| Date | Category | Details | Time Spent |
| Mon, May 29 | Coding | Trying
to get the HTTP code to run on the Nokia 6600. Realized that this phone
uses the 2.0 SDK (6620 uses 2.1). Installed Series 60 2.0 SDK.
Impossible to compile for new target; compilation targets are set when
the project is created. Tried to export and import the project; Carbide
C++ does not export projects, only source files. Learned how to write a
.mmp (Symbian project file) by hand. SDK 2.0 lacks the Ethernet plugin
(required for the emulator) and the camera plugin. Installed the
plugin; confirmed that the HTTP POST doesn't work in the 2.0 emulator
either (this behavior seems to be undocumented, as the 2.0 and 2.1 HTTP
APIs are the same). Installed the camera plugin; Eclipse does not
recognize the new 2.0 SDK as a valid build target. Resolved to develop
the program in the emulator, for lack of access to a compatible device.
| 10:00 | |
| Sun, May 21 | Writing Reports / Presentations | Working on ISWC paper. | 6:00 | |
| Fri, May 19 | Group Meeting | Discussing the ISWC paper. | 1:30 | |
| Fri, May 12 | Coding | Solved
the HTTP problem: the part boundary was specified incorrectly, and the
CGI module seems to dislike single quotes for parameter names. At 4:16
am, I have successfuly tested the TrinetraOCR system. Finalizing the
prototype: cleaning up the code, removing the debugging info, adding
menu options, modifying the server-side script. Testing the system with
Talks (it works). | 8:00 | |
| Fri, May 12 | Writing Reports / Presentations | Working on the OCR report. | 2:00 | |
| Fri, May 12 | Class | Final Presentation. | 2:00 | |
| Thu, May 11 | Coding | I've
actually worked 14h, but Kiva won't let me input more than 10.
Debugging: trying to see if the problem was in the image conversion to
JPEG or in the HTTP upload. Around midnight, I had the confirmation
that the file upload was not working. The only way to send a binary
file with HTTP POST seems to be a multipart/form-data. | 10:00 | |
| Wed, May 10 | Coding | I've
actually worked 14h, but Kiva won't let me input more than 10.
Changing the method to upload files. Using a regular parameter=value
POST request instead of a multipart. Managed to upload files to the
server, but the jpeg files are corrupted. | 10:00 | |
| Tue, May 9 | Coding | Debugging: trying to find the source of the "malformed multipart headers" error. | 8:00 | |
| Tue, May 2 | Coding | Debugging: trying to find the source of the "malformed multipart headers" error. | 2:00 | |
| Mon, May 1 | Writing Reports / Presentations | Finalized and submitted the ISWC paper. | 4:00 | |
| Mon, May 1 | Coding | Trying
to implement a multipart POST request to mimick the behavior of the Web
browser. Sniffed traffic from the phone and form the browser to compare
the two transactions. Tried to understand the format of multipart
requests. The servers keeps returning a "malformed multipart headers"
error. | 6:00 | |
| Sun, Apr 30 | Coding | I've
actually worked 14h, but Kiva won't let me input more than 10.
Used the camera API and the corresponding observer. Saved .mbm file
locally and confirmed that the photo is correct. Implemented an active
object to encapsulate the image conversion to jpeg. It is more
complicated to save the jpeg file, as it requires asynchronous I/O and
a connection to the file server. Went on with the implementation. Used
the HTTP client API to upload the jpeg file to the server. Realized
that neither the solution from the shopping team (custom
MHTTPDataSupplier) nor the standard Symbian approach (CHTTPFormEncoder)
will work for sending binary data with the request. | 10:00 | |
| Sun, Apr 30 | Group Meeting | Tentative demo meeting. Received Nokia 6620 phone. Confirmed that the program behaves the same as in the emulator. | 1:30 | |
| Sat, Apr 29 | Research | Reading
the Symbian book and taking notes. Very frustrating; this is the kind
of book that requires you to read 200 pages before you can do anything. | 4:00 | |
| Fri, Apr 28 | Staff / Leaders Meeting | Leader's meeting. | 1:00 | |
| Thu, Apr 27 | Research | Reading the Symbian book. | 1:00 | |
| Thu, Apr 27 | Coding | Trying
to implement a simple HTTP POST request, based on the SDK examples and
the code from the shopping team. The program works flawlessly in the
emulator. Tried to install it on the Nokia 6600 phone from Pablo; no
response. | 4:00 | |
| Wed, Apr 26 | Writing Reports / Presentations | Working on ISWC paper. | 6:00 | |
| Tue, Apr 25 | Writing Reports / Presentations | Working on ISWC paper. | 4:00 | |
| Mon, Apr 24 | Writing Reports / Presentations | Working on ISWC abstract. | 3:00 | |
| Sun, Apr 23 | Staff / Leaders Meeting | Leader's meeting. | 1:00 | |
| Mon, Apr 17 | Class | Class. | 1:30 | |
| Wed, Apr 12 | Group Meeting | - confirmed that all the SW on the server-side was done (issue closed)
- decided that Kunal will test the camera SW until tomorrow (he is pretty confident that it will work)
- decided that Pablo will work on tokenizing and displaying the recognized text
- discussed the paper submission for ISWC. Rough outline follows:
1. Introduction (Tudor)
2. System Design
a. Challenges with working with cell phone and OCR (Matt)
b. Description of hardware/software architecture (Kunal)
3. Evaluation (Pablo)
a. Scenario
b. Eval of limitations of text recognition (images from different angles, distances, perspectives, etc and their OCR results)
4. Discussion/Limitations (Matt)
a. "How does the user know where text is in the environment?"
