Austin Tate's Blog

The OpenSimulator-based Littlefield Grid (LFGrid) has a wonderful “Arles” area created by Mudpuddle Cleanslate. It can be visited by any avatar from any Hypergrid-enabled OpenSim grid (such as OSGrid) via this location…

Mudpuddle Cleanslate wrote:

… Van Gogh’s Virtual Arles, a beautifully landscaped sim showing 17 of the views that he painted during his time here. At each viewpoint I have placed an easel showing Van Gogh’s finished painting. Arles is now open for visitors although there will be additions as and when. There are a few surprises only to be discovered when you visit the Yellow House.

An overhead shot of the Arles region on LFGrid is here…

Arles in Virtual Reality

The LFGrid Arles region works wonderfully in VR on Oculus Rift using the CtrlAltStudio viewer (CtrlAltStudio 1.2.6.43412).

A new Second Life “Project Viewer” has been released by Linden Lab that allows for the creation of 360° snapshots in Second Life virtual world scenes.

There is also a package of HTML and JavaScript that can be installed on a web site (supporting Python) which provides a framework for viewing the images that are created (works in Microsoft Edge, Mozilla, Google Chrome and Apple Safari on iOS, but not Internet Explorer).

• Second Life Wiki: 360 Snapshots
• Second Life Blog: A New Perspective on Second Life (26-Oct-2016)
• Examples: Callum Linden (using web viewing framework)
• Examples: Torley Linden (on Flickr)
• Hands-on: Second Life 360-degree snapshot viewer – Blog Post by Inara Pey (26-Oct-2016)
• Second_Life_Project_360_Snapshot/4.1.2.320965 (October 26, 2016)

The 360° snapshot web viewing framework mounted on our own server at http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~ai/360/ looks like this…

The current experimental project viewer saves a set of six 1024×1024 snapshots in a .zip file. Add any new 360° image .zip files you save to the “shots” directory in the web framework, and then access them via a URL of the style…

E.g., http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~ai/360/?shot=shots/default.zip

Vue Region in Second Life

Click for 360° view… http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~ai/360/?shot=shots/vue.zip
The icon in the top left corner gives you a link to visit the destination.

I-Room on Vue Region in Second Life

Click for 360° view… http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~ai/360/?shot=shots/iroom.zip
The icon in the top left corner gives you a link to visit the destination.

Fish4Knowledge (F4K) Gallery in Second Life

Click for 360° view… http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~ai/360/?shot=shots/f4k.zip
The icon in the top left corner gives you a link to visit the destination.

Menu of 360° Images

A sample file menu.html in the web viewer framework can be edited to show the collection of 360 images available. Click on icon in top left corner for full sized view. See example at http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~ai/360/menu.html

Using other Formats – 2:1 Pixel Apect Ratio for Flickr

Once you are viewing an image using the web viewer framework that operates on the .zip files, you can download it in a 2:1 aspect ratio suitable for upload to Flickr for sharing and viewing in 360°. The download button is indicated in the image to the right. Images download using it are in 2:1 pixel aspect ration (PAR) at 4096×2048, and contains XMP metadata specifying a “ProjectionType” which should be recognized as a 360 image. This means they can be uploaded directly to Flickr for 360° viewing. Inara Pey’s blog post gives helpful details.

Some examples produced using this procedure are available in http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~ai/360/pano/.

After creating an album and uploading some of the 2:1 PAR images downloaded in this way… here is an example of a number of panoramas in Flickr… this also works in Internet Explorer…

https://www.flickr.com/photos/aiaustin/albums/72157674590685540

360° Snapshots in a Virtual Reality Headset

The “360 Photos” app in the Oculus Store can be used to view 360° snapshots saved in an appropriate format. One of the formats allowed is the same 2:1 ratio image format that can be output from the Linden Lab web viewer framework and that works with Flickr. Any JPEG photos with either an equi-rectangular projection (recommended 4096×2048) or a cube map (recommended 1536×1536 per cube side) will render in the application. You simply place these in the directory indicated below and they appear as “My Photos”…

Advice to Create Better 360° Snapshots

The Second Life Wiki 360° Snapshot Page has advice on setup of the viewer to create better snapshots, particularly for this early test version of the viewer with its limited facilities to “freeze” the scene to capture the multiple camera angles needed.

