From acrice@gmail.com Mon Nov  1 15:24:37 2004
Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 14:43:40 -0500
From: Alexander Rice <acrice@gmail.com>
To: Daniel Acevedo Feliz <daf@cs.brown.edu>
Subject: final project proposals

1.
The environment would be similar to the current environment for the
bat visualization in that there would be a bat centrally located that
could be moved around by the user, and icons/particles would be flying
past it.  The method of interaction used would be the current 3 button
wand with the trackball/joystick on it (the thin one, not the T-shaped
one) with a virtual pointer coming out the front.  The trackball would
be used to rotate the entire world and the left button could be used
to drag the entire world around.  All other interaction could be
selected/unselected from a menu that would always be on the left/right
wall depending on user preference.  It would contain check boxes,
sliders (or possibly scroll wheels that could be changed by making a
circular motion with the wand after clicking on them), and radio
buttons to toggle different preferences.  The menu would darken and
"minimize" when the user wasn't using it to avoid distraction.

2.
The environment would be sort of an understated dark grey with shaped
almost as if one was in cave in a bat's natural environment, and in
this case the model of the bat would be quite intricate.  The user
would interact using a pinch glove that had something similar to a
"rumble pack" in video game controllers or force feedback joysticks
that would give a physical response to touching the bat or an icon. 
The user would be able to grab the world and move it around, and
pinching the thumb and pinky together would give pop up a menu similar
to the current menus (perhaps allowing for sliders/scroll wheels as
well) through which characteristics of the visualization could be
selected.  The icons would be a natural form like a droplet and would
encode based on tail length and color primarily.  Wing pressure would
be encoded using a sort of net that would appear above the wing making
for a sort of 3D graph of pressure.

3.
The user would have a tablet PC with which they could chose
visualization options and take notes.  Attached to the stylus of the
tablet would be a tracker that, when activated by the user, it could
be used to place objects like particle emitters or streamlines in the
visualization.  Additionally, one of the interaction windows on the
tablet would be a low res image of the entire visualization that the
user could click on to move to a specified area in the virtual world. 
The environment would be similar to the current one.

rank:
1st:idea 2
2nd:idea 3
3rd:idea 1
-- 
Alexander Rice
Brown University