Dry Run

       All I had today was to return my equipment, give the rest of my data to Emmett and to, primarily, do the dry run of my presentation.  While my was - excuse the pun, "dry", I felt I handled it well, added in some important and informative information, and overall made it work.  I did truly enjoy the work I did this summer, and I feel as though I learned a lot from it.  It's very nice being able to talk about my research topic and actually know just what I'm talking about.  Even outside of the presentation, which went well, I feel as though I'm qualified to field a wide range of questions, so I'm optimistic for tomorrow.  It will be a bit strange leaving this place, but it feels good to be leaving on a good note, with my work done (I feel) well and everything neatly tidied up.  So that about concludes it for my work here.  It was fun.

For Wednesday, August 21st - Data wrap up

       By tomorrow morning all the presentations have to be set and ready to go, so now that all my data is collected I just spent the day processing it a bit more and, primarily, working on my presentation.  It is all very data intensive, but as long as I throw in some interesting tidbits it should all work out nicely.  It's been a bit of a time crunch, but I'm glad at least all my data collection is done with.  From here on out, I just need to worry about presenting.  Hopefully it all goes well.

Nocturnal Excursions

       After some training with the radiometer yesterday, I had some homework to do, in order to collect spectra and the radiant and photometric output of the moon. So I did that and it was late, but I got some good irradiance data.  It wasn't bright enough to get decent spectral data but I did get good photometric outputs.  I also got some good photometric data of all my previous sources so, from here on out, all my source data is hereby concluded.

Data Wrap Up

       All my data is collected, for the most part.  It was always sort of "get this, then go get some more of whatever else if you can", so I finished my main stuff a while ago, but I still have a few extra scans which turned out well and should provide some good extra data if it's needed in the future.  I spent today mainly just cleaning up a few more scans (the SVC doesn't naturally handle taking source radiance measurements very well, and sadly the USB650 only really deals with absolute irradiance), but I feel like they're as good as I can get them, without more fancy equipment.  So today I processed my data, both for my material files (which I cataloged away on the DIRS laptop), and touched up my source files a bit.  By next monday, I'll finish my DIRSIG render and start on my way to making and practicing my presentation.

A Good Day to Data Collect

       With the cool air from yesterday still in effect, the entire morning was about perfect for collecting data.  Consequently, I got a lot of very good data today.  I finally managed to get some good samples of wood (in varying shades), I got a large variety of road markings based on color and weathering, and got some soil/dirt samples along with some more concrete samples.  It wound up working pretty well.
       Now all that's left is to process the data, add it into my DIRSIG scene, and, after cataloging my data, put it all into my presentation.  While I still have a few samples to take for Emmett's project, that shouldn't take long, and by early next week all my attention should be funneled into wrapping up all my work and presenting it.

Cross-Referencing Fun

       Another patchy, cloudy day outside so the few scans I need to take outdoors will have to be put off  a bit longer.  Instead I spent some time trying to find outside sources to cross-reference my source radiance scans to, but without too much success.  As one could imagine, while certain types of bulbs are very well documented, the varieties between specific brands and models vary, so finding a good, high quality, and preferably tab-delimited sample was very painful.  In the end, I did manage to get a few varying cfl samples, a tungsten-halogen sample, and an LED sample, but none quite line up to my data due to, obviously, difference in their make.  I also noticed that I still had clipping issues on a few of my own samples, so I figured that, after finding some outside sources today, tomorrow, if I can't go outside again, I'd head up to the lab and retake a few.  It's annoying, but it needs to be done.

Another Cloudy Day

       I really do wish it would clear up.  While most of my critical work is just about done, I still need to take a few more samples outdoors to get varied but accurate data for, right now, just wood.  Until it clears up, I'm limited in what I can work on.  As a result, I spent a lot of the day coding.

       In-doors there isn't much I can do except process some of my data and create a few scripts to help normalize radiance data for reference across a multitude of measurements.  I did a few test renders on the DIRSIG scene I was provided, now with the updated materials, and for the most part it looks good. I do still want to get samples of wood though, for siding in the model and such.  As for my source scans for Emmett, I have a bunch of sources, most still on the USB650 but a fair number of them confirmed and extended with the SVC scans, but I'm still looking for some good reference sources from them.  While a few will be easy to get, some of my sources may be a bit odd to find references for.  Hopefully I can get something for them.

       In any event, it's cloudy, so I hope it clears up.  Once I can get some more scans outside I can catalog them and hopefully start putting together my presentation.