Wine Cataloger (Summer 2007)

Education

• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs using Lisp

• Discrete Structures
• Teamwork
• Statistical Methods for Engineers
• Design & Analysis of Algorithms
• Engineering Economics
• Quality Engineering

Skills

I have programmed in QBasic, C, C++, Java, JavaScript, MASM assembly, Python, Perl, and Scheme (Lisp). I am familiar with both Java and Unix APIs. I consider myself very knowledgeable about Java's Swing library in particular.

Related Activities

Open Source Projects

Work Experience

Math Lab Assistant at Santa Rosa Junior College (Winter 2003-2004)

Temporary Worker (Summer 2006)

Math Lab Assistant Santa Rosa Junior College

Supervisor: Dan Walton (Phone: 707 527-4708)

Duties: Assisted JC students with computer use.

• Math 1A/1B First year calculus (Completed while in high school.)
• Math 2A/2B Second year calculus
• CIS 10A/10B Computer Science fundamentals (Completed while in high school.)
• CIS 11 Data Structures and Algorithms (Completed while in high school.)
• CIS 17 Java (Completed while in high school.)
• CIS 22 Assembly language
• CIS 49 Special studies (Implemented CAS.)

• CS61A^? Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs using LISP

All the mock images were created with POV-Ray 3.6.1.

LGChess

Motivation

Real 3D Interaction

Once a user finishes making a move, the game will remember the board's current orientation, and rotate the board to the other player's “view”. Once that player moves, the first player's view will be restored. Even when playing against a computer player or an Internet opponent, this will provide immediate feedback to the user about the current state of the game—whose turn it is. The application orientation then can not only be a way for the program to receive input—it can actually be a way to provide feedback as well!

Swing Integration

The Looking Glass team has produced a Swing widget that allows Swing interfaces to be embedded into Looking Glass 3D applications. Again, this is a feature of which few Looking Glass native applications have taken advantage. I want to demonstrate how such an object can be integrated into a 3D application in a way that is intuitive to use and feels natural in a 3D environment.

I propose to locate the control panel on the “bottom” of the game board. It can then be accessed by simply rotating the interface. This technique eliminates the need for a menu bar to be visible at all times, yet does not require the user to memorize arbitrary keyboard shortcuts. In general, it could be applied to freeing up screen “real estate” in document-centered applications, and improving the “feel” of immersive games.

Whenever the user rotates far enough to make the control panel visible and releases the mouse button, the application will “snap” into place with the plane of the controls parallel to the plane of the screen, and with the Swing components properly aligned with the correct direction “up”. The user will then be able to interact with the Swing widgets normally, and return to the previous view or exit the game entirely by clicking the appropriate button.

“Thought Bubble” Messaging Widget

Looking Glass removes the traditional visible window frame around 3D applications. Among other things, this eliminates the standard status bar at the bottom of the window. I propose a new “thought bubble” widget to replace this. It should be aesthetically pleasing, and unobtrusive. Its behavior will be somewhere between a standard tool tip and a dialog box.

The bubble will fade in whenever there is a message to display, and will dynamically attempt to position itself where it will be least obtrusive (if the game interface is in one corner of the screen, the bubble will appear in a different corner of the screen, etc.). The widget will not block user input, and will fade away as the user continues interacting with the program. It could also be dismissed by directly clicking on the bubble.

Optional “Would be Nice” Features

I have considered adding a themeable user interface, a wait animation, a pluggable player agent architecture, and piece reflections in the game board. All of these are optional features that may not be possible to finish within the SoC^? time frame.

The theme system would allow new skins for the program to be loaded from data files. Each skin would include meshes for the pieces, textures for the board and pieces, and would specify a Swing LAF for the control panel. Possibly they could be implemented as zip files containing an XML “index” file and the mesh files.

The wait animation in visible in figure 2. It is loosely based on the Mac OS X wait icon; a variation on the theme can be seen in the Java applet loader. Instead of a circle of bars on the screen with pulsing opacity, I want to use a circle of spheres arranged in 3D. They will fade in and out, simulating a looping motion.

AI is another issue. Initially, I intend to provide the option for two players at the same computer to play against each other, simply because this is simple to implement, allowing me to focus on other issues. I would like to provide at least some simple AI or Internet play option in the final program. Beyond this, it would be nice to provide a pluggable player agent system that would allow new agents to be loaded at runtime. This would involve providing an API that agents could be programmed against. Third parties would then be able to create and distribute their own AI's for the game, and possibly even implement such things as Internet play via this mechanism.

Tentative Schedule

About me

I am a software engineering student transferring to Cal Poly San Louis Obispo next fall. I have a special interest in UI design. I can be reached at afishionado@gmail.com.

Work experience

September 2003-June 2004 Math Lab Assistant Santa Rosa Junior College Supervisor: Dan Walton Phone: 707 527-4708 Duties: Assisted JC students with computers and computer programs.

Other computer experience

I programmed in C++ for a year and a half before switching to Java for most of my work three years ago. I am familiar with most of the J2SE^? platform, including Java3D^?, but am most familiar with the AWT and Swing toolkits. To date, I have not actually written any code for Looking Glass, but have read the tutorials and studied the API documentation, and do not expect any major surprises.

