IEC Christmas 2009 / Projector Calibration

We just finished with our church Christmas Celebration, it was tiring, but it was worth it. We had wonderful team working together to serve God in this event. Great job guys and gals!

GII Christmas 2009 Crew

I would like to share one challenge we encounter in the visual presentation team. The challenge actually starts last December, but I just write about it now. Last December, we are asked to utilize projector for helping audience to virtualize settings in the drama, since we do not have any physical stage decorations. So far so good, we just create the contents and display them using appropriate program. Ideally, we will have something like the following.

Ideal Projector Placement (credit to Martin for the illustration)

However, we could not implement the ideal projector placement. We have problem hanging the projector, as we do not have skill to build custom mounting bracket that could be hang on the curtain's rod (i.e. we rent the building, so we could not mount anything on the wall). Ehm...trouble, fortunately, I found an idea that we could use. If I could put the projector on the side and adjust the perspective, I could achieve larger projection size without obstructing drama/choir people and I do not have to hang the projector at the top center. In short, the program development is started right away and the first version is used last December, unfortunately, with a lot of bugs :(

Implemented Projector Placement (credit to Martin for the illustration)

In the initial release, the ideal perspective could not be achieved, because I only consider translation, scaling, and skewing. I miss rotation. Hence, on last December event, half of the projection image looks ok, the other half looks stretched :( Moreover, there are heavy memory leak on the program at that time as well, so video playing is pretty bad.

Image on the left side is ok, but it is stretched on the right side

Time passed, the program is still used on Easter, but this time we avoid placing projector at extreme angle to avoid rotation problem I mentioned above. We are ok this time since the building we rent has enough space that allow us to do rear projection, and we also put another projector on the balcony. In total, we used three projectors: two projectors for rear projection to form 2048x768 resolution, and one projector on the balcony, mainly used for subtitle and video (i.e. projector calibration is disabled on this projector).

GII Easter 2009 Celebration

This year, we are renting the same building as last year. Ehm...I am pretty scared when hearing about this. I suggest to the stage coordinator (ko Hendri) to find a way to mount the projector on top at the center of the stage.

In the mean time, I try to go through my program's code to perform various improvements, I also added rotation as one of the variable when adjusting the perspective. I fix most of memory leak, but I am sure there are still some that still exist. I do not have enough time to dig into this. However, we are able to handle video playing at 1024x768 without any problems.

So I notify ko Hendry and do demo to show that the program could be used again this time. He agreed and then we proceed with it. We do however need to rent a projector with 4000 ANSI Lumens, since our projector could not handle it (ie. 2500 ANSI Lumes).

2009 GII Christmas Celebration (Image Courtesy of pak Felix Teja)

That's it, I forgot to mention that everything is done in Flash, which could easily top up CPU usage. Machine on the left (gray machine) is used as controller for both audio and video. Machine on the right is running the projector calibration program only. It is being controlled via socket by the gray machine. I used my Android G1 to remote control the audio and WiiMote to remote control the projector calibration program. It is possible to control everything just with mouse and keyboard, but I am more comfortable with this setup.

The Machines

For the next version, I am planning to bring everthing to OPENGL, GPU could give better horse power especially when we want to play HD video.

That's it for now.

Automating inDesign for Repeating Content and QR Code

Our church is going to hold Bible Camp this coming week. We are all getting busy preparing for this event. I am responsible for creating publication materials, such as event booklet, brochure, name tag, etc.

Creating name tag might sound easy, but how about creating name tags for 50 persons. It will be painful to do it manually, copy and paste the layout plus typing names fifty times. So, I did some reading on Adobe inDesign documentation and found out that it's possible to create placeholders for repeating content using XML. Here is the article that I used. I just need to design the name tag, generate XML data for all attendees using Perl script, import XML to inDesign, and inDesign will do the rest of the work.

Generated Output by inDesign

Notice above figure, there is small box on the right of each name. It is QR Code containing information for each person. I was thinking that since I am going to automate the name tag creation process, why not adding some extra information. I decided to add QR Code and our team decided to add color coded group information (i.e. person with the same color belong to the same group).

Bible Camp GII 2009 Name Tag

I wrote a PERL script for grabbing contact information of each Bible Camp 2009 attendees from our church database and use GD-Barcode module to generate the QR Code associated to each individual.

Most people nowadays have phone with built-in camera, and most of them can decode QR Code. So, I think this as a good way for letting people to exchange their information with each other easily during our Bible Camp event. That's it for now. Following QR Code contains our church contact information.

Decoded Message on Android

SS Choir - Mother's Day 2009

For Mother's Day this year, the Sunday School Choir sang a song called "Cooperation". Yuli found this song at the last minute on youtube, and it was a fun song. The kids were having a lot of fun learning and singing it.

Cooperation is a big word...

Cooperation

Cooperation is a big word
And so is obedience
But when I do what my papa says
Do what my mama says
It seems to make a big difference

My mama teach me cooperation
She says I'm old enough to lend her a hand
So I pick up all my toys
I don't make too much noise
I think I'm doing all that I can

But I like helping my mother...

But I like helping my mother
And I like minding my dad
Cause when I'm good and they know it
Their faces will show it
And it always make me feel very glad

Do what my Jesus says, do what my parents say...

