Wednesday 10 June 2015

Timeline

Week 1 - Targeted CV

Week 2 - Back Brief Presentation

Week 3 - Research/ Museum Plans

Week 4 - Modeling a jug

Week 5 - (Mid- Sem Break) Planning (Presentation)

Week 6 - (Mid- Sem Break) Planning (Presentation)

Week 7 - Presenting our Planning presentation / Change of plans

Week 8 - How do/ did we communicate? / Planning because of change

Week 9 - Individual milestone / Intellectual Property presentation (Oculus)

Week 10 - Conflict Presentation (Marker Project) / Progress

Week 11 - Progress / Remuneration Presentation (Aerial Ropeway)

Week 12 - Progress

Week 13 - Final Presentation / Refined submission

Week 14 - Final submission

Week 14_Final

In the previous blog post, I mentioned that our goal for the 123d catch models was to lower it in size and optimise it in a way that it was small in size but still retained a level of detail. Aram has successfully optimised the 123d catch models using 3Ds Max. The result is quite good and obviously the detail of it is not as high definition as the original ones but the size of the file is significantly smaller and this is noticeable when view it in Revtizo. 

We all had a bit of trouble getting all the 123d catch models together with our Sketch Up model in Revitzo, for some reason when I tried merging them together one model would always override the other. Aram has merged all the models in Sketch Up, where we are able to move and scale it. This has made our lives much easier but this also shows that these 123d catch models are compatible with Sketch Up. Below are images of the 123d catch models imported/ merged with our Sketch Up model.




Sketch Up Model:




Images above: Screenshots of the 123d catch models imported in Sketch Up 


Sketch Up model in Revitzo


Below are images of the Sketch Up model with the 123d catch models merged into it imported into Revitzo using the plug in that is already in Sketch Up. The difference between how it looks in Sketch Up and Revitzo may not seem as visible through these images but the Revitzo viewer definitely gives a clearer and crisper model. 







This part of the 123d catch model was the only part that did not look smooth/ connected and it has definitely lost some of its detail after being optimised. Other than that this still gives an idea of the limits that this model can be reduced and optimised. 





Images above: Screenshots of our Sketch Up model imported into Revtizo

As you can see in the above images, after the 123d catch models have been optimised the level of detail is still there, therefore it is achievable to have a smaller sized file that still shows detail and clear texturing. 

Download links to files:

Sketch up file without 123d catch files:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cgtx4afiaiwfbdt/MERL_FINAL%20%28without%20123d%20catch%20models%29.skp?dl=0

Sketch up files with 123d catch files (combined):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/m809izosw59b6cy/MERL_FINAL%20%2B%20COMBINED.skp?dl=0

Revitzo file:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/so11m7ghqruozzv/MERL_FINAL_REVITZO.vimproj?dl=0

User manual: 




For more detail on how we collaborated as a group on this project view our group wiki here

Friday 5 June 2015

Week 13/ 14

One of the things that we needed to fix up in our model was the beams located to the right of the museum. As seen in the picture below (taken by Russell) we were missing the top horizontal beam connecting the two diagonal beams. We have now fixed it up, as seen below. 











Images above: Screenshots of the fixed up beams in Sketch Up and Revtizo

After our presentation on Wednesday, Russell gave us feedback saying that he wanted to see our 123d catch models (made by Dr. Ian) to be made smaller but still retaining the high detail that it currently has. Aram has worked on optimising each of the 123d catch files. We have been testing it on our individual laptops but unfortunately the textures are not showing up, so we are seeing how small we can get the file before the textures are not visible.






Aram has worked on it and he sent us some new files with the textures visible. For the past few hours I have tried to merge all the 123d catch files with the sketch up model but for some reason in Revitzo it keeps overriding my files and I am only able to get one file in with the Sketch Up file. I have decided to put it into 3ds Max and merge it there and then save it as a fbx and import it into Revtizo. Here are the results:




Everything looks very good in 3ds Max but unfortunately when imported in Revitzo the texturing does not work very well.




I'm not too sure what is happening, it is most likely a result of the file being imported from 3ds Max. I played around with Revitzo and 3ds Max and tried different options. I decided to just combine the courtyard and Sketch Up file in 3ds Max and then import it into Revitzo where I then combine the front facade of the museum. 






