Development log - GDice - Number

• Developed Nixie Tube's appearance as spritesheet
• Test use here: Nixie Spritesheet
  • Has all source files
  • Uploaded to: https://opengameart.org/content/nixie-digits-spritesheet as CC-BY-4.0
  • Might not be used in final project as the numbers are too small
  • Maybe it's just better to photoshoot the tube running using Arduino

Raycast on Phaser Camera3D Plugin

• The problem is actually discovered by a student when trying to implement a forward running game (They need to click the enemy)
• The camera3d class provides a ray function: https://photonstorm.github.io/phaser3-docs/Phaser.Cameras.Sprite3D.PerspectiveCamera.html#getPickRay__anchor
• In that way, calculating the x,y on the target plane and then do some hit-test manually would do the job
• Used example: http://labs.phaser.io/edit.html?src=src\camera\3D%20camera\floor.js
• Modify line  33 to : var balls = camera.createRect({ x: 8, y: 1, z: 8 }, 32, 'ball');
• Add following block to create():
     balls.forEach( function(ball){
          ball.setData('tag', 'ball'+ball.x+':'+ball.y+':'+ball.z);
      } )
  
     this.input.on('pointerdown', function (pointer) {
  
          ray = camera.getPickRay(pointer.x, pointer.y);
          balls.forEach( function(ball){
             // r is hardcoded here
             let r = 4;
             // calculate x y @ z of the object
             let tx, ty;
             let tz = ball.z;
              tx = ray.origin.x + ray.direction.x * (tz - ray.origin.z ) / ray.direction.z;
              ty = ray.origin.y + ray.direction.y * (ray.origin.z - tz) / ray.direction.z;
             let tl = Math.sqrt( Math.pow(tx - ball.x, 2) + Math.pow(ty - ball.y, 2) );
             if( tl < r ){
                  console.log(ball.getData('tag')+' isHit');
                  ball.gameObject.alpha = 0;
              }
          } );
  
      }, this);
• Explanation:
  • the radius is hard coded here (5)
  • more complex hit testing will need to be implemented for complex shapes
  • manually enumerated through all object, inefficient (may need to implement some obvious exclusion for optimization)
• Extra problem
  • Why is y axis reversed here?
• To study:
  • Math of https://codepen.io/samme/pen/PBMaLJ ray blocking ,will be useful for next project

Air particle separator

https://engineering.csuohio.edu/mce/3d-printing-lab

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222782238_Turboshaft_engine_air_particle_separation

Imaging Device and Webcam

• As the recent need for remote learning, trying to setup stream hardware
• ITS has Doc Cam hardware however the driver they provide here: https://www.elmoeurope.com/index.php/en/download-service/software installs the device as "Imaging devices" which is somehow different from "Cameras" ( from device manager)
  • TWAIN is also used by scanner so understand why it does make sense for Chat apps not supporting it
  • But why do real-time doc cam register as TWAIN instead of Cameras
    • It doesn't provide better quality
    • Speculations:
      • YUV format?
      • FPS?
      • Irregular resolution?
• PS Eye driver written by this company https://codelaboratories.com/products/eye/driver/
  • Archive (link : https://archive.org/download/CLEyeDriver5.3.0.0341Emuline/CL-Eye-Driver-5.3.0.0341-Emuline.exe)[download alt]
  • Also registers as "Imaging devices" thus meaning can't be used by most of the windows apps
• Making a TWAIN to Camera bridge
  • Does it worth the effort?
  • As newer devices(even doc cams) supports UVC driver
  • If as a hobby project, what's the effort
    • Device driver
    • Bridging service