Glitches

As expected there are a few glitches with this initial project viewer.

1. When the box to “Do not capture my avatar” is ticked in the 360 snapshot creator tool, avatar attachments such as hair and shoes continue to show. A sample of this is at
   http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~ai/360/?shot=shots/vue-too-high.zip
2. If you try to take a snapshot with a viewpoint that is too high up in the sky, not surprisingly, there is an obvious “box” straight edge effect on the horizon at the junctions of the stitching of the images. A sample of this is at
   http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~ai/360/?shot=shots/vue-too-high.zip
3. In the menu.html web page template, the icon in the top left corner of each thumbnail opens the full sized image, but the same icon in that full sized view gives you a link to the Second Life map location. Maybe two different icons would work better, especially as the “About -> Controls” help page indicates that icon is to visit the region via the map.
4. A few viewer crashes occurred.

Other 360° Snapshot Creation Approaches

Other approaches to creating 360° snapshots in Second Life using multiple cameras have been created and are documented in this blog post.

Happy Halloween 2016

http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~ai/360/index.html?shot=shots/halloween.zip
and in Flickr…
https://www.flickr.com/photos/aiaustin/30531250701/in/album-72157674590685540/

Setup to Hide Ground in Aerial 360° Snapshots

When taking snapshots at a height above a region, even if the viewing distance is set low enough that all objects on the ground do not show, the surface patch, ground and water of the regions below you can show in a snapshot. To avoid this you can turn off the rendering of these elements… in Advanced (Ctrl+Alt+D to show) -> Render.

Click for 360° view… http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~ai/360/?shot=shots/supercar.zip
and http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~ai/360/?shot=shots/supercar-cockpit.zip
Works in Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome and Apple Safari
(but not Internet Explorer)

The University of Edinburgh School of Informatics Institute for Perception Action and Behaviour (IPAB), which is Edinburgh’s Robotics Institute and part of the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics (jointly with Heriot-Watt University) has a new web site… http://web.inf.ed.ac.uk/ipab

Asgardia (http://asgardia.space/) is a project to explore a space-based community by creating an “Asgardia Citzenship” of those interested. It will start with privately financed spacecraft and go on from there.

DreamWorld is an OpenSimulator world to demonstrate an easy to use OpenSim setup program called the “Outworldz Installer” created by Fred Beckhusen, aka Ferd Frederix. It includes MySQL, the Diva Distribution (“D2”) of OpenSim 0.8.2.1, Diva’s WiFi admin interface and the OnLook viewer. It sets up a sample virtual world with HyperGrid capability along with options to load a range of alternative content via OpenSim Archive (OAR) files.

• Download and Instructions – http://www.outworldz.com/Outworldz_Installer/
• YouTube Video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cLytBLMT2g
• Source – https://github.com/Outworldz/Dreamworld

Fix to OpenSim.exe.config

It is possible that some Windows .NET4 environments might have problems loading some modules… reporting an error with…

An attempt was made to load an assembly from a network location which would have caused the assembly to be sandboxed in previous versions of the .NET Framework. This release of the .NET Framework does not enable CAS policy by default, so this load may be dangerous. If this load is not intended to sandbox the assembly, please enable the loadFromRemoteSources switch. See http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=155569 for more information.

A fix was made to OpenSim in bin/OpenSim.exe.config (and bin/Robust.exe.config though that is not used yet in the Diva D2 distribution) on 23-Nov-2013 (git master a68d1fa) for this, adding the following line to the <runtime> section…

If you see this error in the Outworldz console or log file (in …Outworldz\OutworldzFiles\Opensim\binOpenSim.log), check this line is present in the bin/OpenSim.exe.config. If not, add it and run again.

This is a resource area for experimentation with the production and publishing of 360° snapshots in virtual worlds such as Second Life and OpenSim.

