The Halls of ITP
It is done. I present to you my Animation After Effects video:
And what a challenge it was to make this.
Perceptrons
Basic Perceptron¶
This week's assignment is to code a Perceptron in Python and train it to learn the basic AND, OR, and XOR logic operations.
I created a Perceptron function with parameters that will let me study the operation of this algorithm.
Clustering and NumPy
K-means clustering¶
Our second assignment in our Learning Machines class is to implement k-means clustering in Python. I've implemented this in other programming languages but not in Python. Normally I'd use scikit-learn for this but it is a worthwhile exercise to think through how to do this in Python.
More After Effects and Understanding Comics
Understanding Comics
Scott McCloud’s book Understanding Comics is ostensibly a book about comic books as an art form, including its history, evolution, and modern structure.
The author has much love for comics and fell in love with them as a child. I can partially relate in that when I was younger I looked forward to the Sunday newspaper and reading the comics. However, I never had an affinity for comic books and found them to be a waste of time. These days I only read Dilbert on a regular basis.
Playtesting Results
Last week Camilla and I did Playtesting with our fellow students. In general the results were positive, with some testers expressing an interest in using the final project. Some of our ideas about how the interaction would work were not as well received as I expected.
Results Summary
One tester told us he had previously discussed our project idea with his wife, who works as a therapist. She thought it would be helpful to have some way to help patients practice breathing exercises before the session begins. I find it encouraging that somebody found our project to be sufficiently intriguing to talk about it with someone else. I know she'll be at the Winter Show and I'm looking forward to showing her the final result.
Run Length Encoding
Our first assignment in our Learning Machines class is to implement a run length encoder and decoder. This is a simple data compression algorithm that benefits from repeated patterns.
It happens that I previously had an idea for an Arduino project that requires a light-weight data decompression algorithm to decode audio data. I was going to use run length encoding because it is simple to implement and the code itself won't take up much of the Arduino's precious memory. I'll also need to encode the audio files in Python, and I'll use the below code to do it.
Learning Machines
Learning Machines, taught by Patrick Hebron.
Class blog posts:
- Saturday, November 11, 2017 11:33 PM Run Length Encoding
- Saturday, November 18, 2017 8:24 PM Clustering and NumPy
- Friday, November 24, 2017 4:30 PM Perceptrons
- Monday, December 11, 2017 8:58 AM Multi-Layer Perceptron Study
- Thursday, December 14, 2017 1:50 PM Tuning Hyperparameters
Stratasys 3D Printing
The 3D prints for my final Tesseracts project were done on the Ultimaker 2+ printers available at the NYU Makerspace. The print quality was good but the Makerspace also has professional 3D printers that can print at much higher resolutions. After our 3D printing class was over, I printed my tesseract models on a Stratasys Dimension Elite printer. Not only was the print quality excellent, but the print process was reliable and stress-free.
Playtesting
Tomorrow we will begin Playtesting for our final project. I'm feeling good about the direction of our project and am looking forward to answering our user interaction questions.
New Design
We made some changes to our design. Most notably, we are going to drop MIDI sounds in favor of sampled sounds in mp3 or wav format. This simplifies our design and also removes the requirement that future users of this device will need to buy relatively expensive MIDI software to make pretty sounds. Additionally, we discovered that there might be some shortcomings in a Mac's MIDI subsystem that may be behind some of the technical challenges we faced during the midterm.
We are going to continue referring to our device as MIDI Meditation until we come up with a better name. The name of the project is probably the least important thing for us to think about right now.
After Effects
After Effects
We started learning about Adobe After Effects, a video editing and compositing tool that I enjoy immensely. I spent more time than I should have going through After Effects tutorials and learning about what this tool can do. This tool is super useful; there were many moments when I realized that some cool thing I've seen can be easily done with After Effects. I want to become proficient at this and use it for creative work.
We were asked to build a short composition with animated shapes but I got carried away building an animated character that walks across the screen. The character is built in Illustrator and animated in After Effects. I added some sound effects using Premiere. Enjoy!