also the idea is to incorporate other types of 3d Model visualization files like OBJ (used in environments as CAD, Unity3D, Maya, etc).

Afterwards, some interaction with the real-time or captured data can be implemented such as placing markers or objects.

Value added for the Liquid Galaxy project

A visualization tool for Liquid Galaxy that processes Cloud Point Data which can be interacted with. A web interface to manage cloud point and/or other types of 3d model files and to visualize those files in the Liquid Galaxy.

Linked technologies

Liquid Galaxy, Cloud Point, iTowns, JS, HTML, NodeJS, Unity3D, C#, Bash, Linux.

Timeline

Before 22

Look for different middlewares to visualize cloud point data and obj files.

April 22 - May 22 (Bonding period)

Discuss the project details with my mentor.
Do a strict definition of how and with what technologies all project parts must be implemented.

May 23 - June 27 (First working period - Mid term evaluation):

Investigate and review the feasibility of using different visualization applications to visualize cloud point data and test the visualization with different types of file.
Review which middlewares have the ability to be used in a multiple-screen environment like Liquid Galaxy and select the ones with better capabilities and interface.
Install and adapt the best middleware to visualize cloud point data into the Liquid Galaxy
Create a wiki that explains how to install and use the project
Create a Liquid Galaxy github project that will include this visualization middleware along with the necessary configuration.

June 28 - August 15 (Second working period )

Implement the Space Navigator controller for the web-player.
Implement the web interface that manages the cloud point files
Use LIDAR, Project Tango and/or other technologies to generate cloud point data.
Add the web-interface usage to the wiki
Final testing and bug fixing