Bring Your Own Medium
to the Cave
CS237 Assignment #1
|
Out |
Thurs, 9/12 |
|
Due |
Tues, 9/17 |
Read original Cave paper. Spend about 15-30 minutes on it. This is for historical context about the Cave and to give a feel for some of the tradeoffs of a Cave compared to other kinds of virtual reality environments. Concentrate on sections 1.1, 1.2, 6, and 7. Section 3 mentions some of the physical design issues that might be interesting. This paper is nine years old, so some parts may seem out of date.
Read Form Shape and Mass Chapter 3., pp 57-85, from Abstraction in Art and Nature by Nathan Cabot Hale.
Read Plastic Organization, pp.15-28 from the Language of Vision by Gyorgy Kepes.
In this assignment, you will be designing a new virtual environment for the Cave that is composed of several 2D images imported and positioned in VR as well as 3D form created with the CavePainting system. The virtual world should be based on the theme “Inside The Body.” This is a chance for you to be as imaginative and creative as possible in designing your own virtual environment. The worlds can be life-size scale, or you can design a world where the viewer is no bigger than an atom. You may choose to represent some part of the physical anatomy; a physical, chemical, electrical, or emotional state or event; or anything else that falls within this theme. In the next assignment, you will work in groups to create worlds based on some of these designs, so part of your job in this assignment is to convince your classmates that your design is worth realizing in the Cave! The design that you will present to the class will be composed of several 2D sketches that can be created either digitally (photoshop, painter, etc.) or with non-digital mediums (pencil and paper, paint, etc.) Refer to the design readings listed above (Hale, Kepes) for basic principles in designing natural form, and for achieving organic unity in the world that you design. While this world does not have to have a factual relationship to the objects and spaces which exist inside the body, it should be evocative of natural forms and processes as outlined in the readings from Hale, and suggest organic interconnection through the abstract principles of composition introduced in Kepes. You will also find on-line a library of some of the images that were shown in class of microscopic structures and other natural phenomenon, to provide inspiration for your designs.
Again, the VR world that you are designing should be able to be realized in the next assignment using a combination of: 1. Hanging 2D pictures in 3D space as we have done in class, 2. Using CavePainting to create 3D form.
Your design should include at a minimum, one overview drawing of the entire world and 3-4 2D images that can be placed in the Cave to create the world. The overview drawing(s) should note the placement (position, orientation, and size) of any 2D pictures in the world, and the same for any CavePainted forms. The physical space of the 8x8x8 ft. Cave should also be illustrated in the overview drawing(s). When designing your world, consider the effects of the scale of the objects that you place in it relative to viewer and the physical space he or she occupies. How might this affect the viewer’s experience? Try to create a visually compelling experience for the viewer and establish a mood for the environment. You might try to evoke a certain feeling or emotion for the viewer, or you might try to provide a perceptually clear and intuitive representation of some scientific phenomenon, real or imagined. In addition, consider how to visually link any 3D Cave-Painted form that is in your environment with the 2D imagery. For example, do the 3D paint strokes pass through the 2D form? Do the 2D images establish a context in which the 3D paint strokes are placed, is it the other way around, or is it a combination of the two situations in your design? When you present your design to the class, be prepared to explain your decisions about the imagery you chose, its placement in the world, and the link between 3D Cave-Painted form and 2D imagery based on the experience and/or mood you are striving to produce for the viewer.
The 2D images that will be part of your world should exist in digital form or be able to be scanned into the computer to use in the next assignment. These are the same type of images that we created during class this week. We have an 8.5”x11” scanner available in the Cave room; keep the size in mind if you want to use this scanner. Bring paper versions of the images to class for your short presentation of your design.
In class on Tuesday, 9/17, each person will give a short, 2 minute presentation of his or her design. Start by describing the particular “inside the body” event or scene your design depicts and how this relates to the mood you hope to convey to the viewer. Then, describe your design using your 2D sketches and illustrations. Describe your design decisions, paying particular note to the issues mentioned above, in as much detail as you can within the short time frame. We’ll have time for questions and comments after all the presentations.
