Marley Z.

Principal Investigator of the Wind Tunnel Group and AR/VR Lab.

Posters for Fall 22 and Spring 23

Despite the website being down for half of this academic year, progress was made on my project this year. Click the icon to read the posters I created this year for Wind Tunnel and last year for AR/VR; regular journal updates will continue in the 23-24 academic year.

Journal entries imported from the previous iteration of wisrd.org

MARLEY_Z

24/3/21

y=10 x^(3)-15 x^(4)+6 x^(5)

24/2/7

Over the past couple of months we have been working tiredlessly to get the scale to work. It seems like we have had issues with every part of it from the wiring to the product itself. We tried to replace the scales after the first one stopped working, and the new one didnt work either, so I am going to re solder all of the wiring and see if that fixes the issue.

23/12/7

We are working very hard to try and fix this shelf before the poster session on Tuesday, we are almost done with it just finishing screwing it in than we have all the wiring to do and hopefully mount the scale but not sure if well have tie to make it fit.

23/11/30

We fixed the code for the scale, so now it outputs into a graph. The code is listed below.

#include "HX711.h"

#define calibration_factor -500000.0 // Calibrate this for your load cell

#define DOUT  3

#define CLK  2

HX711 scale;

void setup() {

  Serial.begin(9600);

  scale.begin(DOUT, CLK);

  scale.set_scale(calibration_factor);

  scale.tare(); // Reset the scale to 0 at start up

}

void loop() {

  float weight = scale.get_units();

  float baseline = -1.0; // Define your baseline value

// Print the weight and baseline values, separated by a comma

  Serial.print(weight);

  Serial.print(",");

  Serial.println(baseline);

}

23/11/15

It broke. The shelf one of our members made unfortunately only with hot glue, unsurprisingly has fallen apart. This caused the entire shelf to break off, and we had to unwire the entire thing.

23/10/30

It has been forever since I have done a WISRD journal and I apologize to any future WISRD members trying to work on this project, however I hope this entry makes up for it. The WISRD website has been struggling with issues, and all my journal entries from last years first semseter seems to have been deleted, so Ill try and fill you in on my years work. This year we picked up a project from a group that left off in 2019, and I have been appointed PI of the wind tunnel group. We have had about every issue imaginable, and so far weve made it through all of them. About a month ago or so we decied to add a shelfe to the bottom of the wind tunnel, Ill show you in some pictues later. This shelf gives us a space to put the wiring, and anything else we need without having to deal with the wind blowing anything away. Recently we also dcided to buy a Force Cell Load Sensor which we are using to cllect the data fro the cars. The setup is the wind tunel, with a funnel going throuhgout it, inside the funnel and cells, we have the load cell force sensor flush with the groud to not catch the leading edge of the plate and throw off our data. I am working on making a schematic diagram, which I will put a picture here when done, and the next steps are to put the funnel in, and make sure the airflow is laminar.

23/5/23

The WISRD website has been struggling with issues and all my journal entries for the entire first semester seems to have been deleted, so ill try to fill you in on my year’s work. This year we have started a new project, picking up from the group that left off in 2019, and I have been appointed Pi of the wind tunnel group. We have reconstructed the entire wind tunnel and gotten it working over the year, next year we hope to start to collect data.

22/5/24

The camera has continued to not work, however on HD720 on the Jetson we can run at 15fps. If we attempt to run higher the camera disconnects and says no usb 3.0 showing.

22/5/23

The camera has started to work, however the diagnostic to see whats wrong either crashes or still shows errors so we are still looking for fixes.

22/5/20

The Camera has continued to not work, we have continued contacting Stereo Labs on the situation and have seemed to not get anywhere. We think it might be the cameras usb cord, but are still looking.

22/5/17

Over the past week, I have continued to hard to get the Zed SDK back up and running, unfortunately, I still have not. I reached out the Stereo labs the company that creates it, and they released a new patch just today, I have struggled to Install the new patch, however, we seem to be getting closer.

22/5/10

Today I am continuing to work on getting the Zed SDK back up, we also have successfully gotten engage working with two VR headsets.

