d146 Experimenting with volumetric video mapping

Posted on February 19, 2014 by andy

Heres a post which is less about day to day happenings but more about one of the many little ongoing research experiments I’m constantly tinkering with. Ive thought about this one for a while but haven’t yet tried to implement this until now!

After chatting with the Ai guys at work over the past few days about different content/ video mapping scenarios I’ve decided to try and patch sic a thing in vvvv specifically for playing content back on a “Volumetric type video display”. For a description on what the hell a volumetric display is, its basically a video display screen with depth or extra layers which the viewer can see. In most cases a video screen is a single skin surface from a TV screen, projector scene or a projection mapped building. A volumetric display can have depth as well as width and height, heres a brilliant example by AntiVJ.

Using everyones favourite node based programming software I positioned 4 quads in 3d space at varying depts in the z-plane show in the image above and below. This gave me my basic 3d scene and some reference markers for my camera to look at.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Using the same render information from the initial 3d scene I then too 4 views on the same scene, flat onto the relevant coloured quad. From there i then clipped the far and near plane in the Z-depth so that the view was only seeing a shallow depth of that particular plane. This proves the theory of this to be working but I run in to the issue of the model primitive I’ve been using in my scene is hollow, as are most models. Opening up the clipping planes gives a little pseudo thickness but I need to find a way giving the walls of the model a thickness, or the model it’s self some volume.

Do more research on:

  • Volumetric Models
  • Voxels
  • Shader/.fx to pseudo thicken model walls on the output.

vvvv project available here >  Volumetric Using:45beta 31.2 64bit

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d142 Post show and still in Russia

Posted on February 15, 2014 by andy

Its Saturday the 15th February 8 days after the Sochi winter olympics opening ceremony which I’ve been working on and were now working towards the closing ceremony. Its feels a bit strange environment as from what i understand there is a different production company in overseeing the closing but the original production team are staying here as consultants. I could be wrong but there are definitely more people onsite now with what currently feels like less to do overall, I’m sure that will change.  So we had a show, apart from the the ring which did not open that the sensationalist press seemed to focus on the show was FLAWLESS. Heres a picture below if some of the set pieces hung in the hangar before one of the rehearsals.

Given the time and conniptions out here we shouldn’t really have had as much as we did go right. It was only mid december when we had the storms that blew off the roof in the south hangar which also was unfinished in parts.

This intern allowed the rain to come in and rain down on the automation carriages used for physically animating the scenery and set pieces in the stadium. Allot of time was spent fixing equipment which to wet and during that time i don’t think anyone could have imagined we would have all that we did in the ceremony. Below is a shot of one of the tracks & carriages in a finished dry hangar!

Each carriage can traverse through the stadium along, up, over and down the curved roof of the stadium from one hangar to another and carries a 1000kg winch to lift and animate the scenic pieces.

Below is a hot of South Control where Cam, Davide, Rob and Gethyn have been programming from and then operated some of the show from. Its difficult to tell form the picture but they’re on a temporary platform suspended around 30m above the hangar floor.

Here is central control opted by  Dan, Neil, Doug and  Paul, although Paul has been kept very busy on night shift going between all 3 operating positions as and when needed! On a side note Neil, over the course of being in Sochi has adopted a stray, one of many which were onsite since we arrived and many have been culled whilst we’ve been here. Given the piss taking amongst the testosterone field environment here its actually quite a noble thing to do and you can read more of the story here: http://www.9news.com/news/world/377034/243/In-Sochi-stray-dog-captures-heart-of-Denver-man

And then here is south control with Robin, Bruce and Brendon, dwarfed by the huge islands, still now, in pictures, you cannot get a scale of things here, all of the scenery was, and still is massive!!

After my visa run to the UK mid January I decided to bring my scooter out to get around site, and I’m so glad I did, (a). It saves a load of time getting round site and (b). Its lots of fun. I think just about everyone has had a go on it even the quite a few local Russian security guards. I did on c a couple occasions get some parking warnings, the first was a ticket off Ben from PRG (which I failed to get a picture of, sorry Ben). And then the second was an incredibly well made wheel clamp, which i later found out was off Rory, once of our riggers, hats off it is a work of art!

Back to work here is a picture of “The Sun” just to try and attempt to show a scale of things, and then when it opens out (iris’s out?) it probably increases by about 1/3 in size.