Images above: Screenshots of the 123d catch images merged with the Sketch Up model


Overall, I am happy with the result as it is a much better result than what we were getting before. However, there are a few problems:
1. The butter churn (shown above) is having some strange texturing problems
2. The doors of the Sketch Up model have disappeared

Wednesday 3 June 2015

Week 13_ Final Presentation

Presented in class on the 03/06/15




Images above: Screenshots of the completed presentation created in Keynote

Feedback given:
  • Sketch Up model- the structure on the right side of the interior of the museum was modeled incorrectly, there is an extra part to it that extends up and back down making a triangle structure/ support. --> This will be fixed by next week's submission.
  • Try and get the 123d catch models made by Dr Ian Ewart smaller in size but still at a high quality. 
  • User manual - add more final images of what the manual is teaching. 
    • Have a more generic one on just Sketch Up (our manual is very specific to the Museum of English Rural Life)


Process of putting our presentation together


The method that we have been using for all the presentations this semester is listing out the points we need to talk about and choosing which one we want to work on/ present. For the final presentation I listed out the main things we needed to present:
  • Original Brief
    • Original aim
    • Software
  • Modified brief (Change)
    • Software used now
    • Our goal
    • What did we achieve?
    • What does the client want?
  • End product
    • Sketch Up Model --> Revitzo
    • User Manual
    •  iPad
    • User Experience
    • Did we meet the clients expectations/ needs
  • Method of working
    • Process (e.g. Splitting up tasks)
    • How did we collaborate?
  • Challenges
    • How did we overcome it?

Sunday 24 May 2015

Week 12

The progress on our Sketch Up model is moving along quite well and the set up we had at the beginning was one person would work on it and then upload it and pass it on. At first I thought this method was quite good but overtime there were so many different files being uploaded that some of us were editing the old file without realising our elements created by other members were not there. This caused quite a lot of confusion and frustration. For future reference, I think we should of split up the elements and created them in separate Sketch Up files and then copy and paste it into a central (final) file. I have done this before last year in a group project that also used Sketch Up and this method worked perfectly fine, unfortunately we are too far into this Sketch Up file to fix it up. 

Also another confusion was that I discovered that the plan we were using at the beginning/ the plan we imported into Sketch Up as a base was the older version (still the new design of the museum but and earlier plan). There are only small differences like internal and external walls. I did stress to my group that we refer to the new plan which I had found (the latest one created in February 2015) but for some reason this caused a lot of confusion and miscommunication. To solve this I had to explain it multiple times the areas that had changed. 

A few times I have had to fix up the layering in the model because some elements were placed in the wrong layer and was causing confusion. 




The model as of 24/05/2015.

Wednesday 20 May 2015

Week 11- Remuneration Presentation (Aerial Ropeway)

20/05/15

Team: Aerial Ropeway



Team Members:
  • Jordon Blanket (Presented)
  • Hayley Chung (Presented)
  • Erik Lukas Molinder
  • Molly Wu
  • George Logothetis
  • Dominique Heraud

 Pros:
  • Great use of graphics- Made a timeline to show what they are talking about
  • Confident presentation- extensive knowledge of some parts of the topic of remuneration
  • Simple slides - to the point
  • Used statistics in relation to us (Remuneration as a student) --> UNSW
  • (Remuneration as a student) -- Gave tips that is of benefit and relevant to us

Cons:
  •  The topic was quite difficult and the way the flow of the presentation was presented was very confusing- got a bit lost in some areas.
  • Only two people presented and it was clear which parts the members presented did not research on.
  • Did not relate to their project (Aerial Ropeway)- only mentioned once/ mentioned that remuneration does not relate to their project

Notes:
  • "Remuneration is a payment made to or for the benefit of a worker, that is not as simple as a wage or a salary as it includes such things as a remuneration return and a reconciliation statement"- Work Cover SA
  • How much are you worth?
  • What is your value proposition?
  • Total reward system
  • How do I add value to myself?
    • Partake in study tours
    • General Education
    • Networking
    • Internships
    • Peer to Peer Competition
  • Knowledge/ Experience= Value 
  • Knowing how to apply the skills

 How does remuneration relate to our project (Virtual Museum)?


The topic remuneration did not particularly have any relation to any groups projects, as none of us are getting paid for our work/ final outcome. Instead we are getting "paid" or rewarded with grades and credibility. However, remuneration is an important topic for everyone as we are all looking for a full- time/ graduate position and we need to understand the process of how much we should be paid/ rewarded for the time, effort and skills we put in.


Through the discussion and feedback after this presentation, we established that it is acceptable to negotiate on a sensitive topic such as pay and that it is important for us to improve and increase on our knowledge and skills that will be of great value in whichever field we choose to work in.   

Monday 18 May 2015

Week 11

As seen in the previous posts, as a team we finally started modelling the museum in Sketch Up. We decided to split the building up into categories such as external walls, internal walls, doors, window, slab etc. Obviously, it is quite difficult passing the model around (shared on Facebook) and problems will definitely arise. One problem that I quickly found after other team members completed their respective parts was that we did not group our items which caused objects to merge and create unnecessary lines which made the model look extremely messy.



