Slow and Steady…

For the lack of a better descriptions, things are plainly just going along.  I’ve finally finished creating all the signs/pyramids for the “Compare Regions” half of the visualization!  There’s basically nothing else to report on, so here’s what I need to do in the next 2-3 days to finish the entire visualization off:  1)  Check/rearrange the room so every pyramid /sign is visible, 2) Click on every pyramid/bar and fix any display errors (output not matching sign), 3) Create the 45 signs for the “See Region” half of the visualization (which unfortunately might end up being easier if I delete all the bars and start over…), and  4) Edit/Add on to the elevator to accommodate two levels of sight.

Minor elaboration on the four points:  1) Becuase of the size/design of the pyramids and signs, the ones in the foreground will cover the ones in the back.  Thus, the pyramids have to be specially arranged that way this problem can be avoided.  2)  The size of the pyramids is scaled as such:  take the compare regions percentage and scale it down by 20 (10 to convert into SL meters, 2 to make it reasonable in size).  Unfortunately, this process sometimes loses a fourth decimal point in rounding, so I’m going to have to check over every pyramid and make sure it returns the right size when clicked.  3)  All the bars still have the black SL “SetText” floating above their heads, so I need to convert those into the signs used in the “Compare Regions” area.  The way it has to work, however, might make it so this is a very inconvenient operation.  If this is true, I’ll basically have to recreate a couple days work and delete all the bars and recreate them with the sign default over their heads (it’s much easier to copy a bar/sign combo then create a new sign and place it over each bar).  4)  Though the pyramids/bars are visible from the ground, a slightly higher perspective helps to make distinctions in the height.  With that being so, two levels need to made for the elevator (the other being for the extremely high “Car – Alone” bars.  I’ve decided the most intuitive approach is one of two things:  first, clicking the elevator brings up a dialog box, which give you the floor buttons, and second, having the floor buttons printed on the elevator itself and just clicking them.  If this option is so, I’ll either print “G 1 2″ or “1 2 3″ (I haven’t decided whether to start with the Ground floor or first in either option).

6/20/07

*Displayed final version of white male mannequin
*Made the pyramids/signs for all the NE, MA, SA, ENC in “Compare Regions”

Spending:

*$10 – Upload of ne22 image
*$10 – Upload of ne23 image
*$10 – Upload of ne24 image
*$10 – Upload of ne25 image
*$10 – Upload of ma22 image
*$10 – Upload of ma23 image
*$10 – Upload of ma24 image
*$10 – Upload of ma25 image
*$10 – Upload of sa22 image
*$10 – Upload of sa23 image
*$10 – Upload of sa24 image
*$10 – Upload of sa25 image
*$10 – Upload of enc22 image
*$10 – Upload of enc23 image
*$10 – Upload of enc24 image
*$10 – Upload of enc25 image

——————————————

6/21/07

*Created a couple images for the signs
*Payed for the white mannequin

Spending:

*$1000 – Payment for the white mannequin

————————————————–

6/24/07

*Created the rest of the images/signs/pyramids for the “Compare Regions” half of the transportation visualization

Spending:

*$10 – Upload of esc22 image
*$10 – Upload of esc23 image
*$10 – Upload of esc24 image
*$10 – Upload of esc25 image
*$10 – Upload of wnc22 image
*$10 – Upload of wnc23 image
*$10 – Upload of wnc24 image
*$10 – Upload of wnc25 image
*$10 – Upload of wsc22 image
*$10 – Upload of wsc23 image
*$10 – Upload of wsc24 image
*$10 – Upload of wsc25 image
*$10 – Upload of m22 image
*$10 – Upload of m23 image
*$10 – Upload of m24 image
*$10 – Upload of m25 image
*$10 – Upload of p22 image
*$10 – Upload of p23 image
*$10 – Upload of p24 image
*$10 – Upload of p25 image