And so to the rings, given the outstanding engineering, technology and general perseverance of everyone who made the opening ceremony work, runners, riggers, operators, electricians, lx, video, sound, everyone! . A show which shouldn’t have really happened given the circumstances the press focused on the one thing which didn’t go to plan showing a sad ignorance of everything which went into making everything else work. Heres a good quote from ceremony producer Konstantin Ernst was philosophical about the mishap.

“Among five rings, one of them didn’t open. And you know, Zen Buddhists have an idea: if you have an ideally polished ball, you have to leave a scratch, to get an idea of how ideally it was polished,”

Finally, for now, a face which has been right under my nose for weeks, the coffee maker outside the main control room, looks like a relative of Bender of Futurama.

Final Note:
Hats off to you Mr Bromagier, you made it work, AGAIN 😉 …….

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d127 Nyet T’Internet

Posted on February 3, 2014 by andy

I’ve been trying to post here for a while but the internet has been so rubbish since leaving the Raddisson its almost impossible to do anything web based, more on that later.  Its been over 2 weeks since my last update which feels like much longer considering the traveling and work done.  On the 10th of Janauary I left Sochi to return home to renew my passport and renew my visa, this was much easier than expected, Durham passport office were supper efficient  and hats off to them. It was nice to be home for a few days to visit family and catch up with friends.

Whilst in Sochi, this has been missed, food with flavor! Home cooked meal at my parents, thank you Mum for feeding me up whilst home.

It wasn’t long before I was on a train to London, flight to Moscow for a 2 hour stopover, a flight to Sochi and finally a drive to the hotel where I managed to get a few hours sleep before starting the nightshift again. There was a fire engine onsite which we had to look at twice,.

I’m back on day shift now, but had lots of fun with the guys on the nightshift. It was allot calmer on the nightshift, less people onsite and less automation pieces moving meaning we could do more. After the shift we would generally go for a beer or two before bed, this is one particularly sunny day, which we sat outside, sunshine, mid January in Russia!! 

The lifts are finally working in the stadium now but most of them still have their wooden protection on the inside,  at one point I looked up and saw this.

Just recently we’ve been moved from the Raddisson Blu, which was quite nice, to another hotel, the Omega on the other side of town which is not so nice. Smithy showed me his bathroom where the plug for the Hairdryer assembly fixed to the wall doesn’t actually reach the plug socket, there seems to be allot of oversights like that in Russia or maybe its just Sochi.

 

Over the past few weeks we’ve spent allot of time updating firmware at height on gantry’s and in cherry pickers updating firmware and doing general maintenance as the requirements of the show change, and we get presented with scenery which could have been built lighter to hang on the aerial flying system!

Finally, I saw a face when I was looking in my document wallet which really did make me laugh out loud. It  is one of the immigration forms I got when entering Russia, grrrrrrr.

 

 

 

 

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d110 Hello 2014!!

Posted on January 15, 2014 by andy

Its been longer than normal since posting only which can be attributed to the new year and time taken up with working, sleeping, and few beverages in between to break up the day. Just before new years allot of time was spent on the east winch farm (above) working on things replacing electronics which had been possibly damaged by the weather/damp. It was a long old week between xmas and new year and i think everyone was getting a bit cabin fever. I have no idea what Davide was saying to Smithy in the picture below but this pretty much sums up the working week.

On the nightshift we had new years eve off work so we took advantage of that and after waking up at 16:00 we had a few beers in the bar and then headed up to “The Grotty”, this is a small bar about 30mins walk from the hotel in a strange residential area. The Grotty isn’t actually called the grotty but was christened that by I think, Bully and Parky who were looking for a bar to drink in which wasn’t the expensive hotel bar. I think this was around May when some of the guys first came out they were walking around looking for a bar near the hotel and Parky noticed that there was some water and the faint smell of raw sewage running down a hill and there eloped like there were buildings further up. Based on the premise that where there is shit, there are people, and where there are people, there is a drinking hole, they marched up the hill to find what is now known as “The Grotty”

 

Here we had the Stage One New Years Eve bash, there was food and free beer which we all made the most of. Some of us, and when I say some of us I basically mean the nightshift, me included were pretty hanging from the little drink we had in the morning after finishing work. On this day Gethyn won the award for the worst hangover, and i think this picture, (a panorama made to go wrong) kinda sums up the headache.