Blog Posts

• Panoramic 360 Degree Image Capture Coming to Second Life Viewer – Blog Post 2016-10-08 – Inara Pey
• Illiastra Panoramic Camera System – Blog Post 2016-10-05 Strawberry Singh
• Illiastra Panoramic Camera 360 Degree System – Blog Post 2016-10-07 – Inara Pey
• IOL Panoramic Camera – Blog Post 2016-10-06 – Lalwende Leakey
• IOL Panoramic Camera – Blog Post 2016-10-13 – Inara Pey
• VR Photosphere: a further Second Life 360 photo HUD – Blog Post 2016-10-20 – Inara Pey

Resources

• Second Life Marketplace – Illiastra Panoramic Camera System
• Second Life Marketplace – <a href="https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/IOL-Camera-
• Second Life Marketplace – VR Creations 360 Photosphere HUD V10

Panoramic/10049409″>IOL Panoramic Camera

• VRchive – Share 360 degree scenes

Update 26-Oct-2016: Linden Lab released a project viewer able to generate 360° snapshots along with a web to view the generated images. See this blog post for more information.

On 3rd October 2016 a celebration of the first 5 years of University of Edinburgh Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) took place in the Playfair Library in the University’s Old College. 35 MOOCs on three MOOC platforms (Coursera, EdX and FutureLearn) have been provided in that period. A brochure was released to celebrate the occasion and publicise the work of the University in providing open online accessible educational materials in many subjects areas…

This includes the School of Informatics Artificial Intelligence Planning MOOC…

We can add that the AI Planning MOOC also had 6 guest lecturers for each week and for additional study opportunities:

Guest Lecturers:
Prof. Nils Nilson (Stanford University, USA),
Dr. David Wilkins (SRI International, USA),
Prof. Jörg Hoffmann (University of Saarland, Germany),
Dr. Brad Clement (NASA JPL, USA),
Dr. Alex Champandard (AiGameDev, Austria),
Dr. Arturo Gonzalez-Ferrer (University of Granada, Spain and University of Haifa, Israel)

The materials all are available under a flexible Creative Commons Licence: CC-BY-NC-SA

On 28th September 2016 the Amazon Echo voice-activated cloud-based intelligent personal assistant device named “Alexa” was introduced in the UK, having been available in the US since 6th November 2014 (see Wikipedia article). This blog post collects resources and links related to voice-activated computer assistants such as Amazon Echo, Apple Siri, Google Home and Microsoft Cortana.

Amazon Echo – Alexa

• Amazon Alexa Web Interface
• New Device Setup
• Amazon Echo Documentation
• Amazon Alexa FAQs
• Multiple Amazon User Profiles
• Alexa integration with Google Calendar
• Alexa Skills:
  • Radio: Tunein (built-in), RadioPlayer UK (add-on)
  • Connect a Smart Home Device to Alexa [e.g. Belkin WeMo (built-in)]
  • Twitter Reader (US only)
• Fix to Connect to UK BT Home Hub [Extra Blog Post] [Separate 2.4GHz and 5GHz Fix]
• Pair a Bluetooth mobile device to Echo [Then use Voice Control]

The Amazon Echo incorporates a wifi linked control unit along with a tubular speaker. The control unit on its own is available as the “Amazon Echo Dot” which can be connected to external speakers, though it also has a simple speaker incorporated for voice feedback.

Amazon Echo Dot First Time Setup

For some reason on a University network that should present several WiFi access point options (eduroam and central) only central showed. But except for that, connection to a Wifi network which requires a user name/password and conditions acceptance prompt was straightforward.

The Alexa Home Application on a web browser or mobile device shows the latest interactions, news, music player (with active controls), etc that are relayed via the device.

It appears that the ability to read out Kindle books is not present in UK devices yet.

The Echo and Echo Dot update themselves when idle for a period. See this page for the Amazon Echo and Echo Dot Current Software Version. Although my experience is that the version listed on web page may not be fully up-to-date and your Echo or Echo Dot may actually have a new version after an update.