22/5/9

Over the time I haven’t been journaling a lot has happened. The Jetson Nano scans have stopped working, when we attempt to open the program we use called ZedFu it crashes almost immediately and ive been looking for a fix for it for a while. Some things it might be is that the firmware for the camera corrupted so ive bene trying to update it. We have also had a poster session and completed another poster (see picture below). I have tried pugging the Jetson into other devices with the same issues, and haven’t found a fix but am actively looking for one.

22/3/25

We have scanned the gallery and successfully gotten textures into Blender. We plan on making four scans of the theatre as its much easier, and easier to work with. Like we do in the picture below, we are going to scan all the walls individually, and combine them in blender. One thing we learnt from this is that the camera is very sensitive to light, as you can see on the right side when we attempted to scan a window.

22/3/22

Today, we scanned the Gallery to find the strengths, we found that It is very light sensitive, and really needs to go slowly to be accurate. We have also gotten them off of the Jetson Into Blender with textures.

22/3/15

Today in WISRD I have successfully set up ftp on the Jetson Nano so we are now able to take files directly from it. The login and pass will be found at \\192.168.168.40\assets\IT\passwords\Jetson Nano

22/3/14

I have attempted to scan the gallery, to explore the strengths of the Jetson, I have found that you have to move the camera extremely slowly if you want a detailed scan. While I was saving this it accidently unplugged, and only the mesh saved. We have found out how to import textures into Blender using .obj files, and that’s what in going to work towards getting the scan with textures into Blender.

22/2/23

A couple of days ago we ordered a new power supply for the Jetson Nano, and today it arrived. The camera finally worked when plugged in and this is really good news.

How to use Jetson Nano: Boot up

  1. Plug in all the peripherals such as keyboard, mouse, Ethernet, etc. DO NOT plug in the ZED camera yet, or power.

  2. After everything is plugged in, plug in the power and let it boot. There should be no password and it will log you in instantly, if it doesnt the User and Pass can be found at \\192.168.168.40/assets/IT/passwords/Jetson Nano. In this folder there is a Read Me with the info.

How to use Jetson Nano: Starting up ZED programs:

Once you are on the desktop of the Jetson Nano, which will look like (See Picture Above) move to the left side of the screen and click on “files” which is circled on the photo. Once its open, near the bottom of the list on the left click on + Other Locations, After that click on “Computer” with a logo of a hard drive. From there navigate to usr/local/zed/tools. Once you are here there should be 8 different files you are able to open. The most important of the 8 are “ZEDfu” Which is the app used to scan the rooms, and “ZED_Explorer” Which I use to make sure the zed is working, and all the functions on it.

22/2/9

Over the past days, I’ve been struggling to get the zed camera to work, I’ve found a lot of issues, some being low bandwidth, or just shutting off completely so I’m still working on getting it to launch. I also joined a zoom meeting about robots, and how they are companions. This meeting mainly consisted of robots helping people with rehabilitation, and teaching. This is a companionship robot, meaning that it stays with the owner, and reminds them to do things such as eat, or take medicine.

22/2/1

Over the past couple of days, I have trouble shoot on why the password stopped working. I found a couple of threads on a forum online of people with similar problems. The fix that I used was the re flash the Jetson Nano again. When I launched it with the newly flashed Micro Sd card it worked. I then started trying to set up VNC. I had alot of trouble with this as the tutorial posted from Nvidia doesn’t work, I looked for blogs, or threads from other people and found a couple. Most of them didn’t work so I had to change the code that they had, and made it work. So VNC is now set up. Right now when we plug in the camera to the Jetson Board, the whole thing turns off, I have found that this is because we are drawing to much power from our current Micro USB power supply. Some fixes of this is using a different type of power supply.

22/1/26

Today, when logging in to the Jetson Nano, the password stopped working. I attempted to log in via the terminal but had no luck. I am attempting to re flash the Jetson and it will act as a hard reset to the device. I have done some research on others with the issue, I have found a couple of threads with people with the same problem as me.

22/1/25

I have been working on getting the ZED SDK on the Jerson Nano, I have a couple issues, one being that when the camera is plugged in it is drawing to much power and shuts off the system. There are a couple of fixes for this, one is buying a different type of power cable which supplies more power. The Login to the Jetson Nano can be found at \\192.168.168.40\assets\IT\passwords\Jetson Nano. I have had some trouble with downloading the SDK, mainly there is an area which requires a password typed in but does not give enough time to type it.