After the Grotty, Smithy and Myself walked to Adler, to a nightclub called forward tower to celebrate the rest of the evening. On the way there we spoke to some locals who didn’t understand due and nor did we understand the but I think we wished each other happy new year. When we got to the club it was 1000r (£20) on the door to get in to a semi busy nightclub but we paid and went in anyway. We went to the bar and I ordered vodka and whilst we were there a short guy with an impressive jet back monobrow was trying to get us on the dance floor. Im not sure if we were getting propositioned or not as he was quite insistent for a while until the last time we shook our heads and he wandered off to a dark corner somewhere. The club was quite bizarre in the way there was lots of photocopied 5000r (£100) all over the dance floor with people dancing around kicking up the fake money. I think remember the 4th vodka*, and then absolutely nothing until waking up fully clothed onto of my hotel room bed, that was the end of new years eve.

What was nice was the if you have a birthday in the Raddisson you get a birthday cake left in your room with a nice hand written note from the hotel, nice gesture and we all enjoyed a slice at the bar after that nightshift.

I haven’t really posted many pictures of the stadium here basically because a. allot of them are the same a previous photos not much to look at. And b. the ones where there there is something interesting to look at i can’t really publish as ill break some sort of secrecy act and either get arrested or shot. What I can post is “Barry Safety” this is our H&S officer who looks after everyones safety on a night time, he’s not really called Barry but we call him that anyway. As for Tony Danger, well, theres nothing much to say.

In Russia christmas is celebrated on the 7th January, not the 25th December, i still don’t know the reason why but I’ll try and find out. This is what happens when we finish a nightshift, Stiggy decides we should wear xmas baubles and buys everyone Yagermeister, what a great laugh, two Xmas’s Bonus!!

One night in the canteen Kenji decided to show us a picture he had drawn that day, all he said was that it was a famous person and we had to guess who it was. After a couple of minutes looking and thinking I had figured it, and burst out laughing brilliant. Ill post who it is in my next post.

So that was the start of 2014, contrary to all the pictures and stories here there has been a considerable amount of work gone on and I really can’t believe where we are now after the set backs of the previous 2 month. Everyone has grafted their tits off and it looks like were heading towards a show now.

Heres a face to finish off, Smithy has to take credit for finding this one.

 

*in Russia a standard vodka seems to come as a triple in all the places we have been to.

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Xmas Week d95

Posted on December 31, 2013 by andy

Another fast blurry week consisting of work and play, Xmas day feels quite far away now but is well remembered. We had Xmas day off here and quite a few of us decided to go up the mountains and go snowboarding/skiing. I wasn’t sure what to expect when we got there judging by the general incompleteness of the olympic building work in Sochi in general, but this place was actually ok.

We went up on Xmas eve and got up early to hire the kit and by 10:00am we were at the peak. I hadn’t been snowboarding for a few years and wasn’t really good back then, but in the spirit of things and peer pressure i ended up going from the top straight on a blue slope. After a few tumbles and getting up again things started coming together, it was a great day and good to see loads of people away from work.

The rest of the week we were back on nightshift generally spending our time commissioning automation equipment. This generally involves being cold, outside in the middle of the night as Ben demonstrates here below 🙂

In other news our catering has canted from our quirky little “Tin City” canteen to the general canteen for everyone. If the food was free I don’t think anyone would complain but the fact we pay 300r (£6.00) for some mediocre food and dire portions is a bit of a piss take.

I haven’t seen many faces this week but heres a heater face i saw in the control room at some point.

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d88 The run up to Xmas

Posted on December 24, 2013 by andy

Still in Russia but now working the nightshift, it was bit of a pain to get my body clock around but not so bade once your in the swing of things. The plus side is that in the stadium on a night time there are generally less building work going which is good. On the downside because were down to a slightly smaller crew close to xmas, and the stadium is so massive, doing some things takes a lot longer.

Over the past couple of weeks there has been a bit of this (above), soldering replacement SMT chips onto circuit boards. And then quite allot of this (below), spending time in a Skyjack 35m off the ground updating software. This was the first time id been in a Skyjack, and after 2minutes instruction off our non english speaking Russian driver, he handed me the controls, which had instructions on in Chinese. It was pretty scary at first but after an hour you got used to it, proper good piece of access equipment!