As part of each assignment, there will be a few questions
that you should answer. These can be
found at the end of this handout and your answers should be emailed to the TA (dfk@cs.brown.edu) by
In addition to the design task, part of your assignment is to make sure that some very basic Cave administrative items work for you. Each of you should already have a user name and password (a computer account) created for the Cave and a key to get into the room. These will distributed at the first day of class. The sections below walk you though the process of logging into the Cave computers with this user name and password. Make sure that you can login and that you know how to run CavePainting in the Cave. Instructions for all of these tasks are provided below.
The following is a short introduction to the computer system at the Cave. It’s not completely essential for the class that you know this background, but it will help you understand what’s going on when you login and connect to different computers to run programs in the Cave. Also, we hope that one of the reasons you are taking this class is to learn a bit about how the Cave works, so this is the first step down that path. For some of you, this is probably old hat, but for others it’s completely new – that’s the beauty of multi-disciplinary collaborations. As the semester goes on, we’ll learn a great deal about the languages and disciplines of design, computer graphics, and science. We hope that you can take a lot of the language and basic principles of each discipline away from the class with you, so here’s a first simple introduction to some of that computer graphics language. This is the basic setup of the computers that we use for the Cave:
You’ve all been to the Cave by now, and if nothing else, you know there are a lot of computers in that room! However, for this class we’ll only be using one of them to actually display graphics in the Cave. All of the computers have names, and this one is called “clio.” The actual machine is about the size of a refrigerator. It’s located in the machine room next to the Cave, so you won’t be sitting down right next to it when you’re working. Instead, you login to one of the other smaller PC’s in the Cave room with your username and password. From any of these computers, you can easily tell “clio,” over the network, to start up various programs and display them in the Cave. So, the first main point about the computers in the Cave is that everything runs on a big computer named “clio.”
You’ll notice that inside the Cave room, there is one monitor and keyboard setup that is right next to the entrance to the Cave – it’s on the left side. This is clio’s monitor and mouse and keyboard. When running programs in the Cave, sometimes you have to press keys on the keyboard to send input to the Cave program. This is the keyboard you use. You probably also noticed that the monitor always displays the same thing that is on the front wall of the Cave. Sometimes the images even look better on this monitor because it’s a bit brighter than the projectors in the Cave. Each of the other walls of the Cave is just like an extra monitor attached to clio. Essentially, clio is powerful enough to have 4 monitors attached to it at once. These monitors are actually projectors and they make up the 4 walls of the Cave.
As part of this assignment, each of you will login to one of the smaller PC’s in the Cave room. In the next sections, we’ll describe exactly how to do this, and then how to connect to “clio” to start the CavePainting program.
First, go to a computer running linux. These will be the ones that says RedHat Linux on it. Some of the names of these computers are: fish1, fish2, and fish3. Type in your login name and your password. The system will start up something that looks a lot like Windows. It’s called X Windows and it works in much the same way as the Windows with which you are most likely familiar. The button at the bottom left of the screen with a picture of a foot on it is very much like the Start button that you are used to from Windows. The button next to that will start up Netscape. Once X Windows is done starting up, click on the button at the bottom of the screen that looks like a black computer monitor. This will start up a terminal window. This is a place where you type commands that the computer executes. One big difference between X windows and normal Windows is that your mouse needs to be inside the window that you are typing in for it to do anything. So, as an example, put your mouse inside the terminal window and try typing “gcalc”. This will pop up a calculator program. Go to File->Quit to close the calculator and go back to the terminal window.
Now, try connecting to “clio”. To do this, type “rsh clio” in the terminal window. You’ll be asked for your password again, and after entering it, you should notice that your prompt has changed. Now it should look like clio ~ -> This means that you are successfully logged into “clio”.
Before running any programs, turn the Cave projectors on by typing “caveon”. Before leaving the room, turn them off by typing “caveon”.
