New Photos!

Yesterday, I went on a photo safari of sorts through a neighborhood on the other side of town, around Clifton. Here are some of the pictures I took:

 

I currently use Paint.NET to edit my photos.

Inverted Bicycle and Neurology

A couple of days ago, I was sent a really cool video:



The video is about a backwards bicycle: A bike in which turning the handlebars to the left causes the front wheel to turn right, and turning the handlebars to the right causes the front wheel to go left.

You might think that such a bike would be easy to master, just try some sort of trick like crossing your hands over or forcing yourself to turn in the "wrong" direction, but the bike has been proven "impossible." Everyone thinks that they can do it, that they have some special idea, but the truth is, YOU CAN'T RIDE THIS BICYCLE. The person for whom it was made claims to have spent eight months trying to master the inverted bike, and finally felt it "click" into place one day. He was now able to ride the inverted bike, but he soon discovered that he could not ride a normal bicycle anymore.

Then, he told his seven-year-old son to try the bike, and he, too, failed. For the younger boy, though, it only took about three weeks to master the bike, proving that childrens' brains have higher plasticity: They are more easily changed.

I think that this effect is fascinating: How we can grow up our entire lives doing something one way, and then change it so completely in eight months that we can't go back to the original way we did things. I feel that this applies not just to bicycle riding, but also to other aspects of life. We get used to something being one way, and then we just can't handle it being any other way!

For example, my old monitor had a setting where all of the colors were more vibrant, colorful, and more saturated. I turned this setting up all the way, to the point where it was ridiculous, and then forced myself to use the monitor like that for the rest of the day. When I logged on to my computer the next day, I didn't even notice the effect. I had gotten so used to it after a few weeks that when I used a different computer for something, I was shocked by how gray and washed out the colors looked in comparison! I felt that nagging me the whole time, until I finally got myself to ignore the colors. Upon returning to my computer, I was surprised again at how I could have possibly ever used the computer with such saturated colors!

Another example is typing on a keyboard. Suppose you suddenly had to use a keyboard where the keys on the left were moved to the right, and the keys on the right were moved to the left. It would take a lot of time and practice to get used to the keyboard, but then the original layout would seem unnatural and strange.

I think that this is an amazing effect: That, since everything is relative, a change between something you are used to and something new or different can be so startling.

Tennis

As the boys' tennis season comes to a close this week, I am going to dedicate a blog post to my experience with tennis.

I started playing tennis the summer of 2014. I had played tennis in the past, here and there, but I had never really seriously put a lot of time into it. My goal was to be a part of the Loveland High School tennis team the following school year.

 

Since I had lots of free time in the summer, I decided to sign up for a tennis clinic 3 times a week, with high school students. Then, I eventually switched to private lessons with a coach, with whom I have been practicing for several months now.

 

When Semester 2 of school started, I tried out for the team, and made the JV. The start of our season was delayed due to weather conditions. In fact, we even practiced during hail once, with everyone wearing a jacket or some sort of warm clothing. Despite these setbacks, we did manage to get started with the season, our first match being against Elder, but this pushed our season's matches tighter together, which didn't allow for that many practices. In total, we played 18 matches, and won half with a result of 9 - 9. My personal record at the end of the season is 5 - 5 - 1 (I tied a match Set one: TB lost 4-7, Set two: TB won 7-4, and then it rained).

 

The coaches established a tennis ladder ranking for the 11 players in our team, and I was number 9. Due to the tight match schedule, we had few team practices during the season, so I didn't really have the opportunity to challenge my way upward in the ladder, but I hope to be higher up next year, at least in the top 7 players, which are the ones who play the most often.

 

  

I think a really cool thing about the team this year was that the JV "home" courts were actually the practice courts at the ATP stadium in Mason, where the Western & Southern Open international tournament is played every year. It's a really cool feeling to know that you're playing high school JV tennis on the same courts that Roger Federer warms up on!

Video Match Moving with Eye Tracking?

Today, I am going to propose this awesome new idea I've just had, as a great method for match moving in cinematography and compositing.

Match moving, sometimes referred to as motion tracking or camera solving, is the analysis of a clip of video in usually expensive software to try to determine the exact motion of the camera during the recording. It can be used to simulate the exact motion of a virtual camera in a 3D animation program, and then to superimpose and composite the clips so that the perspective seems seamless, or for video stabilization. It is done in the following way: The user defines a "ground" plane and a few other points, and then the tracking software goes frame by frame in the clip and traces the motion of those points that define the planes. Then, the software computes the camera movements from the relative movements of the points, in perspective.

Here is a video with a clip whose camera movement has been matched and used to add a car into the clip:

Even though the required computer power for this operation is rapidly becoming more abundant, I feel that we might have been missing something; that maybe we don't even need computer power for this operation at all!

Let me introduce you to the concept of eye tracking, or, more specifically, gaze tracking. Gaze tracking is done by a device, sensor bar, camera, or other implement that, once calibrated properly, can track in real time the exact point at which your eyes are looking.

So, you could simply pick a point in the frame, stare at it, and follow it with your eyes as the video plays! Then, pick another important point, stare at it, and follow it with your eyes!

You can define the planes needed, and then track their points with your eyes rather than with expensive software and computer power!

I estimate that, depending on the accuracy with which you need to track your video, an eye tracking camera with an accuracy on the screen of about 5 millimeters or so should be sufficient.

 

I don't know if this has been thought of before, but in all of my searching today I have not yet come across it!

 

Photo Credit: Richard via socialpepper.nl