Images above: Screenshots of items hidden by wire frame still visible and walls 
missing/ merging into slab

I decided to create a new Sketch Up file and group everything in it's categories before moving them into the new file. This was very time consuming but in the end I do want to achieve a clean and organised model, so it was much better to do this process earlier than later when we have more elements in the model. The new file is grouped in it's categories which will avoid any merging and clashing with other items in the model. It is definitely much cleaner and easier to navigate around now. 



Images above: Screenshots of  new file (looks the same) but when items are hidden it doesn't 
interfere with any of the other items. 

As mentioned in my previous posts, we had a lot of difficulty finding out the height of the walls and overall structure in which we used the method of importing the drawings into ArchiCad and scaling it accordingly. I emailed Adam (project officer) at MERL who I have been in contact with since the start of the project. Once again, he has been extremely helpful and sent me the dwg. elevation and section files which we can use to get accurate measurements from. 


Image above: Screenshot of email from Adam with the dwg. files and images he sent me on the 19/05/15

In the email Adam sent me 2 dwg. files- Elevation and Sections which contains elevations and sections from all sides of the building. This will definitely assist us in creating an accurate representation of the museum. Adam also sent some images of the existing and proposed museum, this gives us a visual idea of what the museum looks like, since none of us actually know what it looks like. 


Image above: Screenshot of Elevation drawings in AutoCad


Thursday 14 May 2015

Week 10

These past few weeks after finding about the change to our project we have had a few miscommunication and misunderstanding with what the client wants. After many discussions with Russell and the team we have finally fully understood what the clients wants. As a team, we now understand that we are to create a 3D model of the new part of the museum in Sketch Up that will be easy for anyone to edit and add to it. We must ensure that the Sketch Up model is well organised, with layers and objects appropriately grouped.

In class (13/5), as a group we imported one of the plans given to us (see previous posts with plans) into Rhino to obtain the correct scale. From Rhino we saved it as a dwg. in which we then imported into sketch up so it was at the correct scale. 


Image above: Screenshot of the floor plan of MERL imported into Sketch Up

In order to maintain a consistency of how elements are modelled we have decided to all work from the one Sketch Up file. Group members have done this previously in other subjects and have found this method to work. We have divided the building among ourselves in which we have given each other deadlines to meet, for example, today and Friday I will be modelling all the external walls and then passing it onto the next group member who will work on something different like internal walls or doors/ windows. By setting deadlines this will motivate us to invest time and effort into the project and to ensure that everyone in the group contributes equally. 

One problem that we did encounter was that the multiple plans we were given by Adam (Project Officer at MERL) did not contain any vertical dimensions, which we need to know to create accurate heights of walls and the overall building. As a group, we spent some time after the studio class to find out the best way to measure the height of the building with the plans we were given. We found it quite difficult to do this in Sketch Up, so we resulted in importing one of the section plans into ArchiCad which had a little bit more information than other sections to determine the height of the museum. 

Some problems that we may encounter is having limited idea/ resources that shows us details of the museum. In the plans given there was a lot of plans and detailed sections which had limited information. The best we can do is get in contact with either Adam (Project Officer at MERL) or someone else at the museum to help us take some pictures of details in the museum or give us more detailed plans.

Progress





Image above: Slowly building up the walls

As mentioned above, the plans, sections and elevations we were given did not have much dimensions on it. My group member, Aram, thought of a clever way to import the sections into ArchiCad and scale it on there to find the height or width of certain parts of the building. This made everything a lot easier and will help us in creating an accurate and scaled model. 

Wednesday 13 May 2015

Week 10- Conflict Presentation (Marker Project)

13/05/15

Team: Marker Project



Members:
  • Annisa Rizal
  • Alexander Lee
  • Maurishka Sahani
  • Christopher Tee
  • Jeremy Coronel 

Pros:
  • Entertaining start to the presentation 
  • Well designed slides- not full of text
    • Great use of graphics and colour schemes
  • Incorporated facts to back up what they were saying
  • Related to projects we have worked on- Hextic 
    • Helped us to identify and remember the times we faced conflict

Cons:
  • Some group members read off their notes -- No eye contact which lost our attention 
  • Members were not aware of each others appropriate slides, so the slides constantly went back and forth
  • The random "skits" in the middle of the presentation was different but a little bit messy

Notes:
  • Types of people causing conflict --> Identifying who we are in the group- helps us to fix it and avoid it
  • Avoiding conflict- Does not resolve conflict, it only escalates it. 
  • Strategies to resolve conflict- Do you get angry with the same person --- identify the source, remain neutral, communicate, identify each others strengths and weaknesses, define acceptable behaviour in a group, a group leader is necessary, cooperation- listening to each other, all members treated equally
  • Positive impact- brainstorm, initiate positive/ productive change, opportunities- define ways to fins solutions outside of your comfort zone, experiment with new negotiation style, without conflict there is no innovation
  • "Not a bad thing" --> Conflict is often seen as a "bad" thing but it can actually help with communication and help others learn from their mistakes
Feedback:
  • Labelling everything as conflict
How does conflict relate to our project (Virtual Museum)?