I created the CAS open source project as an independent study class last summer. I completed it with a mentor who was mostly unfamiliar with the technologies I used, and while teaching myself Java3D^?. The project was an exercise in creating a UI that is very attractive and usable. You can check out the code to see that it is clean and well documented. The change log is very detailed, and shows that I am capable of working with a schedule and being transparent about my progress.

I am familiar with Windows, OS X, and Linux desktop systems. I do almost all of my development on Linux.

I was team programmer for the 2005 and 2006 Mesa Robot competition at the Santa Rosa Junior College.

Related course work

Santa Rosa Junior College GPA 3.6 Math 1A/1B First year calculus (Completed while in high school.) Math 2A/2B Second year calculus CIS 10A/10B Computer Science fundamentals (Completed while in high school.) CIS 11 Data Structures and Algorithms (Completed while in high school.) CIS 17 Java (Completed while in high school.) CIS 22 Assembly language CIS 49 Special studies (Implemented CAS.)

Credits

Special thanks to Sean Day for letting me “borrow” his chess models for the images accompanying this proposal. (I still have to get new models for the actual program!)

William Tracy		
2140 San Antonio Drive
Santa Rosa, CA 95405
Birth date October 9, 1986
Phone: 707 578-3159 		 e-mail: afishionado@gmail.com	
Occupation: Student of Computer Science at the Santa Rosa Junior College

Work experience

Other computer experience

I programmed in C++ for a year and a half before switching to Java for most of my work two years ago. I am familiar with most of the J2SE^? platform, but am most familiar with the AWT and Swing toolkits. I have not worked with 3D programming before, but have worked with the DOM XML API recently, and expect the tree-based Java3D^? scene graphs to be similar.

I created the NoExceptions and CAS open source projects, and have contributed to the SkinLF project.

I have worked with, Windows 98, Windows XP, jEdit, KWrite, Kate, GEdit, Mozilla, Firefox, OpenOffice.org, Linux (SuSE^? and Debian), KDE, Gnome, WindowMaker^?, Fluxbox, Enlightenment, Emacs, and Vi.

I was team programmer for the spring 2005 Mesa Robot competition at the Santa Rosa Junior College.

I have also upgraded memory, modems, and CD drives in the past as well as removed a virus.

Related course work

Santa Rosa Junior College GPA 3.7

• Math 1A/1B First year calculus (Completed while in high school.)
• Math 2A/2B Second year calculus
• CIS 10A/10B Computer Science fundamentals (Completed while in high school.)
• CIS 11 Data Structures and Algorithms (Completed while in high school.)
• CIS 17 Java (Completed while in high school.)
• CIS 22 Assembly language

UC Berkeley summer session 2004:

• CS61A^? Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs using LISP

Current

Proposed project: A 3D file browser

Ideas and description:

The first is inspired partly by the Grokker interface. Each directory is represented by a transparent sphere, with all the files and directories below it represented as spheres suspended inside it. Figure 1. The nested files and directories could be arranged in a ring just inside the surface of the outer sphere. The ring could be arranged in a plane perpendicular to the viewer's line of sight so all would be visible simultaneously (a “top view”), or in a horizontal plane, which could be rotated like a lazy-susan to bring different files forward (a “side view”). A “top view” would give the user a nice overview of the directory's contents. Figure 2. A “side view” would always have one file in front that would be larger and therefore easier to click. It would also allow files that are “in back” to be silently removed from the display and replaced with others as the user scrolls; this way, a user would only see, say, five files at a time, reducing clutter, while scrolling through the contents of a directory with fifty files. If a sub-directory is selected, the outer bubble would “pop” and disappear, and the selected bubble would enlarge to take the place of the original sphere. This process would be reversed to go up a level.

The alternate layout would place files inside the directory sphere, but not sub-folders; each sub-directory would be represented by a rod extending down from the sphere, ending with another sphere surrounding the files contained in that directory. Figure 3. The result would emphasize the tree nature of a file system, that sub-directories are “below” their parent directories rather than “inside” them, and the system would visually take on a cone-like shape with the root directory on top; the structure could be rotated to access different directories. This design would make sub-directories more visible (you wouldn't have to peer inside of colored spheres to see your directories), but may not be as intuitive to users as the idea of folders being “inside” each other.

Deliverables:

• A three-dimensional file browser that offers usability completely absent in traditional 2D file browsers.
• A FileChooser3D^? component.
• An service for 3D applications to associate themselves with file types, and associate 3D object-icons with file types (we can do better than 2D icons!). (If a 3D application is not associated with a type, the browser should fall back on the native OS's icon and default application.)

Timetable:

• Late June: Orient to the Looking Glass API and finalize application design.
• July: Create basic functionality.
• Early August: Create FileChooser3D^? and file type binding service.
• Late August: Fix bugs and wind down.

-- Main.afishionado - 05 Jul 2004

I am William Tracy aka A'fish'ionado.

I am a college student who lives and breathes computer programming. My first language was QBasic. Then I moved on and worked in C++ for a few years. In the spring of '03 I learned Java and have been hooked ever since. Nothing will make me touch QBasic again.

I am working on a few closed-source projects of my own, and have just started the open-source (LGPL) No Exceptions project at http://noexceptions.dev.java.net. Hopefully someone will find it useful.