My first output on ARToolKit

Having been so impressed by the movie showing the potential of ARToolKit, I wanted to try to see my own model on that system.



After struggle with tons of compile errors, I have managed to realize my objective.

Then I took one step further to show the box having the texture with alpha channel, but haven't got any luck with it yet.


Now I have posted my question here but will continue to seek its solution.

ARToolKit

I was just stunned by the following movies showing what ARToolKit engine can do.







This should be the very technology to realize the chess game in 'Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope'.



Actually I am thinking to try this tech by myself with my stereoscopic device.
It should be very exciting.

How to use the subpatch on Lily

After having got some instruction from Bill (the creator of Lily),
I tried to arrange the diagram to learn how to use the subpatch.
It took some time for me but I could make it work finally like the image above.

I've learned that the subpatch had better be placed at the same place of main patch and that subpatch is actually the patch itself.
I have also learned that the subpatch should have inlet and outlet to connect the flow in the main patch, and that it is important to resize the area of subpatch to show the contents. (This was the main reason why I was stuck to make it work.)

Sample .json files :
firstSubpatch.json
sample_UIs.json

UI test on Lily

I was playing with Lily and thought it is good to arrange a diagram using all UI items in the Menu. FYI, I tried to upload it here.

Though I haven't learned how to use subpatch and tagcloud yet, it is interesting to see the flow of data. Very intuitive tool.

iframe on Lily

I think I have found my tool at last. This time, I've learned that iframe can display the contents based on html.

If you connect a message button to the iframe via 'prepend write', you can get the output as if it is on a browser. Moreover, the message button named with a URL can show the page on iframe immediately. Wonderful!

helloWorld JS on Lily

I was surprised at the fact that Lily can handle JavaScript directly.
In the following picture, I put the message button named by JavaScript code itself and connected to 'eval'. That's all for the preparation to execute.

The alert box comes up right after I push the button with the JavaScript code.
I don't have to have even Notepad for programming.

Hello World on Lily

I tried to install Lily on my Firefox after watching this movie.
What I did was to download its 'Public Beta 1' from the page above, and then dragged lily.xpi onto the browser Firefox. However it required to restart the browser, it was pretty easy.

Then, as the following image, I created the new patch by 'Tools > Lily > New' and made the first hello world program.
I was impressed that its help docs are made by Lily itself. It's so cool.

By the way, it reminds me of Gakken's 電子ブロック that I wanted to have in my childhood.

Seam Carving is amazing

I was so impressed with the algorithm 'Seam Carving' after watching the following video.

It is great because I can easily imagine the future applying it to the images for TV programs and the movies.
I have never been satisfied to see the expanded images on HDTV or the shrunk images on the standard TV to patch the gap between the aspect ratio 4:3 and 16:9.
But with it, we don't have to put up with such situations any more.

Ideally, in my opinion, the hardware like the monitor or TV itself should have 'Seam Carving' so that everyone can benefit this advantage from the same resource, but it might take long time to realize as it should require real-time processing.

I predict the company like Adobe will implement this algorithm for the new versions of their tools like Premiere, After Effects and at least Photoshop.

The fifth Ruby on SketchUp

I tried to make a code to show the time referring to this thread.


It worked but I have no idea how to update this information each second like a clock.
Maybe I should delete this object to create new one. (I think it is not smart way, though...)
But even for that, I have no idea how to delete the object right now.
To be continued...

The forth Ruby on Sketchup

Now, I wanted to try the code to draw a line on 'SketchUp Ruby API Deveoper'sGuide'.
I edited the parts marked area like the following image from the last helloWorld script.



It worked as it should do.
I guess this is the true starting point to learn Ruby.

The third Ruby on SketchUp

The third tip is to make the function accessible from Menu.

I had to put 'require....' and the conditional event.
You can refer to some further information here where I learned how to. Nice page.


Now I could make the command on the Menu bar. Wow.


To make my understanding solid, I tried to replace the words as follows.
Now I can see the connections of valuables in this code more clearly.

The second Ruby on Sketchup

The next tip I learned was to define a function. This time I named it 'helloWorld' as it is.



I overwrote the helloWorld.rb in the same directory as it was.
I opened 'Ruby Console' by Window >> Ruby Console.
Then I typed helloWorld to see the result.
Cool.

The first Ruby on Sketchup

I thought it is good to start learning Ruby in SketchUp.
This is the very first step to go.



I've Saved helloWorld.rb
in the directory
C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 6\Plugins

Then I launched SU to see this dialog.
It's certainly easy.

Search by number on Google

When I read this page, I felt like testing some crazy numbers on Google.
12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678


After this test, I have realized that the word which has more than 128 characters cannot be searched on Google. Like this.
123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789
It makes sense, of course.

Actually, there were 7 pages found with the former number as you can see now.

Where should I buy Macbook Air?

I thought it is an attractive product to buy when I saw Macbook Air on YouTube. But when I dropped by this page, wondered how expensive if I buy it in Denmark.
So, I tried to arrange the table where I can compare converted price in USD.

Now, I think I should wait or buy it when I travel somewhere.
Wonderful Scandinavian price as always.

