31-07-10

12 days left! Can't believe my time in Australia almost over, but I'm excited to see Korea. My ICRA paper is coming together, some results both good and bad but a lot of data to talk about. After that goes through legal I should be able to post some details.

Today I did some sightseeing and bushwalking in the Blue Mountains. There's a lot of gorgeous views, with many waterfalls, mountains, interesting rock formations, and endless valleys. Here's some pics, remember you can click click them for a larger view if you want.

Jameson Valley:

I think this is called "Witches Leap":

The same waterfall from a lookout further along, I was at that large stone platform about halfway down in the previous picture.

Pretty intense stairway (at least this part had a railing):

The famous "Three Sisters" rock formation, as seen from the mountain next to it.

Three Sisters from a bit further out.

And finally Three Sisters from Echo Point, you can see it relative to the valley.

21-07-10

So its been over two weeks since I posted anything, wow. Basically have just been working. Also I caught some sort of cold/flu and was in bed a couple days.

The research is going well, right now I am mainly running batches of tests and plotting the results for different algorithms with different parameters. I'm starting to work on a paper related to this with other people in the perception group. They are planning to submit to ICRA.

Also I've started studying Korean a bit in preparation for my trip there after this. I've made some progress but my knowledge is still very basic. Only 21 days left in Australia.

06-07-10

So here are some comments on my research since I've been here. Overall impressions of the lab: its huge, 2 floors in one building and a floor in another, plus another field lab in the outback. Aparently around 200 people though I wouldn't say I've seen that many, more like 40 or 50 I see around regularly. They have a staff of technicians as well as dedicated software developers. The centre has some big robots like amphibious atvs, a backhoe, 4 wheel segway systems, big unmanned aircraft and submersibles. There is more even larger stuff offsite. Also on the first full week there Sanjiv Singh stopped by to give a talk about doing mapping from aircraft with 3D LADAR, cool stuff.

My work is related to segmentation with Riegl data. I have developed some utilities to improve evaulation of the algorithms, as well as working on variations of the algorithms for object and ground segmentation. I haven't directly worked with Velodyne data, but I have seen some work about Velodyne sensors and calibration, which is interesting. They require constant calibration and are generally much less precise than Riegl systems, but thats the compromise for lower cost and much higher frame rate. Some people in the perception research group put a robot with a Velodyne on it on the back of a pickup truck and drove it around the city. The data from that looks amazing, all the people and vehicles moving around in 3D.

04-07-10

Happy 4th of July! Not a lot of celebration here, but it was a nice day so I went to the beach. Took a long walk between 4 beaches, up and down paths over the cliffs. Saw something that blew my mind. They have these pools right next to the ocean, where crashing waves are constantly topping them up and they're overflowing back into the ocean. I don't know why but this just seems so awesome.

Here is one of those awesome pools, with a big wave crashing into it. Part of a swim club.

Here is a smaller murkier one, but this one is free public access.

Click on the picture to see this larger. I took the picture of this sign because I liked the icon for "shore dump," some thing that happens at the Jersey Shore depending on wave conditions and I never had a name for it. Basically when the waves want to throw you against the ground.

Also I went the Powerhouse Museum, a science/technology and fashion(?) museum. They had some cool exhibits but I didn't take many pictures. It tends to be dark or weirdly lit for most of the coolest stuff. Here is a weird really old motorcycle and I funny crop duster plane that was made in Australia.

02-07-10

My mom asked for some more "everyday" type pictures so here we go:

Wearing my new "Autonomous Systems" hat from the lab.

The building where I work, I look out the 2nd window from the right on the top floor.

An average lunch: salad, bread, cheese and olives.
Also a book I just finished, "The Tower on the Rift" by Ian Irvine.
I'm on to the next one in the "Three Worlds" series.

Some really good chips - salt and balsamic vinegar. And a kind of nut bar I eat all the time.