Once you’ve logged in to “clio”, all you have to do to start the CavePainting demo is type “cavepainting cave” and press enter.
Note that there is one very important thing to remember about controlling CavePainting. When it starts up it creates a special window on clio’s monitor called “ButtonsKeyboard”. Clio’s mouse must be in this window in order to make the keyboard affect CavePainting. However, when CavePainting starts up it covers up the ButtonsKeyboard window! To get back to that window, you have to press “Alt-F3” on clio’s keyboard to see all the windows that are underneath CavePainting. Press “Alt-F3”, then put the mouse in the ButtonsKeyboard window and the keyboard should work just fine. Note: if there are extra windows open on clio’s monitor, you can put the mouse in them and press “Alt-F3” again to send them behind CavePainting so they don’t fill up the screen.
To see all the controls for the CavePainting program, open a new terminal window by clicking on the terminal button at the bottom of the screen again and this time type “less $G/shared/man/cavepainting.txt”.
When you are done CavePainting, go back to the terminal window where you started it (remember to put your mouse inside it) and hold down Ctrl and press C. This will quit CavePainting. Now to log out of the machine, click on the foot button at the bottom of the screen and choose the bottom option, Log Out. This will bring you back to the original RedHat system login screen.
If you start up the program and the Cave does not seem to respond to moving the brush or the glasses around then the tracking probably needs to be restarted. To do this, type “restarttracking”.
1. What is the subject of your proposed virtual world?
2. What mood, feelings, and/or emotions will you try to evoke in a viewer experiencing this world?
3. How can visual form be given to abstract forces or energy principles?
4. What are some basic natural forms, and how does the character of their form relate to natural forces?
5. What is the role for movement in your concept of “Inside the Body”?
6. What are some examples of linked forms in nature: forms from different realms (atmospheric, liquid, plant, organic, earth, energy) which have analogous character?
7. If we are to convey the sensation of “Inside the Body”, how can the arrangement of forms in relation to the viewer’s point of view, create a dynamic sense of place, an invitation to explore, a quality of engagement, comfort, awe, or another emotional or physical quality.
8. Does your world fit within the “real” space of the Cave (8x8x8 ft) or does it extend beyond the walls?
9. What did you choose to depict with 2D imagery? Why?
10. What did you choose to depict with 3D painted form? Why?
11. What is the name of the computer station you logged into in the Cave?
12. Did you have any trouble logging in?
13. Did you have any trouble starting CavePainting?
14. Did you read the CavePainting instructions page?
15. Did you learn how to change colors? Change brush stroke types?
16. What discussion question do you have from the Cave paper?
17. In this assignment, what worked, what didn’t work, and how would you change it? (briefly)
Outside the Cave:
¨ Completed Cave paper and design readings.
¨ Prepared one or more overview sketch of an environment that you propose to build that falls within the theme of “Inside the Body”.
¨ Prepared 3-4 examples of original imagery that will be placed in your environment.
¨ Prepared for a two minute presentation of your VR proposal in class.
¨ Answered assignment questions.
¨ E-mailed answers and checklist to dfk@cs.brown.edu
In the Cave:
¨ Got a key. Opened the door.
o Logged in at a workstation in the Cave room.
o Opened a terminal window.
o Successfully ran “rsh clio“ to login to “clio”.
o Typed “cavepainting” while connected to “clio” to start the CavePainting program.
o Typed “less $G/shared/man/cavepainting.txt” to read about how to use CavePainting i.e. the wand controls, etc..
o Experimented with CavePainting, learned how to change strokes and change colors.
o Answered assignment questions.
This section is provided to give an estimate of how long we expect it will take to do the pieces of this assignment. If you notice discrepancies, please tell us! We may be able to help clarify a task that has an easier implementation that you are imagining. We also may just be wrong, at it will help us to know that
0:20 read and understand assignment
0:30 log on and run Cave Painting
0:20 read Cave paper
0:45 read design readings
0:30 prepare 2-minute presentation
0:15 answer and e-mail assignment questions