Switching between WiFi Networks

If you move your Echo or Echo Dot to a location with a different WiFi access point, you will need to change the WiFi setup. The device will indicate it cannot make a WiFi connection. If you then hold the “Action” button for 5 seconds or so, it will show an orange ring and enter setup mode. This will create an “Amazon-XXX” named local WiFi setup to which you should connect your Alexa app device (such as an Apple iPhone/iPad). Then run the Alexa App, select “Settings”, select your device and enter “Update WiFi”.

Connecting a Wemo Smart Home Device

I tried to connect a Belkin Wemo smart home plug. An immediate issue was that I could not connect to a Wifi network that requires a login username and password, normally presented through a web page or pop-up dialogue. It appears that WEMO only supports WPA, WPA2, and WEP security types.

http://community.wemothat.com/t5/WEMO-Application/Connect-To-WiFi-with-Username-and-Password/td-p/12257

A “Restore” button on top of the device allows for the initial built in direct access Wifi settings to be restored to allow a new Wifi connection to be set up. Instructions for the procedure are here.

AudioBooks

The Amazon Echo and Dot can relay audio books from Audible (an Amazon company) and (in the US only at present) can do text-to-speech output for compatible Kindle books. If “WhisperSync” is enabled across your Amazon devices then the last page read is saved whichever modality you use.

• Alexa Audiobook Commands. E.g.
• Alexa, play book <title>
• Alexa, resume my book (on subsequent instructions to go back to last page being read)
• Alexa, restart (to go back to the beginning of the book)
• Alexa, go to chapter <number>

Alexa Future Developments and Alexa Prize

Developers and students can access an “Alexa Skills Kit” to add “Alexa Skills” and join in a competition to develop conversational AI extensions suitable for Alexa.

• The Alexa Prize – The Alexa Prize – $2.5 Million to Advance Conversational Artificial Intelligence – September 2016 – November 2017.
• University of Edinburgh Team Edina Entry (Federico Fancellu -Team Lead, Ben Krause, Emmanuel Kahembwe @MannyKayy, Daniel Duma @mstdan, Marco Damonte, Jianpeng Cheng, Mihai Dobre and Joachim Fainberg).

• New Alexa Skills Kit Template: Step-by-Step Guide to Build a Flash Cards Skill
• Echo Simulator – Alexa in a Browser
  [Manage Login with Amazon – Revoke Permission]

• http://www.apple.com/uk/ios/siri/

• https://home.google.com

• https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/cortana

Unity Technologies announced plans for Unity to support the New Nintendo 3DS and New Nintendo 3DS XL, new portable game systems from Nintendo, during the keynote speech at Unite 2015 Tokyo. The new Unity platform support will be available to Nintendo, Nintendo’s 3rd party developers and over 4 million registered Unity developers.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - March 3, 2015 - Unity Technologies today announced the immediate availability of Unity 5, the next generation of the award-winning Unity multiplatform engine and development tools. The most powerful version of Unity to date includes massive graphics improvements and an expanded editor feature set that gives developers everywhere the potential to create incredibly beautiful and innovative gaming experiences across 21 platforms.

San Francisco, CA – November 4, 2014 – Unity Technologies is proud to announce that the company’s Asset Store is expected to exceed one million users by the end of the year and celebrates its fourth birthday with the Birthday Bonanza Madness Sale. Today, it offers more than 15,000 content packages and apps – available from nearly 3,800 creators – to developers, delivering exciting content packages for 2D and 3D models, plus other tools and services such as animation, audio, editor extensions, shaders, scripting, textures, and materials.

Unity Technologies announced today that Co-founder David Helgason has stepped back from his role as CEO and welcomed John Riccitiello, former CEO of Electronic Arts, into the position. Helgason will continue at Unity as Executive Vice President in charge of strategy and communications.

This course provides an introduction to the principles and practice of building Web-based visualization models using the Extensible 3D (X3D) Graphics Standard. 
Focus of the course is design projects.

This course has no programming or course prerequisites. 
Students from many departments across NPS have successfully learned 3D graphics using X3D. 
Each week you will review and prepare models illustrating some new graphics techniques.

At the end of the course you will create a modeling project that can be published on the Web.  If you continue with the follow-on course MV4205 Advanced X3D, you can…