So far throughout the project we have not encountered any conflict within our group, this is a very positive outcome as we have established a clear communication line and respect for each other. At the beginning of the project and when we were told to change the software for our project we did encounter a bit of miscommunication mainly between us and the client. It was a little bit difficult getting information from the client as Russell played the middle- person who delivered messages from both sides. This did not cause any major problems just slight confusion and delayed our group in starting the actual modelling of the museum in Sketch Up.


Conflict is an important topic for all of us as we have all been faced with it and have reacted in many different ways. As we all move on to full-time jobs next year we will definitely face conflict and it is crucial that we all know how to deal and respond to conflict in the best way, aiming to minimise it. 

Wednesday 6 May 2015

Week 9- Intellectual Property Presentation (Oculus Group)

06/ 05/15

Team: Oculus Group 



Members:
  • Dara Ten
  • Andrew McDonald
  • Shanny Lam
  • Daniel Juarez
  • Matthew Sinpraseuth

Presentation:

Pros:
  • Used a lot of examples to help us understand the meaning e.g. Nike, McDonalds
    • The examples helped a lot in understanding what can and cannot be copyrighted, patented 
    • Examples used are relevant to us/ the things we use e.g. Electronics we commonly use
  • Great use of images - slides were not full of text
  • Related topics to other groups e.g. Marker Project --> Using them as an example
  • Very minimal text which was furthered explained by the group members which showed a great understanding of the topic.
  • Consistent slides
  • Related back to their project (Oculus)
    • What they will do?
    • How they will do?
    • Why they are doing it?
    • Where do they stand in terms of IP?
    • Constraints
  • Did a lot of research by calling IP Australia and asking senior lecturers 
  • Explained how IP fits into collaboration
    • Who owns what if our project went commercial?
    • Copyright infringement (taking parts of other designs)
    • If someone drops out
  • Great use of PowToon to create the animation

Cons:
  • The text was little bit faint/ light- hard to read
  • The animation was a little bit too fast 
  • One person answered  - Spokesperson for the team (?) --> cut off other members when they tried to answer

Feedback:
  • Related to other groups- stand out
  • Clear and concise presentation
  • Personalized the presentation
  • Thorough research --> initiative to contact companies

 NOTES:
- Sourcing everything --> Infringing copyright by taking something that exists 
- Not using existing dimensions
- Not using branding

How does Intellectual Property relate to our group (Virtual Museum)? 
Intellectual Property is important not only to our virtual museum project but any project that we did in the past or will do in the future. Having an understanding of intellectual property will allow us to know how much of a project we own if we are working under someone and in our circumstance, under the university. In the future, we might all have our own company and we need to be able to know how to protect our designs and business from anyone using what is ours without permission.

For our project, the virtual museum, our client is the Museum of English Rural Life and ultimately the museum does own the project and we are providing a service to them which is meeting their needs and creating a 3D prototype model of the museum. It is expected that we and the university gets credited if they use it for commercial purposes.

Monday 4 May 2015

Week 9- Individual Milestone

Week 1- Targeted CV

Week 2- Back Brief Presentation

Week 3- Research / Museum Plans

Week 4- Modeling a jug

Week 5- (Mid- Sem Break) Planning (Presentation)

Week 6- (Mid- Sem Break) Planning (Presentation)

Week 7- Presenting our Planning presentation / Change of plans

Week 8- How do/ did we communicate?Planning because of change

Week 8- Planning because of change

Our plan/ thoughts:
After the change of software of our project and its simplification, we have brainstormed ideas in how we can make it the best and accurate prototype of the museum using the software we are required to use now.

1. We must identify how the museum is structured, how and why the displays are organised in the way it currently is- the sequence of the museum.
2. How do people move through the museum- the journey they take from the entrance to the exit of the museum.
3. What does the client want? How do they want the exhibitions organised? How do they want people to move through the virtual museum?
4. How can we draw attention and emphasis on the objects? What objects that exist in the museum should we model? - significance.
5. How will we convey the information to different users using different platforms e.g. iPad, phone, desktop.

What do we want to achieve?
As a team we want to achieve exactly the same quality that we would of achieved using 3ds Max and UnReal Engine 4, we understand that the softwares we are using now (Sketch Up and Revitzo) may be slightly limiting and will not achieve the high definition quality that the other programs can achieve. We will explore the limitations of the new software and work to the best of our ability to create a virtual museum that is accurate and realistic.


The image above is of a wagon created in Google Sketch Up and this is an example of the sort of quality we wish to achieve. The texturing is very accurate and true to the actual object.