For Friday, August 9th

       I had a few tasks to accomplish today.  Alongside of Chris' and Emmett's measurements, I, as the temporary keeper of the SVC, had to take a few scans of painted wood for Victoria, and undergrad in the DIRS department.  So I worked hard, and had what I felt was a very productive day.  First I took more source measurements for Emmett, this time getting an LED flashlight, LED backlit screen and a CCFL backlit screen, with both the SVC and the USB650.  From there I moved on, after lunch, to take some indoor measurements of some plywood I found for Chris.  While I'm still not a fan of indoor measurements, It'll have to make do for the time being.  I got 50 scans of those (which I have yet to fully process), but then I moved on to take scans for another one of Emmett's projects, which involved determining the statistical variance between samples of the same material and determining the magnitude of the deviation as a function of wavelength.  That was another 50 scans, and from there I moved onto Victoria's project, taking a variety of scans of a variety of paints.  That was quick, and, once I processed the data, gave me a good place to finish my day.  Overall, I felt like I accomplished a lot.

For Thursday, August 8th

       Today I, once again inside due to the weather, took a few more source scans and measured the reflectance of some roofing shingles for Chris.  With the sources I noticed that the ones from yesterday had a few clipping issues, so I had to remeasure some of them (the cfl and blacklight), with adjusted integration times.  I also took a few more measurements of my sources with the USB650, so I would have a few more things to cross-reference.  Overall I feel like I got some fairly good scans (although taking samples of cfls is always annoying).  Also, I got in a bunch of scans with the roofing shingles Chris gave me (about 50), and while doing reflectance samples inside isn't the greatest, I felt like they wound up decent.  I do wish it would clear up outside though.

Back to the Lab

       The weather was subpar today, so instead I spent some time measuring sources in the optics lab and trying to figure out the best way to do that with the SVC.  Naturally, it doesn't support that normally, so I still have some things to mess around with to get what I want out of it (I can get the radiance data, but compiling and condensing multiple scans is a pain).  Other than that, it was a productive day, but less so than I had hoped.  Using the USB650 to get some good cross-check radiance references between itself and the SVC, I'm pretty sure the spectra was way off (mainly around the fringes), and I feel that I'll have to do that again.  Even with the SVC, it's hard converting multiple scans into one, clean file, and I was have a few cutoff issues at the detector bounds.  Hopefully I can go outside tomorrow.  Everything I need to do involving the outdoors is much more straightforward.

       Once again, there were a few good, clear patches of sky today so I had the chance to take more samples outside.  With the help of a few more interns I was able to collect more samples of brick and mulch (goody!), with hopes of getting up to around 100 samples, which although I'm not quite at, I'm fairly close to.  For that half of my project, I still have to get some more samples of sand, concrete, wood, and roofing shingles, but hopefully it stays clear so I can get a lot of data before my presentation.  While I still have to process it and update my scene to incorporate it, that at least isn't weather dependent.
       Meanwhile, now that I have the SVC in my possession, I've been similarly tasked with re-recording the spectral data of my sources with a larger span of wavelengths.  Because the SVC software isn't really completely finished, I'll have to write a quick parsing script for that, but that shouldn't take to long.  Mainly I just need to find some good scientific literature to cross-reference it all to!  In any case, I'll be keeping busy.

Data Collection - For Monday, August 6th

       Although the clouds were a bit patchy today, it wasn't hazy so I was able to get some good measurements before the clouds rolled in at about noon.  With John's help I got a fair number of both brick and mulch samples, although once the weather improves I'll probably still want some more of the same.  I still have more items to get through (like soil, wood, and roofing shingles), along with continuing to measure sources (hopefully now with the SVC, if I can figure out how to make it work) for Emmett.  Luckily, while one is weather dependent, I can do most of the other inside, so it should balance fairly well.

Field Trip!

       Today was the first real day I got any measurements done (for a brief window at least), seeing as it was the day that had been designated for the DIRS field collect of water samples and such down by the lake.  While the weather was still poor most of the time (which attributed to why most of the crew was called off for the day), the sky was sunny and consistent enough for at least an hour that I could get some measurements of sand and concrete with the help of Chris and Nina.  While going out on a boat would have been cool and it would of been nice to still get some more data, it was still better than it had been recently, and plus, Nina was generous enough to treat us to CheeburgerCheeburger afterwords.  It was nice.
       I still have a long way to go in terms of getting all the data I need, but as for the materials in my own DIRSIG scene, this was a good step forward.  Still a few issues importing them all, but by tomorrow I should have at least an image or two of comparison for both my presentation and this blog.  In my humble opinion, I found this to be a fairly productive day.

For the day of Thursday, August 1st

       Sadly yesterday was yet another poor capture day, and although it was bright and fairly sunny, the clouds were patchy and just weren't what we were looking for.  So while I waited and hoped for clear skies I did a bit more IDL programming and tweaked both the SVC file parser and created a script to extrapolate data for an aluminum processing plant scene.  Outside of that I didn't too much, as the previous two took up most of my time and, to meet my hourly requirements, I had to leave a bit early.  But I still got some decent work done.