Onsite there a re quite allot of stray dogs and surprisingly they are all really well natured, there is a female Alsatian cross which the crew have looked after since May when they first came here. Since then, a kennel has been built outside the ceremonies office which now house the 10 or so puppies she gave birth to.

After our 23:30 each night, Matt has been saving these for the puppies which is always an entertaining 10minutes when you see these little balls of fur running towards a 6feet Matt!

Another evening that week I went up on the “Black Steel” with Damo & Phill to investigate an electrical fault. Climbing the arches is pretty high when your at the 70m apex, but when your out on the beams over the filed of play its quite a different feeling. Its such a huge roof that when you look down onto stage things are so small.

Walking across stage I saw this written on a piece of wood, I think allot of people want to go home. Working here is tough, not because of the job but because of the endless politics it appears you have t go through to get anything done.

I don’t actually know the name of this guy but have seen him pretty much every night on nightshift driving round in his buggy looking after operations. Ofcourse to keep ourselves entertained, when you see someone with a load of “No Cameras” signs, what is the first thing you do :).

Thats all for now, apart from finessing with another face, well, a surprised parrot actually which i saw in the air vents of the minibus.

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d77 Friday the 13th

Posted on December 13, 2013 by andy

Its been a tough and sometimes frustrating couple of weeks since last posting, there is still allot of building work going on in the stadium which is hindering progress somewhat and the show is around 2 month away. Working in the stadium you kind of become familiar with some of the local workers and saying hello saying stuff and completely not understanding each other. One of the local beam climbers was saying “Firma Vasha many ne vozimut narabotu”  then he wrote it on the handrail. I took a picture and asked Micky, our Russian Ittalian rigger to translate. He said it means, your company will never take me or worlds to that effect, still don’t quite understand what my mate the beam climber was trying to say but we still say hello.

The temperature has started to drop and one time when I went in the office, Terry said she was having issues with her computer, could I come have a look. The cat from the cafe had made its nest on the warm keyboard, its quite a funny cheeky cat and wanders round the caffe most lunchtimes.

Rob and myself spent a duple of days addressing and commissioning some automation cabinets then once we had done there was another firmware upgrade so had to go and do it again, no doubt as things get requested theres still going to be more upgrades, still lot to do.

The sunsets are still amazing here over the sea, the colours are always a similar hue, i think a day or two after this is when we had “The Storm”

Im onto nightshifts now, and the second day in the dayshift and nightshift was cancelled due to adverse weather conditions. In this case adverse weather conditions meant winds  high strong gusty winds, heavy rain, thunder and lighting. I was in my room when i got the email saying it had been cancelled and i could actually feel the hotel shaking. Later i met some of the dayshift who had had gone into work before the the announcement saying the shift had been canceled. They had to sit in the canteen for 4 hours whilst the situation was assessed. In this time some roof panels had been blown off some of the buildings which was holding our automation equipment, and much of it got wet.

The following day, the dayshift began the carful drying of the electrics and electronics before tentatively switching on different elements. When we went in for the nightshift the temperature began to drop into the minus meaning some of the equipment which wasn’t fully dried began to form ice inside.

Its actually quite depressing, easily a 2 week set back, if not more, we’ve spent the past 3 days slowly powering stuff up and re testing when we should be programming a show. Hopefully we will have more access equipment tonight so we can get more done at height. It really does feel like 1 step forward and 10 steps back at the moment, even with the building work in the stadium, allot of the floor tiling has been finished on some of the concourses, then other local contractors come in and dump steel work stillages on the concourse smashing many many tiles. Along side the amount of times I’ve seen concrete poured then dug up again because of a forgotten pipe or something is just madness.

For a cheery end to this post, heres another face, whey!

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d60 Pulling cables

Posted on November 26, 2013 by andy

Im still in Sochi, going to be here until the 10th of January where I have to travel back to the UK to do 2 things, fist one is to renew my passport as there are no available pages for the second thing I need, which is a new Russian work visa, its a tight turn around but hopefully it will go without a hitch!

The Fisht stadium is such a huge place, and getting around takes quite a while, there are two main arches where allot of our kit and cable infrastructure is being hung from and this whole place is no more than 100m from the black sea. Look one way and its part buildings part stadium and look the other way and you see the beautiful vista of the sea, nice when the sun is shining.