Trudging Through the Trenches

So today was going a lot slower than I would’ve anticipated.  Even though I anticipated this part of the project going slowly, I didn’t realize how slowly it would really be.  Basically, to reiterate, I have to make little signs in paints and then upload them to my pyramids/bars.  To save time as I make new pyramids, I’m also making the signs at the same time.  Thing is, no matter what I do, this job passes really, really, realllllyyyyyy slowly.  Honestly, I’m foreseeing myself being lucky if I finish the pyramids/bars by the end of the week now (not that I think it’s hard, it just takes forever).  I’m not worried right now, it’s just a lonnng road ahead.  So far, I’ve managed to make the signs/pyramids for 4 of the 9 regions of the “Compare Regions” area.  Still to go:  5 pyramids/signs for the other regions, and then the 45 signs for the “See Region” bars already made.  The past several logs:

 6/18/07

*Lowered the room by 5m
*Built a path leading up to the room
*Added an elevator/standing object
*Built first group of pyramids for “compare regions” on
*Searched for and displayed a text display system

Spending:

*$500 – Text Display Device

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6/19/07

*Deleted guardrail from platform
*Made replacement signs for text on first batch of pyramids
*Displayed the white male/american indian prototypes

Spending:

*$10 – Upload of ma21 image
*$10 – Upload of ma21 2 image
*$10 – Upload of ne21 image
*$10 – Upload of sa21 image
*$10 – Upload of p21 image
*$10 – Upload of m21 image
*$10 – Upload of esc21 image
*$10 – Upload of enc21 image
*$10 – Upload of wsc21 image
*$10 – Upload of wnc21 image

————————————————

6/20/07

*Displayed final version of white male mannquin
*Made the pyramids/signs for all the NE, MA, SA, ENC in “Compare Regions”

Spending:

*$10 – Upload of ne22 image
*$10 – Upload of ne23 image
*$10 – Upload of ne24 image
*$10 – Upload of ne25 image
*$10 – Upload of ma22 image
*$10 – Upload of ma23 image
*$10 – Upload of ma24 image
*$10 – Upload of ma25 image
*$10 – Upload of sa22 image
*$10 – Upload of sa23 image
*$10 – Upload of sa24 image
*$10 – Upload of sa25 image
*$10 – Upload of enc22 image
*$10 – Upload of enc23 image
*$10 – Upload of enc24 image
*$10 – Upload of enc25 image

Backpedaling a Bit

Today was not spent like I thought it would be. Meeting up with Dr. Polack allowed her to express concerns with the visualization, which eventually got me thinking: before today, I really didn’t get the essential difference between displaying data in 3d and data in 2d. In 3d, everything becomes more real, for the good and the bad. Even though it seems really nice to be able to display data using real objects and better design, there’s a huge drawback: 3d limits you in some ways like real life! You run into problems like height, perspective, line of sight, draw distance, etc., when in 2d you get a “birds-eye” view of things you could never see in real life! Obviously one of this projects goals is to mediate the two, but before now I never realized why 3d visualization is a lot harder than it sounds.

Anyway, I got a bit done today. I moved my room 5m down, and then built a ramp leading up to it. Inside, I have two main displays for everyone to check out: first, on the “See Regions” area, there is now an elevator (which points you the correct way now), so you can see the (now contained) tops of the “Car – Alone” bars. Also, Dr. Polack expressed interest in having “signs” with the percentages, so for the “Car – Alone” I posted what one sign could look like. Basically, I bought a text maker program and wrote that in it. Unfortunately, I can’t do words very well with it, and the numbers have a predefined minimum size. As long as the signs can work out for both the big and small bars, I don’t mind making them that much. The only problem, however, is that I’ll have to make every single texture in paint (90!), and then upload every single one to second life onto a block. In other words, it will be a super tedious operation that could possibly take the focus of an entire day or two. Alas, if it’s best for the visualization, then that’s what really matters I guess.

The second (and bigger thing), is that I implemented the first of the “Compare Regions” pyramid visualization system. The first batch is a test, and works only for the “Bicycle/Walk”dataset . They look sort of neat (I don’t think they’re as good as the bars overall, but are a different way to display data, if for no other reason that to see how people respond to them). If Dr. Polack likes them and gives me the go ahead, I’ll probably start making the rest as soon as I can.