How to access MacOS X from Vista

I chose the following method after referring to this thread because editing smb.conf on Mac didn't help my case.

[Vista]
1. Win+R -------- to launch Run ...
2. secpol.msc ----- to open 'Local Security Policy'
3. Local Policies >> Security options >> Network security : LAN Manager ....
4. Select Send LM & NTLM - use NTLMv2 session security if negotiated' for local security setting
Done.

No reboot needed to access file on Mac after this.

Note:
Win+R then \\mac-name\account-name opens the directory on Mac directly. Cool.

How to use Vi editor on MacOS X

For my own sake, I put this note only for the most common case.

[shell]
1. %vi filename ------------ to open the file on vi

[vi]
2. i --------------------------- to change mode editable
3. arrow key to navigate the pointer
4. type to edit
5. Esc ----------------------- to exit edit mode
6. :wq ---------------------- to save data and quit

Done.
:-)

Context menu in Sketchup

Just wanted to arrange it in spreadsheet format for my own sake.

日本で株安なのに円高である理由

をネット上で探してみても納得のいく答えを見つけられなかったので自分で考えてみた。

まずは株安は明らかなものとして、円高は本当にそうなのかを疑ってみる。円ドル相場だけで見るとドル安なだけという可能性もあるだろうから。
で、USD以外の通貨に目を向けてみるとEUR、GBP、DKKやZAR他、殆どの通貨に対して軒並み円の通貨価値が上昇している。相対的でなく絶対的に円高と認識して間違いないだろう。

次に命題の理由を考えるために自分の中で基本情報の整理。
１．外国為替市場の規模は日本株式市場よりも圧倒的に大きい。株安が円高の直接の原因にはならない。
２．一般的に外国人投資家が日本株を買うには円を買う手順は避けられない。
３．円買いの人気が高まればAuction同様にその価値が上昇し、結果的に円高となる。
４．日本株が売られれば当然それと同等の資金が通貨である円に換わる。
５．円が外貨に換金されれば円安となる。

さて、１のように規模が違うとはいっても通常ならば４から５という流れで株安ならば円安に繋がるというのがTheoryだったように思う。だが、最近はそれが通用していないようだ。何故だろう。

結論から言えば、「円高の理由は、海外に投資をしていた大量の日本人資産家及び投資家がSubprime shockによって起こった株安により日本国内で資金難となり、その補填のために余儀なく海外にしていた投資を解除し日本円に戻さざるを得なくなったからではないか」というのが私の仮説だ。
尚、この投資解除にはFxで日本円をBase currencyとして建てていた外貨の買いPositionをLoss cutするという行為も含まれる。

一般的に上記２や３のように円高や円安等の現象を海外投資家の円買いや売りから説明される話をよく耳にするが、この仮説のミソは「円高を引き起こしているのは日本人自身である」という部分だ。
現在の日本は未だに蔓延する中流意識によってなんとなく平等感を与えられながらも、その実は経済的に大きな格差社会であると認識しているのだが、その一端である巨額の資産を抱える日本人の資産家や投資家がこぞって上記のような行動を取れば、今回のような円高を引き起こしていることも十分にありえると考えている。

もしその仮説が正しかったら、解消できうる海外にある日本人の資金には限界があるだろうから、これ以上の円高になればなるほど更なる円高にはなりにくくなるだろうし、Trendが円安に向き始めたら凄い勢いでまた円安に戻るのだろう。（まあ、正しくなくてもTechnical的にそうなるのが必然ではあるが、、、）

とりあえずSubprime shockの結果が一体どこまでの円高を引き起こすEnergyを持っているのか興味深いので観察してみようと思う。

The Biggest House in the World

この頃、日本が未来の国のように思えている。
この時代に存在してはいるものの、日本を覆っている時間の流れは兎に角速い。
言葉にすると格好良く聞こえるかもしれないが、寧ろ悪い意味でそれを感じている。

長い間ライフスタイルがテクノロジーによって激変しているのに、
それにシステムひいては自分達が追いついていけていない。
特に法律の内容はほとんど変化していないように感じる。

例えばテクノロジーを駆使した犯罪が猛烈な勢いで増えているのに、それをまともに
裁けない。残念だが株のオンライントレードを駆使してその資金源としている暴力団の方が
よっぽど時代の流れに乗っているように思う。

そしてこのズレが次第に大きく膨らんでいる。
あまりそのズレを解消するような材料は自分が探している範囲では見当たらない。
結果的に遠くない将来に取り繕うことすらできない大きさのズレになるような気がしている。

そんなことを考えているうちに子供の頃に読んだカタツムリの絵本を思い出した。
タイトルは忘れてしまっていたが検索すると
レオ・レオニ作の「せかいいちおおきなうち」だった。
自分の殻に変化を与える知恵をつけたカタツムリ達が競い合ううちに破局を迎える物語だ。
美しい絵とその結末が幼い心に衝撃を与えた時のことを今でも思い出す。
作家の方がアムステルダム出身の人だとは知らなかった。もう亡くなっておられるのも残念だ。