b. Future work
5. Related Work (Everyone should do a lit search for relevant research)
6. Conclusion (everyone, at the end)
7. Abstract (everyone, at the end)
| 2:30 | |
| Thu, Apr 6 | Administrative Tasks | Worked on open issues document (http://kiva.ices.cmu.edu/rpcs06/topic.php?topic_id=2184&goto=2272#2272) | 0:30 | |
| Wed, Apr 5 | Group Meeting | - Selected new leadership: Tudor (leader), Kunal (editor) and Pablo (presenter).
- Gained access to the lab in Hamburg Hall
- Assigned implementation tasks for the next week
- Discussed implementation issues for the phone (accessing the camera) and for the server (using JSP vs. FastCGI)
- Agreed with shopping team to share the Nokia 6620 phone this weekend for testing purposes
- Discussed paper submission to ISWC06 | 1:30 | |
| Mon, Apr 3 | Class | Class. Discussed OCR implementation status. | 1:30 | |
| Fri, Mar 31 | Staff / Leaders Meeting | Leader's meeting. | 1:00 | |
| Wed, Mar 29 | Class | Class. MoRe presentation. | 1:30 | |
| Wed, Mar 29 | Group Meeting | Divided up tasks for the report. Notes at: http://kiva.ices.cmu.edu/rpcs06/topic.php?topic_id=1844&goto=1946#1946 | 1:30 | |
| Mon, Mar 27 | Class | Class. Phase II presentation. OCR gets pretty good reactions from the audience. | 1:30 | |
| Wed, Mar 22 | Class | Class. Kunal comes back after surgery, so our group has 4 members again. | 1:30 | |
| Wed, Mar 22 | Group Meeting | Reassigned
team roles in preparation for the presentation on March 27th. Matt is
the main presenter and Pablo is the editor. Kunal and Tudor work on
mock-up. | 1:00 | |
| Tue, Mar 21 | Coding | Developed
a "hello world" application in Symbian. The appropriate steps are
described at:
http://kiva.ices.cmu.edu/rpcs06/topic.php?topic_id=1457#firstunread | 1:30 | |
| Mon, Mar 20 | Class | Great airplane competition. | 1:30 | |
| Mon, Mar 20 | Administrative Tasks | Completed the ODC web form. | 0:30 | |
| Sun, Mar 19 | Research | Read
Symbian documentation. Had a hard time finding a document describing
how to program from scratch a simple "Hello World" Symbian app (rather
than importing an existing one, provided with the SDK). | 1:00 | |
| Fri, Mar 17 | Group Meeting | Continued
the discussion of the detailed SW architecture. Focused on the
communication between the phone client and the server. Decided to use
HTTP POST requests for communication. Discussed several options for
invoking the ABBYY SDK on the server side and for handling the POST
request. Split group in two sub-groups: server-side and client-side. | 1:00 | |
| Wed, Mar 15 | Research | Downloaded and installed Symbian IDE and emulator. Read about Symbian HTTP and Camera APIs. | 1:30 | |
| Sat, Mar 11 | Architecture Design | Met
with Matt and designed the software architecture. Notes at
http://kiva.ices.cmu.edu/rpcs06/topic.php?topic_id=1333&goto=1344#1344 | 1:00 | |
| Thu, Mar 9 | Field Testing | Took some more pictures using the camera and the "macro-mode lenses". The quality of close-ups is improved. | 1:00 | |
| Wed, Mar 8 | Field Testing | More testing of TextBridge 8.0. Seems to work pretty well on the inverted version of sign06.jpg. | 1:00 | |
| Mon, Mar 6 | Research | Testing of TextBridge Pro 8.0:
- the input image needs to be monochrome bmp or tiff (and a few others, but no jpg)
- the text needs to be black on white, not the other way around