Oh, and one more thing before I forget. Shiv contacted me a day or two ago, and sent me the white person mannequin. Unfortunately , it doesn’t have any hair yet (he outsources that to someone else), but hopefully he can get that done soon. Also, he sent me two different versions of the American Indian mannequin, which I’m not really sure I’m completely happy with either one (shirt wise). I’ll put all three upstairs in the UMW area tomorrow afternoon for everyone to look at and give me feedback. Tomorrow should be quite the interesting day…

Finally Some Results!

So it’s officially 4:40am, but I could care less at the current moment, because…my “See Regions” part of the visualization is completely functional!  I’ve spent the last 4.5 hours on it or so, but it’s finally done.  Thought it seemed like “auto-pilot” after my meeting with Dr. Polack, that only turned out to be half-true.  Coming up with all the extra bars/data wasn’t so bad, but fine-tuning it turned out to bit more involved than I thought.  Believe it or not, almost all my problems were created by the data itself!  The pesky “Car – Alone” are figures are extremely high (they tower over everything else).  Among the many problems they caused, here are a few:  blocked other bars from being clicked, blocked vehicle choices from being picked, text was too high too read, won’t fit in the room.  Besides the room part, I was able to fix everything else with a bit of ingenuity (i.e. inspiration from other people on Second Life lol).  Because objects can be clicked even when phantom/clear, that was making those bars obscure certain choices.  To solve this, I ended up moving all the bars 20m below my room into random space.  This causes a .4 second delay in their appearance, but that’s definitely small enough to not really matter.   Also, since the text is so high, I attached an invisiprim displaying the text halfway up each bar, that way the text is visible from the ground.

Unfortunately, I can’t do much about the room height right now; my room can’t be moved down for the time being.  Apparently, a guy named Chris in one of Dr. Polack’s classes added a bunch of shields/floors for her.  Unfortunately, because of permissions problems, I can’t modify/get rid of the extraneous ones in my way.  Dr. Polack, if you could, please e-mail Chris ASAP and tell him to get rid of the extra walls right as soon as possible.  I noticed he got rid of some, but not all the ones I need to be gone.  Tell him I’ve left a box outside of my room with instructions as to what I want done with the area (and the reason I say sooner is better is that’ll it probably take me at least half an hour to an hour to realign 45 bars, 5 vehicles,5 vehicle bubbles/signs, the platform/rails, the signs, walls, etc., if not more time, and that’s not really what I should be focusing my time on).

Now that I’ve gotten all that out of the way, I’ve got a couple theoretical ideas to muse on.  First, I think it might be a good idea to have some sort of “start” area that the person could walk to so they know where orignally look to see everything.  I was thinking of something akin to a large red “welcome mat” type thing at the front of the floor map (otherwise, it might be very confusing to explain to the person where the optimal beginning standing position is).  My second idea is, what if I also turned this mat into an elevator like device (like the on Greta has).  The reason I suggest that is the pesky “Car – Alone” bars (again!!).  Because they are so high, you can’t see the tops of the bars, so there’s no effective way to make distinctions between them beyond the numbers printed halfway up.  However, a simple elevator could solve this problem pretty well.

Finally, I’ve been thinking about these “piles” to make for the “Compare Regions” choice.  I really can’t figure out what they’d look like.  Currently, the only thing I can imagine a pile to look like is a tiny pyramid, and I’m worried that wouldn’t be a very good visualization device.  Would there be much distinction at all between 15% and 30% as pyramids?  The 30 might be a bit more dense/taller, but the distinctions really aren’t anywhere near as close as the bars would be.  And if instead it was less like a pyramid and more like an extended flat surface, I’m not sure the distinction would be very noticeable then either (since a lot of the eye is going to detect is height-related).  Also, because of the limited prim count, I was wondering if it would be wise to have 900 prims sitting on top of my map just for piles…I think there’s a command to rez objects out of the inventory (and I know how to delete items) so I wouldn’t have to store them on the map at all times, but I’m still not sure how wise making the piles would be (the education one is going to burn up A LOT of prims due to the people objects).  I think I might go ahead and try to make a pile tomorrow, but Dr. Polack/Greta/others, what are your thoughts on the piles?  Do you still think they’re a good idea, or should I head in another direction?  If nothing else, I could cook up more bars without extreme amounts of trouble.