All f last week was taken up with pulling up and threading cable trough the arches along the catalos to various which cabinets and safety circuit cabinets, pretty similar as the week but much heavier work, at the end of play today (Tuesday 26th Nov) most of it is in on the high catwalks but theres still allot to go in lower down. Jam and Chris had a bit of a competition reeling the excess cable we didn’t use back not he cable drum and had a good giggle at the same time.

I think it was wednesday last week we went to the supermarket to get some bits and bobs, you can see what most of the stuff is but don’t actually 100% know what your buying. I later discovered that what i thought was beef jerky was really fired fish, Bleugh. What was really ace was the size of the Vodka section, as to be expected when in Russia. Someone told me earlier this wee that when they went to see the medic about an incredibly sore throat they couldn’t get rid of that she told them to gargle with vodka at the end of each day then then swallow it! I was pretty happy when I saw this one, Si Bye had introduced me to green tea and Vodka during manchester festival couple of years ago and it was a revelation to see this on the shelves!

When it hasn’t rained for a couple of days it becomes pretty dusty in the venue with all the work going on. The downside is that it makes you cough, the plus side you see Crepuscular rays like this when the sun is in the right place

Sunday, on our day off, Nat, one of our riggers had organised a trip ingot he mountains to have a BBQ and drink some ChaCha, there was only a few of us went and when we got to the picnic site it wasn’t what I was expecting. Really beautiful place and it was good to be away from work and away from the hotel were living in. It was a well needed break and once to meet some new people, I possibly drank too much ChaCha.

Theres a bit of a theme developing with faces in places, after pointing out some to colleagues we’ve ball been spotting ore and more. The best one by far and the one that made us laugh the most was when Jam put his lunchbox on the table in the canteen and i spotted a happy little sandwich face.

These are just a few if the highlights of the past 10 days, theres been some really good days and some painfully slow days with various hold ups but everyone seems to be in good spirits. Theres still a long way to go for a show and hopefully the humour stays up as the days get longer.

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d51 First week in Russia

Posted on November 17, 2013 by andy

First week in Russian working in Sochi for Stage one preparing for the winter Olympics ceremonies. The stadium is a pretty amazing structure and when working in it you spend allot of time just getting from one point to another because it is so huge. Ild like to post a few pictures of the place but politically I’m unsure what I can or cannot post so ill put in a few of around the place instead.

First arriving here was a little crazy as when JT Gary and myself were been driven from the airport to the hotel at 04:00 in the morning, our driver stopd the car on this dark busy road and hopped out after he saw a body lying essentially in the middle of the highway. We all got out  and we had some high power torches to flash the oncoming traffic to stop them completely running over this guy.  A few other cars stopped and luckily this guy wasn’t dead but it looked like he had been knocked over and if our driver hand have spotted him he would most definitely been ran over by a truck within minutes. Eventually after 20 minutes an ambulance turned up and took the guy away, our driver took us to the hotel that was the end of that story.

My pass was meant to be ready on moray when i went in at 13:00 but was delayed for some reason. I pent the day trying to familiarise myself wight he place. Where were staying near the hotel theres not allot here at the moment apart from buildings and construction work!

Most of this week has been spent on the catwalks running in data infrastructure, updating firmware on the motion controllers and then playing the waiting game whilst we keep asking the local suppliers to turn on a section of power.

Its pretty hinge up there, its difficult to see from this picture put the red dot between the floor grate is the top of a guys helmet standing on the stage below us. Probably the highest I’ve worked before!

The sunsets are pretty cool here, this is the south end of the venue which overlooks the black sea. Ive been old the bright dot in the sky is venus, amazing colours here, possibly try and get a better picture some other evening.

This week has been quite a blur, I’m still adjusting to the place as it’s a bit of a mad place to work but more about that later on sometime

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Experiments with Geometry

Posted on November 12, 2013 by andy

In the downtime yesterday whilst waiting to get my pass to get onsite i decided to do some experiments with 3d geometry rendering out only in black and white. Its always difficult to get the ideas in your head down on paper or rendered as theres always the process of learning how to do such a thing. There are so may tools available and so many different ways of doing things that its never as straight froward as it first appears. Heres some digital doodles I came up with whilst spending time trying to figure things out.

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