Ideas,Interactive Map and Interface

A little more than a week into the JISC project and I can feel the excitement building already. It was great to finally meet the project team and try to grasp the general and individual ideas.With lots of different perceptions and possible solutions,it promises to be a very interesting project indeed.

While Chengzhi and Darren have been working hard setting up the server, I have been familiarising myself with maps of the target area.A discussion with Chengzhi yesterday about the Interactive Map on the first GUI made a lot of things clearer, especially with the layers and object groups we aim to provide without confusing the end user with too much visual clutter.After detailed thought,the layering for the Interactive Map have been thus decided:
1. Aerial Imagery
2. Text Information (Buildings/Streets)
3. Terrain Information (50x50 grid)
4. Ground Surface Information (50x50 grid)
5. Non University Buildings
6. University Buildings
7. Vegetation (this is still an optional layer depending on information supplied by University Estates)

Also on its way, is a little experimental SVG file with sample data exported from a vector graphic program to check compatibility with Darren's coding.So far, everything is looking good and we are hoping that information from University Estates and ZMapping will also fall into place.

With the server up and running and the team moving to its own office in Crookesmoor building soon, this will be an important week for us.Also our new laptops have just arrived and are being readied by the school's IT doctor Martin, so very soon we will have all the tools handy to go charging into the 6th March deadline!

Assembling the Server Racking System

The long awaited 24U Dell Rack Enclosure Canbinet has finally been delivered to the JISC Project Team. Around 1:30pm, I was joined by Darren and Panagiotis and we started to figure out how to assemble the racking kits into the cabinet in which two Dell servers were to be installed. The SUCoD server (a PowerEdge 4400), aged about 7-8 years old, went in first. Much to my relief, it fitted very well into the chassis. The power redundent unit went in next followed by the new ucampus server (a PowerEdge 2950 III).

It took us about 2.5 hours to fit them all with the cables/leads connected. Both sucod and ucampus were then powered up. Good to see the two servers running OK with the new IP addressses. ucampus was then shut down leaving sucod running as normal.

As of today, the hardware setup is almost ready for the team to embark on the very first phase of the ucampus system framework and databanks developments.

ucampus.shef.ac.uk is born!

At last, the new web server dedicated to the JISC project is now set up by Darren successfully and is ready to serve. The DNS name is ucampus.shef.ac.uk

It will still be a while before we can see anything happening.

21.01.09 Project Team Meeting

The project team welcomed Puja Basu. The team is now complete and working towards our 1st real deadline of 6th March, which is the first user evaluation involving Architecture Masters Students.

Panagiotis and Darren have been defining the work packages leading up to the first user evaluation and the proposals for the platform and interface are now formed. There have been a number of detailed discussions about the exact nature of the user interface and project parameters. It has been a real challenge for the group to convey their individual ideas to each other in a way that everybody else understands as the team are thinking on a range of levels; technical/programming, metadata, 3d visualisation, user interaction, legibility and accessibility. Whilst this process has taken some time we believe that we all agree on the detailed approach.

The team will aim to have 3 university buildings modelled internally and externally for the March user evaluation. The base 3d computer model of the campus is being ordered and this will provide a background to the interactive buildings. Users will be able to interact with the buildings and generate specific views of the campus internally and externally, through which they will then be able to download the context, design their own new buildings/spaces and upload back onto the platform for others to view, evaluate and discuss.

Graphic User Interface Design

Darren (the Web System Developer) and I have been working on the design of a Graphic User Interface (GUI) the past two weeks. The main aim is to satisfy two different requirements: on the one hand a simple and sleek interface is called for, in order to keep up with contemporary standards and make the user's interaction with the front-end part of the platform as easy as possible. On the other hand, there is a demand for a complex query system that will give the user the option of selecting the models to be generated by defining an extensive set of parameters. These can be said to generally consist of three categories of different conceptual layer controls: object control layers, history layers, and visualisation layers. At the same time, there is a requirement of a log of the generated models, and a combination of these.

An attempt to tackle this issues was presented at the meeting on the 14^th of January. This was based on a tree structure for the object control layers, with a separate pane for the visualisation layers, to be turned on and off on demand. Other subjects, like the knowledge bank and the models log were addressed in separate panes. This GUI was seen as too complex and visually unattractive by the rest of the team and was rejected.

A new design is being tested and will be presented on the project team soon. This is based on a two-tier system: a simple, intuitive system for basic selections, and a panel that is called on demand for the complex queries. It has been tested on various use cases and seems to be responding fine so far.

XML Schema Architecture

Parallel to the GUI design, I have been working on the XML schema. The final, official schema will not be produced for some time, as it will obviously have to be subject to many changes. However, the XML architecture has to be realized in order to store the metadata, and allow the X3D files to be referenced through it. A first draft of a possible XML standard was produced based on the original GUI. However, this has to be changed as additional visualisation and object controls are added. There is progress though, in that the main requirements regarding the tie-ins and the referencing process between the XMLs and the X3Ds has been pretty much clarified.

External Evaluator Meeting

The two project External Evaluators, James Pinder & Diane Hart, met with the project team earlier today to discuss their detailed roles in the project and define how their evaluation should progress. As a rough guide Diane will focus on evaluating the project working with the internal project team and user groups, whilst James will focus on the impact of the project on external bodies/stakeholders and institutions.