Anyway, it’s about 5:17am, so I think I’m heading to bed soon.  If everyone who reads this could provide me with comments/suggestions, I’d really appreciate it.  We’re pretty close to testing time, so I want to make sure to get everything done (and well).  Here’s my activities log over the past couple of days (which, by the way, if you haven’t noticed before, also provides an exact change log as to how the room looks/works day by day):

6/14/07

*Attended the ASL Scripting 203 class
*Turned all the vehicle signs into platforms
*Changed the coloring of the see region/compare regions signs to blue
*Created and coded the first set of bars

Spending:

*$20 – Tip for ASL 203 scripting class
*$10 – Upload of blue see region image
*$10 – Upload of blue inverse see region image
*$10 – Upload of blue compare regions image
*$10 – Upload of blue inverse compare regions image

—————————————————————-

6/15/07

*Lowered the platform and raised the map a bit
*Coded and implemented the communication between the choices and bars
*Changed the coloring of the see region/compare regions signs to blue
*Got rid of the platform
*Turned the floor map into the standing area with white surrounding region
*Built guardrails for the map standing area

Spending:

*$10 – Upload of navy see region image
*$10 – Upload of navy inverse see region image
*$10 – Upload of navy compare regions image
*$10 – Upload of navy inverse compare regions image

——————————————————————-

6/17/07

*Added in all of the data for the cylinders of “see regions”
*Made it so the cylinders instant message the person who touched them instead of public chatting
*Changed the motorcycle sign to now read “Motorcycle/Others”
*Made the motorcycle platform a bit bigger and moved the car one over to the right to accommodate for the new text
*Made it so the humongous “Car – Alone” bars disappear under the screen to prevent interference
*Created extra prim objects to display “Car-Alone” text halfway up the bars

Spending:

*$10 – Upload of white motorcycle others image
*$10 – Upload of white inverse motorcycle others image

And I’m Done

I’m officially spent for the night…I can’t physically do anything more project related (and I can’t even really write coherently right now, so I hope the following entry will be readable). After today’s group meeting with the professors and other students, I’ve done nothing but work and eat. Tonight’s main project was very subtle, but took much more work than anticipated: I tackled the user interface system for the options. As of yesterday, everyone could see the vehicle signs I had built. Tonight, I redesigned those images in reverse text (white writing on a black background), and made it so that when the user clicks the vehicle (or sign), the sign will highlight itself. I also decided that these should work like radio buttons (i.e. if you pick one, it deactivates the old one before highlighting itself). Also, I designed the options for type of visualization and put those on the wall. Little did I know the hell those would cause…it took me more than an hour to figure out the reason they wouldn’t work is that they were more than 20m away (and thus out of “speaking” distance with each other).

In case anyone here can’t figure out the way they work, it’s very simple. Stand on the platform, and click on the vehicle/sign of choice, and that sign will now highlight itself. Click on it again, and the highlight will go away, making everything go back to normal. Next, highlight that same vehicle and click a new one. You should now notice that the old one has returned to normal while the new one is now highlighted (thus radio buttons). Now with that one still highlighted, pick one of the visualization options and it will act in the same manner as the vehicles. These two sets work in separately, that is, they don’t affect each other (i.e. clicking “Car Pool” will not change the fact that “See Each Region” is highlighted, and clicking “Compare the Regions” won’t change “Car Pool”).

