[soc2008-general] MolViz and AR Tags

[Gail Carmichael]

Hi everyone!

I just wanted to jump aboard and introduce myself as I am considering 
applying to work with Christian Muise on the MolViz project this summer.

I'm a Masters student at Carleton University for computer science.  I 
have a background in computer vision and computational geometry.  
Christian was actually a colleague of mine, and we've worked together 
before, so the chance to be mentored by him is pretty exciting.  I 
participated in the Summer of Code last year for the Inkscape project, 
and I hope to apply there again this year, too.  I am currently in the 
process of learning Python, but being an experienced computer scientist, 
I am confident that I will be ready to go for the beginning of the 
coding session, especially since I do have some experience with 
augmented reality (see project idea below).  You can find out more about 
me on my web site: <http://gailcarmichael.com/>.

The interest I have in MolViz revolves around the head tracking aspect.  
So far, Christian has implemented a couple of different ways to track 
the user's movements, including face recognition and IR tracking.  I 
would like to add another method: tracking AR (augmented reality) 
markers.  This would involve the user placing a marker of a specific 
pattern, like a 2D bar code, on their head.  But such a marker can be 
obtained very cheaply, as it can just be printed in a printer and 
possibly mounted on some cardboard.  It would also very likely be 
substantially more accurate.

The potential benefit to the Python community is simply another option 
for user input that, as mentioned, is both cheap and accurate.  Because 
of the higher accuracy, this input method may be more appropriate for 
use in gaming applications (as an example).

So I would love to hear how interested the community would be in such a 
project.  By the weekend I hope to put together a more comprehensive 
application.

Look forward to hearing from you,
Gail