29 April 2010
Computing students show off honours projects
Photo opportunity: 4-6pm on Friday, April 30th at the Queen Mother Building, University of Dundee. Students will be showcasing their projects during the exhibition opening event.
A piano that corrects the player’s mistakes, a South Pole Lunar Lander system, technology to help dementia sufferers, and multi-touch systems that assist radiographers are among the innovative projects on show from final-year computing students at the University of Dundee next week.
Honours students from the School of Computing are staging an exhibition of their degree projects. The range of software and devices on show crosses a wide range of applications, from tools to help children with complex disabilities to communicate more effectively to augmented reality games for the iPhone.
'The range and quality of projects produced by the students this year is truly remarkable,' said Professor Peter Gregor, Head of the School of Computing.
'We have got some truly original concepts and some which develop every day technology and look at doing new things with it. Bringing it all together has produced a really exciting exhibition, and not just for those with an interest in computing or technology.'
The exhibition is open at the Queen Mother Building at the University from Monday May 3rd to Friday, May 7th. Anyone can visit the exhibition, which is open daily from 9am to 5pm. A special opening event for staff, guests and students and their family and friends takes place between 4pm-6pm on Friday, April 30th.
In all, 35 projects will be on display - details of some of the student projects are below. Students are available for interview.
Also on display will be the Microsoft Surface, the revolutionary multi-touch table that lets users grab digital content with their hands and move information with simple gestures and touches. The much-vaunted technology was loaned to the School by NCR, and is one of only two such machines believed in use in Scotland.
It features in one of the projects, which demonstrates how multi-touch technology can be used as an alternative to paper maps.
STUDENT PROJECTS
Michael Crabb - i-Pianola: Timing Analysis within a Piano Playing System.
When determining if it is possible to create a system that can correct a musician’s timing when playing a piece of music on the piano, it is very important to look at the timing issues associated with this and if it is viable to gather enough information in order to accomplish this. In order for this to be achieved, it must be possible to record the input of a player to an accuracy of 1-2ms per note.
Once this has been accomplished, analysis must occur on the data, extracting useful information that can determine whether or not the performance of a piece is being hindered by any type of impairment within the user’s hand. This information can then be taken forward and used as the basis of a system that can aid those with an impaired dexterity within their hands (impact or long term hand injury, stroke, arthritis) to play musical pieces. This could be accomplished by using the analysis data as a foundation for a system that can help to ‘auto-correct’ any mistakes that a user makes.
Kris Edward - South Pole Lunar Lander.
This paper will aim to look at the development of a South Pole Lunar Lander system, an application to be developed that uses the PANGU (Planet and Asteroid Natural scene Generation Utility) tool to model a Lunar Module descending onto the South Pole of the Moon.
This paper will cover all aspects of the software development process, from the conceptual stages through to evaluation of the final product and further development.
The project goal was to develop a fun and challenging application showing the process of a manned lunar descent onto the Moon. It was to demonstrate a potential use of PANGU and show case the research of the Space Systems Research Group at Dundee University.
Overall the system development can be considered a success; the system enables a user to select a difficulty and a particular model of the surface and control a Lunar Lander as it approaches the surface of the Moon. Upon a successful landing the user is given a score on how they progressed.
Chris Norval - Digital X-ray Lightbox: An alternative Software Solution.
Multi-touch technology has been used for some time on small devices such as mobile phones. Recently, the technology has been integrated into larger devices, such as computer monitors. This move to larger devices creates a unique opportunity to re-evaluate some of the more traditional techniques that are used in the day-to-day routine of many professionals.
There are many examples of these previously overlooked systems for performing everyday functions that would benefit from technological advancements. One industry that could potentially benefit more than others is healthcare, with the design and construction of a digital light box as an example. The traditional light box is used in hospitals around the world for viewing X-Ray and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) films. This device is nothing more than a wall-mounted box with a light inside and a diffusing screen which allows radiologists or doctors to view and evaluate an X-Ray or MRI film. Although the technology is simple, it is still widely used as it is a quick and effective way to view medical films. Although the NHS now stores all X-Rays and MRI images electronically many doctors prefer to use the wall mounted light box due to its convenience and practicality. The computers within hospitals can be used to view those exact images, however, it can be argued that the mouse and keyboard are not the most intuitive tools to navigate an image.
This project is aimed at evaluating Multi-touch technology as an alternative method for the handling and manipulation of clinical images. Through the development philosophy of user-centred design, a prototype was developed, tested by medical students and updated repeatedly, in order to create an application focused around the needs and desires of doctors.
Morag Forrest - Personal Narrative.
The Personal Narrative is part of the 'How was School Today?' project which aims to allow a child with complex communication needs to tell a parent or carer what happened at school.
This study focuses on the speech recording part of the system which is used by the teacher and investigates the use of adapting the user interface in order for the teacher to create better constructed passages of speech.
Using analysis of the passages entered and tagging the passages to associate them with the parts of narrative structure, it was proved that the passages could be improved.
This was a research project, and therefore it does not cover a fully functional implementation, rather a proof of concept.
Stuart Birse - A multitouch interface for Geographical Information Systems.
In Town and Regional planning, group brainstorming sessions are used to discuss new infrastructure concepts by sketching on a map covered by large sheets of tracing paper. The purpose of this project is to develop an alternative multitouch interface to the current paper based system. The new system had to emulate the functionality of the single user Geographical Information System application MapInfo but deliver it in a multiuser, multitouch application, which resulted in the creation of Multitouch GIS.
This project faced many challenges ranging from interface and interaction design of multiuser, multitouch applications, including the design of two new multitouch gestures, to technical challenges including dealing with hardware limitations and implementing a suitable workaround to counter these limitations. From the evaluation sessions Multitouch GIS was found to show great potential for group brainstorming sessions. Multitouch GIS provides the functionality needed to perform group related GIS tasks and a solid foundation allowing future improvements to incorporate more of the MapInfo functionality.
Craig Gall - Argument Blogging.
The World Wide Web contains many platforms that allow people to share their opinions and discuss topical issues. Many of these discussions can quickly become complex argumentative dialogues with large numbers of participators. Analysis of these dialogues can be very difficult as they often lack any form of structure explaining the intent of the participators.
The purpose of this project was to investigate methods of capturing and interacting with arguments published online.
Michael Lyle - Music and Learning.
The purpose of this project was to create an application to discover to what extent music affects learning. This application was developed as a short experiment that would allow users to practise various puzzles which they would later be tested on. Each user would be allocated to one of three participant groups; each group would perform the experiment in the same manner however, one group would be able to practise puzzles with a choice of their own music to listen to, one group would be able to practise the puzzles with a predetermined piece of music to listen to, and the other group would serve as the control group and practise the puzzles with no music. The groups would then all be tested on the puzzles they had practised in the absence of music.
This project incorporates the initial development of an experiment with the subsequent development of an application. Results from this experiment showed that not having a choice of background music whilst learning problem a solving task increases performance in follow up tests. Additionally, the perceived enjoyment of the background music has no impact on test performance.
Calum McMinn - Shadehunter.
The aim of this project is to create a working prototype of a GPS and Augmented Reality game for the Apple iPhone.
The final product is a fully functional game that allows the user to scan for 'Shades' in the nearby area and battle them using the device’s camera. The game also features online leaderboards to promote competitive play.
The game was given to a number of users for evaluation and received a very positive response. This led to the decision to continue development after this project and put the game on sale in the Apple App Store.
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