Though it might’ve taken the entire day to design and code those buttons, I’m really happy with the way they worked out. Also, while I was writing their communication scripts, I couldn’t help but to lay the groundwork for the map display system also. My goal for tomorrow will to be build at least one set of bars and see if I can get them to display on top of the map. However, before I close, I have to mention one problem I’ve come across that I’m not sure how to solve: Because the display map is flat and parallel to the floor, the text for all the top regions is very unreadable. Though Dr. Polack suggested I make the text bigger in a graphics program, I have a feeling that won’t work. What seems to be the problem is the perspective, meaning that no matter how hard we try, the ones at the top will always be blurry (I recreated the map with a higher quality/sharper image, and it didn’t really help). My best solution would be to enlarge the text on the top area for the map on the wall, and enlarge the text on the bottom entires of the flat map. This would mean that all regions could be easily discerned, just on two different maps (though if you walk on the floor map, the text clears up again, so it could also be read from there). Anyway, if anyone can think of anything different to do, I’m more than all ears.

6/13/07

*Changed pants to finalize african mannequin
*Turned the vehicles to make more visible from the platform
*Leveled the main display map
*Moved map and platform closer to the vehicles
*Created and implemented a “selection highlighter” for the vehicles
*Created a sharper, higher quality version of the floor and wall maps
*Added two option signs for the type of visualization
*Created and implemented a “selection highlighter” for the option signs
*Implemented the groundworks of the map-display system

Spending:

*$10 – Upload of another black jeans image
*$10 – Upload of red/black bicycle/walk image
*$10 – Upload of black bicycle/walk image
*$10 – Upload of black motorcycle image
*$10 – upload of black car alone image
*$10 – Upload of black car pool image
*$10 – Upload of black public transportation image
*$10 – Upload of white see region image
*$10 – Upload of black see region image
*$10 – Upload of white compare regions image
*$10 – Upload of black compare regions image

Biding My Time

Second Life has been down all day, so I really haven’t known what to do with myself.  I have a meeting with everyone in about 10 minutes, so I figure I’ll get working after that.  In the mean time, I figured I’d post my activities log over the past couple of days before it becomes too backed up:

6/11/07

*Modified platform so the ramps are as big the standing area
*Added a guardrail to the back of the platform
*Attended the ASL Scripting 201 class
*Textured inner walls of the room
*Created and placed the vehicle “bubbles”

Spending:

*$10 – Tip for ASL 201 scripting class
*$10 – Upload of black jeans image
*$10 – Upload of another black jeans image

————————————————————-

6/12/07

*Attended the ASL Scripting 202 class
*Discussed many ideas with Dr. Polack
*Built, positioned, and linked the vehicle signs

Spending:

*$20 – Tip for ASL 202 scripting class
*$10 – Upload of Car-Alone Sign
*$10 – Upload of modified car alone sign
*$10 – Upload of public transportation sign
*$10 – Upload of motorcycle sign
*$10 – Upload of bicycle/walk sign
*$10 – Upload of car group sign
*$10 – Upload of another motorcycle sign
*$10 – Upload of carpool sign
*$1000 – Payment for black mannequin

Moving Farther Along

Today felt very “off” for me, and I’m not really sure why. Usually I’m pretty good at being self-motivated for this project (I’m having a lot of fun!), but I wasn’t really feeling right today. Sure, my itemized list of activities is full enough (and in reading the list it sounds likes a bit of work), but it doesn’t really feel like I accomplished what I want to do.

After thinking about it for a while, I have a suspected reason for why I’m so “meh” right now: everything I did for the project was a loose end of some sort. I built a guardrail for/modified the platform, textured the walls, put on the “bubbles”, and messed around the with African-American mannequin. Essentially, these are all things I had to do at one point but just hadn’t gotten to yet. I know the project won’t always feel like this, but it’s still a disheartening to do so much but have it feel like so little.

