Mixed Reality

RATIONALE Our Project Infralens focuses on evacuation in emergency situations, particularly in the aftermath of an earthquake. Our main  technology is a visor interface, intended specifically for trained professionals to facilitate their rescue operations. Infrared sensors scan the surrounding area to measure the density of objects and locating victims, which assists them in finding the best possible pathway. There is an accompanying app that links the victim with the first responder.       For the pitching of our product we created a video demonstration where we simulated a disaster scenario. We shot the visor interface in first person perspective with a hand held camera to give the viewers an authentic experience of our technology. With the overlaying of colour and icons onto this footage we created our virtual experience.       Final Video  REFLECTION AND FURTHER DEVELOPMENT What would we improve on if we had the t...

(Ruth and Gen) Introduction/ Conclusion: So after discussing our presentation plan with the tutors on tuesday, Gen and I realised we needed to add a better introduction, and a breakdown of our product to conclude our video.  After brainstorming some brief ways of how we could better introduce our product idea, we realised we wanted to minimise anything before our video in order to metaphorically 'throw our audience in the deep end.' We felt this would provide viewers with a more authentic viewing experience. They could better understand the confusion played out in our scenario and therefore better appreciate the assistance our product will provide. So we decided to go a simple rhetorical question to open our presentation 'In an emergency, could you get out?' Supported by a brief 'Introducing Infralens' so that viewers would have some context of what product was being shown in the video. Introduction Animation: To conclude our product vid...

Dividing the remaining tasks and planning meet-ups for the last few days: (Gen) Improving our phone interface: From the feedback from the tutors we needed to better alter the app to suit the user. I changed the big red help button to a "Request assistance" and add a radar pinpointing the location instead of a countdown timer. I also decided to use more blue and grey, more subtle tones to subconsciously calm the user and not a big red button. The second video shows this new and improved version.  Phone tracking      -Gen (Ruth & Gen) Improving our 'Aftershock' feature (Visor Interface) We were also urged to change the aftershock scene to instead of the word WARNING flashing in the middle of the scene we should use an icon on the side. This will be a less distracting element for the responder. Before: After: Animated Video: -Ruth

Text Overlays: In order to make our video into more a presentation rather than a scenario, we decided to add some overlaid text that would play through freeze frames showing our main interface features. To make it obvious to our audience that this text is not in the visor itself (the first responder would not see it) we made the video appear to pause (using slow-mo) and we overlaid a dark filter over everything in the video, except the feature being discussed. This effect made the feature itself 'pop' visually, making it clearer what was being shown. -Ruth Aftershock warning sign and Safe Zone: -Gen

(Ruth) Kitchen: (Gen) Bedroom:

(Ruth) Researching HUD Interfaces and Applying This to Our Visor Design: After talking with Klaus on Friday morning we realised we really needed to do better with the design of the map and arrows on our visor... as they are really ugly... I did some research and just looked at lots of imagery for style inspiration as well as the technicalities of object placement in the field of vision.  The main action points I picked up from this research were: We need to fix the colours. Traditional digital displays are bright 'glowy' looking colours. Square maps are a no-go Look at style? Try geometric options? We need to be careful not to add unnecessary visual distractions, this is an emergency situation so we need to make sure our interface assists this rather than making things harder and more complicated. Before and after map designs: Video of my changes so far, including the new map: -Ruth

(Ruth) Freeze frames -Ruth (Gen) Manual Tracking in Bedroom (Gen) New Phone Interface:   We kept the first screen the same but decided to alter the second screen. The feedback that we got is that we should find a better way to show the firefighters distance. We still aim for this to be a simple and easy app to use for when people are under immense stress. Instead of showing a vehicle going across a map we will show a calm inducing timer that pulses. We wanted to use a more passive colour, which is a light blue for this. Reassuring and assisting messages will pop up at the bottom of the screen There is still a fainter map in the background if the user wishes to check the professionals journey. - Gen Save Save

Beginning to Edit/ Animate our Scenes: This week we began the process of editing our video, by overlaying the essential parts for the visor. As seen the previous post we have created the vector graphics that will be used over the footage. We experimented with a variety of different types of tracking techniques including point tracking, motion tracking and manual tracking but found that they did not work too well with our video due to too much motion and low image quality. We decided to go forward with using freeze frames and slow motion in order for the coloured elements to be more effective. We aim to show a different colour for each one of these occurs throughout the video. For the exits, we will have them lit up in green. This will not only be for the main exit but for other emergency exits like windows.We believe that this could better for us as it allows us to signal the different types of objects and features individually. We may need to use manual tracking fo...

Class Notes:  Making our Assets: Working out our Tasks and Assigning Ourselves Roles: -Ruth & Gen

(Gen) App Design:  Our initial design for the distress app: -Gen (Ruth) Visor Design: Research into styles of graphic overlays, examples of displaying information on top of the 'real world.' Movies like Spider-Man Homecoming, and Stranger Than Fiction are great examples of how text, colour, and imagery has been seamlessly integrated into video.  Our initial design for the visor overlay: -We need to design a stylised map that visually matches the map from the app. -We need to create a smoother styled frame that better matches an earthquake theme? -We need to add more information of the victim, show name, address, severity of the situation etc... -Ruth

Feedback/ Reflections/ Plan to Move Forward from Here: -Ruth & Gen