Projects with Employer
Many of the details and much of the code described in these projects is proprietary, so I must be careful in my descriptions. Nonetheless, I worked on these by myself and they definitely demonstrate my abilities as a VB programmer, screen layout/user interface designer, and graphic artist ( including 3D rendering full animations ).
The "Sim-Sick" Project
I am only including Visual Basic projects here, mainly because that is where I will be focusing my future work. However, I must say the Simulator Sickness project made very little use of VB, pretty much only as a front end and avi control ( setting to proper frame, etc. ). This is important for you to see, because it is probably one of my most visible/well-known projects. I am included in the concept patent, and the work is being continued at a university in Washington State. I made the flying animations in True Space 2, having been familiarized with 3-D Studio during my video game employment. I am just proud of the was this looks in motion. In a sentence, the concept to be proven made use of retreating objects ( sometimes subliminal ) that were identical to approaching objects in an effort to prevent the eyes from unnaturally changing focus while wearing a VR helmet. Hughes Training is very much involved in flight simulators for the several branches of the military.
The Man-Machine User Interface Project ( MMUI )
Listed Co-Inventor, State of Texas Patent filed 20 October 1997
The concept here was to take any fairly complex interface and to have it automatically ( and preferably invisible to the user ) detect learning preferences and deficiencies in that particular user, save those settings, and retrieve those settings for each user to log on. Microsoft Speech API and Lucent's "Watson" Speech Recognizer ( later called something else ) were used for input and output, as well as the mouse. This is a perfect example of the program's concept. MMUI would monitor whether or not the user was willing to consistently use the speech recognizer given both choices. Let's say that the interface was a control on the manufacturing line of a GM auto plant ( Hughes Training is owned by GM ). Speed/ambient noise/attention span of user/disabilities (deafness, blindness, or loss of use of limbs) as well as well as experimental factors such as Spatial/Verbal/Tactile preferences ( i.e. Icons versus text versus read aloud ) were all considered and automatically detected and used. The Meyers-Briggs Personality Profile ( e.g. ENTP, etc ) was also beginning to be applied near the end of project. Some of the strange, rendered graphics you see were created with True Space 2.
The Globe Display Project
Originally, the Man-Machine User Interface project was intended to help make an existing and very complex NORAD missile alert monitoring system more easily "monitorable" and automatically customizable from person to person. This was changed to something as mundane as a web-browser because the real NORAD system was going through many changes at that time and was not possible. However, I had already started what I knew would have become the most difficult part of the project: the "zoomable," rotating globe display. Using pure math ( spherical coordinates and rotations ), I constructed a system whereby points are translated from a flat plane and mapped onto a moving sphere. To help with speed, the number of points required was lessened by "connecting the dots" to form the outline of a land mass. Note: this is not using any special graphics libraries and runs very smoothly. To help trace real continents, I used the time zone bitmap from windows as a background for the flat plane that contains the data points. Both zoom and speed of rotation are adjustable. The smaller picture is an animated gif and contains only a few frames of the globe. It also seems to stutter somewhat on a few web browsers. I just wanted you to get a feel for its motion.
The NTI ( Neat Things Inc. ) Project
When the president of the "Tech. Office" returned from Germany, I received a note simply titled "Opportunity to Excel." What was hoped was that I could prove that a role-playing, German board game that trains in business and management styles could be made online, or at least PC-based. What you see here are shots from my version of the original game and the opening animation, rendered in True Space 2. I designed wire-frame objects, textured and rendered them for the animations and still pictures ( used for icons, buttons, and backgrounds ). The game simulated quarterly analyses of performance, factory expenditures, new machinery, personnel, IRD of new products, etc. It turned out very nice, and was demonstrated on the big screen to a convention of HTI employees. In case you're wondering, it was a paper airplane factory; hence the flying intro and Dr. Suess-like factory machines.
Ambient Sound Correction
The MMUI project was also to be monitoring ambient room noise, and thus correct for input ((microphone gain for speech recognition) and output (volume). This is a separate Visual Basic program that handles all of that, using LSAP for speech recognition and text to speech. Ambient audio is sampled from the same microphone as the speech recognition microphone in a time-sharing manner using the Win32 API.