Anyway, if I’m to do this right, I can’t spend much time moping. I’m not really sure what tomorrow will bring though. Part of me wants to work on some more odds and ends (figuring out what do about signs for the vehicles, cleaning up the display map, edit the mannequins), and I’ve finally realized why: for some reason, I’m actually scared of moving farther ahead. I know I don’t have too much longer to go before I reach the true meat of this project, the 3-d visualization. It’s not even that I think it will be really hard (not saying it’s easy either), but this is where a lot of my ideas are going to hit the battlefield. Hopefully most will survive, but you never know…

Beyond the few odds and ends I listed before, here are the major questions I need to answer soon: Where am I going to store the data and how am I going to handle the object communication? How exactly am I going to handle creating and displaying my own bar chart? With the two choices for data and one for vehicle, how am I going to do the interface for picking in the first place? Where should I put the signs so that they will be convenient AND readable? Should there be some sort of constant identifier as to which vehicles/type are being visualized (i.e. glowing, an arrow, etc.)? Where will I put the choices for type of visualization?

My tentative outline on the object communication: The vehicles will do nothing but send an object identifier (probably a number 1-5 rather than name) to the map, which will be listening to vehicle-specific channel and change it’s global vehicle variable accordingly. At the same time, the map will also have another listener event going on. This one will instead listen to the two potential styles of visualization choosers, which will probably only send some sort of number 1 or 2. I think the map object itself will probably house all the data for now, lest I think of some snappy way to have the vehicles/style objects send that information over (which would be preferable for robust programming practices, but not really essential). After giving it some thought, there will probably need to be some sort of “Visualize” button at the bottom of the map that the user will click to clear the map and see the data. I used to think the map would be dynamic to where every choice would change it immediately, but that’s probably too cumbersome and confusing.

I could continue on this for a while, but it’s starting to get a bit fuzzy at this point; I really need to start implementing things before those ideas will become any more concrete. Though I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, I know the future of this will be far greater.

Falling Into Place

It’s been a while since my last post.  I don’t have especially much to report on, other than my official posted goals weren’t achieved haha.  Though this might sound bad, it was actually a pretty good thing:  Dr. Polack and I spent more time collaborating on ideas in Second Life than we ever had before.  We’ve thought through a lot of stuff, and the actual room I’m using for the transportation visualization is starting to pick up.  This week should be a good one!

My activities as of late:

6/7/07

*Reset up the orientation of the transportation room
*Adding a ceiling to the room
*Created the huge floor map and wall map
*Finished customizing the city bus
*Created “bubbles” fir the bike, motorcycle, and car

Spending:

*$10 – Upload of bus text
*$10 – Upload of census map

——————————————-

6/8/07

*Modified and finalized the Hawaiian mannequin
*Rearranged the the transportation visualization room
*Added floor and ceiling textures to the room
*Modified and moved a platform for the user to stand on

——————————————–

6/09/07

*Received and displayed first copy of black mannequin
*Searched for black jean textures

An Unexpected Diversion

Wow, so today did not go as planned at all.  I had a chance “meeting” with Dr. Polack, and she expressed her disdain for the monorail as a symbol for public transportation (which I agreed with).  Apparently, a good marker for public transportation in Second Life doesn’t exist…I probably spent a good 2-3 hours today searching for one (and that doesn’t count yesterday at all).  I can’t believe no one has a made a city bus or metro looking train before, it seem so obvious (especially when people waste time making tractors and scooters!!).

While we were talking, however, I got an idea:  what if modified my existing school bus to look sort of like a city bus?  After doing a quick demo for Dr. Polack on the capabilities of modification, I realized it was probably possible.  Anyway, I spent countless hours on the thing, but it’s finally done.  Ever seen an episode of “Pimp My Ride”?  That’s basically what happened here since I had to completely change the way everything looked for the conversion (I left both out in the UMW common area that way the comparison can be made).  The end result looks really good, and will be an excellent representation of public transportation in my opinion (I hope you like it Dr. Polack, because after 3-4 hours of texturing at least, I’m 99% sure I’ll never want to touch the edit button on it again haha).