22/1/11

Today I have gotten the Jetson Nano board to boot, we have gotten on to the desktop of it, and next class I plan on installing the Zed Sdk for Nano, which allows the zed sdk to be used.

21/12/15

The Jetson Board came today, I have been setting up the board, and downloading files to a sd card that we need to use.

21/12/13

Today we had a meeting with a former member of WISRD, named Will. We asked him a couple of questions about our project, and some new software’s we should use. Will recommended that for the scans, you should Import them into Blender, and finish it up, this can be re texturizing, or finishing a broken wall. Using this completed scan Will then said you can import it into Unreal Engine instead of Unity, Unreal Engine is a game engine similar to Unity, but is more advanced, and has better graphics. Then once the scan is in unreal engine you can then import to VR, and other places.

21/12/9

I have continued to work on scanning environments, and have found the strengths and weaknesses of the Zed Camera, it seems to be very strong in open spaces, with very few objects. Today, I have found a new program called ZedFu to 3d scan environments and am looking to see if ZedFu is better then Unity.

21/11/29

I have continued to work on getting the other computer to work with unity and the 3d scans. I have finally got it to work, and am going to try scanning a whole environment, and look for strengths, and areas to try and make better with the scans. In the time between updates, I have written my Vitae, and preparing for my interview here in WISRD. Later this week we plan on coming in early to attempt to scan the Theatre room.

21/10/26

We have been invited to have a brainstorming discussion with some members from the Bill and Melinda foundation to see how VR can be used in third world countries, to help teach, and also to help train people. This discussion is this afternoon. Also a 3d stand that we have been working on to hold up our sensors have finished, but it cant connect to a wall so we are going to move the support beams back, and make a modification so it fits both sensors in the next design.

21/10/19

I have uninstalled Unity and am reinstalling hopefully for a fix.

21/10/18

I had major issues with Unity today. My progress from last time has seem to be gone, and I haven’t been able to open Unity all class since its been crashing. I am looking for a fix.

21/10/5

I am continuing to look at a way to scan rooms from the zed camera into unity. I have found major trouble trying to room map with the zed camera. I have come across numerous errors that I will continue to work out. I have figuired out how to make a mesh, and am currently struggling with adding textures.

21/10/04

Joe has given us a Microsoft HoloLens which we will research and see how it can be used. We have also received a zed camera which can be used to scan rooms, however we are missing a very important part called the Jetson Nano board. So we are looking into getting another. The zed camera can scan rooms, so I am looking at a way to use this in help with the theatre project. I am looking at a way to scan directly into unity.

21/09/28

For AR/VR today, I spent a lot of my time researching past members of the AR/Vr group. I have found out that past groups have made a virtual gallery space which is very similar to the theatre we are making. I have also looked at the past people, and the equipment they have used, and I hope to replicate them with my theatre.

21/09/24

Today the ARVR group setup the Vive, with this we are now able to have multiple people in the VR environment. We also have found trouble with making the sensors have a more permanent setup. We would like the sensors to be wall mounted but one wall doesn’t have any outlets, so we may have to use a way that is not recommended or find another way. We also have found trouble with the “PolyCam” app. Its scans seem to be inconsistent and missing parts of the object every time.

21/09/21

Everyone in the ARVR group downloaded a mobile app called “PolyCam”. We used this app to all scan objects to attempt to get them into the Virtual space. I have scanned an object using the app and it is processing right now. I also am emailing somebody at FrameVR about sparkles in the Vr environment. In the future we plan to use the “PolyCam” to help achieve our goals of creating a virtual theatre. This would be very helpful to the theatre group because they struggle with space, so if are able to successfully improit objects from real life into VR, they could build full sets without the issue of being interrupted or even being in the space at all.

21/09/20

Today in WISRD I finished up the WISRD virtual gallery https://framevr.io/wisrd2. I plan on working more with this adding more posters, and some pictures of the groups.

21/09/15

Today in WISRD I continued to work on setting up a VR WISRD space, this space will have the posters that each project made, and some items from the respective projects.

21/09/14

Today in WISRD we made the discovery on how to get .stl files, and photos into the VR environment. We will continue to look for ways to import real life objects into the VR space. We also made a tweet on the WISRD twitter account.