And if I go and do a bad thing
I'm feeling all sick and upset
I just say "I'm sorry"
No fret, no worry
My Jesus, He forgives and forget

Cooperation is a big word
And so is obedience
But when I do what my Jesus says
Do what my parents say
It seems to make a big difference

The song was followed by a video presentation from the Sunday School Choir Kids, and then each mother got a token of love from the children as well.

Messages from the kids to their moms

The beaming faces of mothers

Happy Mother's Day! We love you, Mom!

Ichtus Valentine 2009

Valentine 2009 flew by in a blur. When it was here, though, we spent the day with Ichtus Youth Fellowship, playing games and eating yummy dinner.

"Can you hear me? Can you hear me?"

"Ahh... that sounds like a good idea"

"Test one-two-three.."

"There are lots of statics -- Can you repeat that?"

Is anyone at the other end of the line?

Listen...

Hoooooooooooooooooooooooyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!

.....

Can you keep a secret?

Sundoro and his magic flying cup

Operator, I think the phone's broken

Valentine is not Valentine without games for couples. Pairing everyone in the room, the games seek to find the ultimate couples, where the guy knows everything about the gal.

Ivan and Jess won the "perfect couple" title

Heru & Carrine also tie for the first place

These two didn't win, but were enjoying the games nevertheless

These two were not even a couple, but that didn't stop their big smiles at each other

Following the games was the dinner. Thanks to our chef, Liong and Heru, for a very delicious way to end the night!

Ready to eat

"Let [Ivan] sing you a song about this dinner..."

Ah... and of course, group pictures!

The King of Oil Empire + the girls

The brave and courageous knights, with a lady in distress..

Cheeeeeeeseee!!

Spring Fellowship 2009 - Pemberton

(Almost) every year, the university-age young people of our church is having Spring Fellowship. As the name implies, it is usually during Spring Time, after the Winter term ends, but before the Summer term starts.

Spring Fellowship is basically the funnest activities for youth. It's kinda like Bible Camp, but with very limited Bible sessions, and a whole lot of free time, games, and sight-seeing. Not to mention BBQ and scavenger hunting. And the weekend is usually spent somewhere far from the ordinary, places you wouldn't visit by yourself, if not for the Spring Fellowship. Youth (and youth at hearts) are usually very excited to go on Spring Fellowship. And this year was no exception.

This year, the Spring Fellowship was at Pemberton during Mother's Day weekend. Pemberton was a small city about 1 hour north of Whistler. The Cottage was in the Valley, surrounded by mountains, farming lands, and grass.

View from the parking lot

Yup, behind the cottage was the cow stall. Moooooooo.....

Friday night started with Rawon Dinner, followed by games. One of the games involving two teams sitting in a straight line facing each other. The last person on the line would flip coin until he/she got a head. Then that person would shake the hand of the people in front of them. The first person on the line would then throw a cup full of baby powder to the opponent's face. Whoever lost would have white face (and t-shirt).

Now let me hold your hands, I want to hold your hands... (The Beatles)

Ivan, one of the victims
(btw, his team won this, so he shouldn't have gotten hit,
but in the heat of the moment, no time for logic... ^_^)

The front-of-the-war-line people... mostly white regardless of victory status

Then we played another game involving throwing a straw-protected egg from high place. Each team had different strategy.

The purple/blue team, using the least amount of scotch tape (wo hoo! extra points)

The orange team -- crack-proofing the egg with scotch tapes

Yellow team -- is that a hand fan?

Green team -- careful with that pod!

Let's just say my team didn't win, and leave it at that.

And that end the night. Mega, Lorensia, and Sylvi were busy vacuuming the floor (noticed the powder?), while some watched TV, played poker, played piano, preparing food for tomorrow (oh.. did I mention that Liong and Hosea were our in-house chef for the weekend?), slept, took photos, etc. Oh, the cows kept on mooing all night (weekend) long, and I kept thinking, "Is somebody's cell phone vibrating? Why don't they pick it up?"

Our cottage under the moonlight

The weather prediction for the weekend was not sunny, but thankfully, it was a bright and cheerful day that greeted us when we opened our eyes Saturday morning. That was a good thing, since we were going on a Scavenger Hunt!

We're going on a scavenger hunt
And we are not afraid
Got my gun on my side
Gonna catch the first prize...

Stop and pose before the bear.., I mean, the scavenger hunt

Start of the hunt was four-person-four-legged race!

The scavenger hunt was a secret ritual, and as such, no photos can be found. No evidence that the hunt ever taken place (except our own memory of the terrifying ordeal). You just had to be in it to feel it!

Next up was BBQ. We were so hungry nobody thought about taking pictures until after all the meat was gone. Ehem ehem.. ^_^ But we did remember to snap some pictures on dinner table.

Chicken with some kind of Liong's special sauce -- very yummy!!

Look! We even got dessert!! Mmmm... strawberry...

We had our first Bible session that night, followed by more Games and Talent Shows from each team. When I find more pictures, I will tell you the stories presented by each group.

And the night ended with fire crackers!!

Cihuyyy!! Pretty fire!!

Jumping up and down! Shout Hosanna!