Since the bus took so long, I didn’t do much else.  I did, however, meet with Shiv to check on the status of my people objects.  He showed me a couple different versions of the Hawaiian, so I made a few suggestions for him to create the final version.  Luckily, he had a bit of time right then, so he finished it off for me right on the spot.  It looks good (and definitely serves for our purposes), so I bought it off of him right there…hopefully I can get around to playing with it soon (I’ll leave a copy next to the buses so everyone can see it).  I reiterated the specs for the black man, so he’ll probably have that ready by Friday or so.  I’m definitely glad things are on a much more definite track than before.

I think I’ve decided on a new way to close these blogs (before any activities logs, that is)…I think I’m going to post my goal for the next day.  I think this will be beneficial, since it will not only keep me looking ahead, but also help me better realize how much I can do in one day.  And without any further ado…My next goal:  create the “bubbles” to go around each vehicle and set up the basics behind object-communication system for the transportation visualization.

My significant activity for the day:

6/6/07

*Searched for a city bus and/or metro train car
*Completely retextured a school bus into a city bus
*Bought Hawaiian mannequin

Spending:

*$10 – Upload of bus side
*$10 – Upload of bus front/back
*$10 – Upload of bus lights
*$10 – Upload of bus grille
*$10 – Upload of bus logo
*$10 – Upload of bus sign
*$1000 – Hawaiian mannequin

Starting the Attack

I had another meeting with Dr. Polack today; the main topic of discussion was the transportation data set and how to model it.  We’ve tentatively decided that my 3-d visualization should have dual functionality:  first, click on the type of transportation, and then the “bar chart” type data will appear over the regions on the US map.   The new addition?   Clicking on a region will break down the data by state and display each the percentages for each state.  I’m not entirely sure how I want to do that, however.   Individual bars will clutter the map far too much, and just saying it in “chat” it not very visual or long-lasting on the screen.  I guess I’ll just have to muse on that while I’m out doing bigger and better things.

In other news,  I started the grunt work for the transportation visualization.  After looking around for a while, I decided it would need a lot of room, so I started building on the lower level of the UMW workspace (you can just look down from Greta’s workspace to see where I am).   So far, I’ve built the infrastructure of room (all the floor shields make everything look ugly).  I don’t really know how I’m going to texture the plywood yet, but I figured it would be something along the lines of a rug for the floor and nice wallpaper for the walls.  Also, I started to set the general layout of the room as to how the visualization is going to go.  I think all the vehicles should hug the long, left wall, so I set tentatively set them up in the positions I want them to be in.  Unfortunately, I’m not really sure on my choice of vehicle for public transportation.  The monorail looking train is nice, but a bit small when compared to the other vehicles.  There’s not really much else I can do however, because other passenger trains are basically non-existent, and finding a public bus is nigh impossible.  At one time, I had a school bus in its place, but Brandon recommended against it because of the connotation it carries (and I tend to agree).  I think tomorrow I’m going to start the clickable “bubbles” to house the vehicles to enable the object communication tricks I’ve been working with earlier.

I should be pretty good otherwise.  I tried to get in contact with Shiv, the guy creating my person objects (the mannequins), but it was to no avail.  I message him the specs for the black man I want to represent, so  hopefully he’ll start that one soon.  Also, I have two questions for Dr. Polack while she’s away at the conference:  1) What’s the best way to import and manipulate Excel data into SL?  I’ve got a couple suggestions, but I’d like to hear if there’s an easy/smart way to do it from the pros.  2)  How do we delete the black walls from the UMW area?  I want to expand my room a bit, but those are blocking my way a bit.

Anyway, before I go, here’s the activities log for the day:

6/5/07

*Took a prim reduction/recycling building class
*Searched for more vehicles to use for representation
*Bought a motorcycle
*Bought Monorail
*Bought trainset
*Started building my room for the transportation visualization under the UMW workspace
*Arranged vehicles as needed in room

Spending:

*$10 -  Tip for prim reduction/recycling building class
*$600 – Motorcycle
*$300 – Monorail
*$399 – Train Set