14.01.09 Project Team Meeting

The project team are beginning to define the physical parameters of the project and are proposing to model up to 2o buildings on the University of Sheffield Campus. Each of these models will have external envelopes and internal organisation layouts. All other buildings on the university campus and surrounding area will be modelled externally. Quality of information and building data is more important than volume of buildings for this project, however a critical mass of buildings is required to get across the worth of the platform. The aim of 20 buildings to be modelled is an 'in principal' proposal that is subject to change.

A number of the buildings will be defined as 'Live Projects' that the unversity is planning to regenerate / develop in the near future and will act as pilots for the project.

Masters architecture students will be involved from March 09 – to help develop modelling and analysis of the platform.

We are beginning to investigate the possibility of geo-referencing X3d physical models and creating scripts that allow specific parts of 3d building and space visualisations to be selected and adapted on a 2d computer screen.

In addition we are discussing ways that we can implement a system that allows users to adapt floor plans and reconfigure spaces. Possible creation of new tools to allow people to do this without out using external software is being explored.

Setting up the new Project Web Server

I have just been told that Phoenix Computers is going to supply us with a new 24U Rack Enclosure Cabinet to go with the PowerEdge 2900 III Server that they delivered wrongly last week. The cabinet worth of £1800 will be delivered to us free of charge in the next couple of days.

CiCS has also confirmed that a data point outlet and a twin power socket will be installed in the store room BS16a for us to set up the new JISC Project Web Server. All we need to do is to file an IP address registration request to obtain a static IP address for the server.

If all goes well, we should have the server up running on Monday 19 Jan 2009, or a day soon after - fingers crossed.

Project Team Meeting: 08 January 2009

The first weekly project meeting of 2009 started by focusing on the development the visualtion platform architecture and a discussion about how best to navigate through the web-resource aswell as how best to represent space through 3d visualtisations.

Web system development starts: 05 January 2009

Darren Roberts [Web System Developer] starts in-post, working on creating a Web-based platform for the 3D visualisation of learning spaces.

Inaugural meeting of the Project Board: 22 December 2008

22 December 2008

Inaugural meeting of the Project Board
The first Project Board meeting took place in theSchool of Architecture, and was chaired by Professor Paul White (Pro-Vice Chancellor,for Teaching and Learning), attended by Neil Cameron (Head of Estates Department), Peter Stubley (Assistant Director, Academic Services and the Library), Adrian Powell (Team Leader, Learning and Teaching Services), Diane Hart (External Evaluator), Howard Evans (Lead Platform Usability Evaluator), Panagiotis Patlakas (Estates Space Metadata Developer), and Chengzhi Peng (Project Director).

[powerpoint slides link]

The meeting was a great success with a number of ideas being put forward by board members to ensure that the ‘Visualisation of future Learning Spaces’ project will be tied in to the future strategic and practical development of the university campus. Areas of the UoS Campus to be modelled initially have been developed to dovetail with the Estates Department’s 10 year plan for the St. Georges [engineering and computing centres] area of the campus. The UoS has also committed more involvement for the project from the Learning, Teaching and Skills department to support the project.

[meeting minutes pdf link]

Meta Data Development: 1 December 2008

Panagiotis Patlakas [Estates Space Metadata Developer] starts in-post working on creating spatial taxonomy of learning spaces and preparation/ categorisation of spaces for metadata collection.

Project team established: 18 November 2008

Final candidates contacted and invited to take up posts on the project. All three posts filled by Darren Roberts [Web System Developer], Panagiotis Patlakas [Estates Space Metadata Developer] and Puja Basu [3D Digital Architectural Modeller]

Projecty Post Interviews: 14 & 17 November 2008

Interviews for the project team applicants undertaken for three posts: Web System Developer, Estates Space Metadata Developer, 3D Digital Architectural Modeller.

The Interview Panel: Chengzhi Peng (Chair), Jackie Gresham, John McAuley, Adrian Powell, Leo Care and Howard Evans

JISC Institutional Innovation Programme Meeting: 24 October 2008

JISC Institution Innovation Programme Meeting at Thistle Barbican City hotel in London attended by Adrian Powell, Chengzhi Peng and Leo Care.

The meeting conference enabled the team to learn more about the JISC programme and begin to form collaborations with other institutions. From this initial meeting we have begun forming links with groups from Canterbury, Oxford and UClan.

Project posts advertised: 13 October 2008

Three JISC project posts are advertised by the Human Resources at the UoS website and Jobs.ac.uk website: Web System Developer, Estates Space Metadata Developer, 3D Digital Architectural Modeller.

Project start-up meeting: 29 September 2008

Project Start-up meeting at the School of Architecture University of Sheffield attended by Andy Dyson, Chengzhi Peng, Prue Chiles, and Leo Care. We are pleased to be told by Andy that the university of Sheffield bid was ranked the 3rd highest proposal in the current funding call for application.

Project inception: 16 September 2008

Chengzhi Peng received an email notification sent by Georgia Slade at JISC stating that the Sheffield proposal “A Web-Based Interactive Visualisation Modelling Platform to Effect Participative and Collaborative Planning and Design of Future Learning Spaces” (Call II – Large-Scale Institutional exemplar Projects) was recommended for full funding to start from 1 October 2008 for 18 months.

Welcome

Welcome to the weCAMP project blog.

This blog is set up to chart the development of this weCAMP research project, part of the JISC insitutional Innovation Programme.