- after converting sign02 to monochrome and inverting the colors, the program has no problem detecting the text "MEN"
- the "edge detection" filter also has pretty cool effects
- the monochrome version of sign06 is indecifrable; I probably have to increase the contrast before conversion
| 1:30 | |
| Fri, Mar 3 | Staff / Leaders Meeting | Leaders Meeting. | 1:00 | |
| Thu, Mar 2 | Group Meeting | Sat in transportation group meeting. Notes at http://kiva.ices.cmu.edu/rpcs06/topic.php?topic_id=1186&goto=1186#1186 | 1:00 | |
| Thu, Mar 2 | Group Meeting | The
OCR group met with Wen Wu, a local OCR expert. Minutes at
http://kiva.ices.cmu.edu/rpcs06/topic.php?topic_id=1128&goto=1178#1178 | 1:00 | |
| Wed, Mar 1 | Class | Class | 1:30 | |
| Mon, Feb 27 | Field Testing | Took
photos with 3 megapixel Canon camera; GOCR failed to detect any text.
Downloaded the trial version of the commercial Asprise OCR SW; Asprise
failed to detect any meaningful text. | 1:30 | |
| Sun, Feb 26 | Field Testing | Continues
testing GOCR with the pictures from the phone camera. Tried different
combinations of the command line switches, as well as converting the
pix to grayscale, reducing their size and cropping the text saying
"MEN" from sign02.jpg. GOCR doesn't recognize any text. | 2:00 | |
| Sat, Feb 25 | Field Testing | Testing
the performance of the GOCR software on pictures from the phone camera.
Most pictures are too unclear; GOCR doesn't recognize any text. | 0:30 | |
| Fri, Feb 24 | Staff / Leaders Meeting | Leadder's meeting. | 1:00 | |
| Wed, Feb 22 | Administrative Tasks | Individual session w/ instructors | 0:15 | |
| Wed, Feb 22 | Group Meeting | Initial meeting of the OCR group. Minutes at: http://kiva.ices.cmu.edu/rpcs06/topic.php?topic_id=939&goto=1018#1018 | 1:00 | |
| Mon, Feb 20 | Class | Class | 1:30 | |
| Mon, Feb 20 | Writing Reports / Presentations | Working
on short-range navigation and text recognition report: product feature
matrix and description of electronic travel aids, adding GOCR to the
list of OCR SW investigated, timeline for next steps. | 1:00 | |
| Mon, Feb 13 | Writing Reports / Presentations | Slides for presenter's meeting | 2:00 | |
| Mon, Feb 13 | Class | Class & Trinetra Phase 1 Presentation | 1:30 | |
| Mon, Feb 13 | Research | Researching open source OCR SW. | 1:00 | |
| Sun, Feb 12 | Writing Reports / Presentations | Slides for presenter's meeting | 1:00 | |
| Fri, Feb 10 | Staff / Leaders Meeting | Presenter's meeting | 1:30 | |
| Wed, Feb 8 | Class | Class | 1:30 | |
| Tue, Feb 7 | Writing Reports / Presentations | Presentation for short-range navigation and text recognition | 1:00 | |
| Mon, Feb 6 | Class | Class | 1:30 | |
| Thu, Feb 2 | Group Meeting | Refine Product Feature Matrices | 1:00 | |
| Wed, Feb 1 | Writing Reports / Presentations | Preparinf the product feature matrix for micro-navigation aids | 1:00 | |
| Wed, Feb 1 | Class | Class | 2:00 | |
| Tue, Jan 31 | Research | Looking up electronic travel aids | 3:00 | |
| Mon, Jan 30 | Class | Trinetra - HCI Presentation | 2:00 | |
| Thu, Jan 26 | Group Meeting | Brainstorming on research topics and create new group | 1:00 | |
| Wed, Jan 25 | Class | Class | 2:00 | |
Time spent:Total: 168:15
Administrative Tasks: 1:15 Architecture Design: 1:00 Class: 24:30 Coding: 69:30 Field Testing: 6:00 Group Meeting: 15:30 Research: 13:00 Staff / Leaders Meeting: 6:30 Writing Reports / Presentations: 31:00 |
