Archive for the ‘science’ Category

Becoming hip to some hot tracks

Monday, March 15th, 2010


Let’s be honest here, if I didn’t have Sylvia to bring new music into my life I’d still be listening the Disco Biscuts [Fun Fact: Their sound man is also named Jon Lesser). My Schi filter works like this:

  1. Sylvia finds new music (Or it finds her? I don’t really know how this part works).
  2. Sylvia listens to music on our stereo, infiltrating my personal soundscape.
  3. About every three months I sort the iTunes by play count and copy the top ten or so albums to my computer.

Boom! I’m up to date with what the kids are listening to.

CPU video performance

Monday, June 15th, 2009

I have been trying to get a sense of how much video processing my computer can do. A 2.2Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo can capture 640 x 480 @ 30 fps from a Logitech Vision Pro webcam while simultaneously playing four previously captured clips encoded with H.264 and AAC mono audio. Capturing video while playing more than four videos results in dropped frames.

Video Stream Test

This plot shows a pretty linear falloff in captured framerate as the number of video files being played during capture is incremented.

framerate drop off while playing videos

LCD panel dimensions

Sunday, June 14th, 2009

I needed to know the geometry of some common LCD panels for a project I’m working on. I couldn’t find a convenient chart, so I am contributing this one to the Internet. I worked out the X and Y values with some simple trig. An alternative estimation based on resolution multiplied by pixel pitch yields similar results ±0.125”.

lcdDiagram.png

H” X” Y” AR X res Y res
15 12.0 9.0 4:3 (1.33) 1024 768 53.13 36.87
17 13.27 10.62 5:4 (1.25) 1280 1024 51.34 38.66
19 14.84 11.87 5:4 (1.25) 1280 1024 51.34 38.66
18.5 16.13 9.07 16:9 (1.77) 1366 768 60.65 29.35
15.4 13.06 8.16 8:5 (1.6) 1440 900 57.99 32.01
17 14.42 9.01 8:5 (1.6) 1440 900 57.99 32.01
19 16.11 10.07 8:5 (1.6) 1440 900 57.99 32.01
20.1 16.08 12.06 4:3 (1.33) 1600 1200 53.13 36.87
19 16.11 10.07 8:5 (1.6) 1680 1050 57.99 32.01
20 16.96 10.60 8:5 (1.6) 1680 1050 57.99 32.01
22 18.66 11.66 8:5 (1.6) 1680 1050 57.99 32.01
21.5 18.74 10.54 16:9 (1.77) 1920 1080 60.64 29.36
23 20.05 11.28 16:9 (1.77) 1920 1080 60.64 29.36
24 20.35 12.72 8:5 (1.6) 1920 1200 57.99 32.01
25.5 21.62 13.52 8:5 (1.6) 1920 1200 57.99 32.01
30 25.44 15.90 8:5 (1.6) 2560 1600 57.99 32.01


Hue Test Fail

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

These are our results from an online Farnsworth-Munsell 100 hue test that Sylvia found on the Internet. The test involves arranging color swatches into a continuous spectrum of hues. The bars indicate which hues we were unable to arrange correctly and I’m not sure what the height of a bar means.

Color Test

As you can see, we got very different results depending on the display used for the test. A proper FM100 test kit costs about $700 and has to be completed under controlled (D50) lighting conditions. Nonetheless, it’s fun to play with the pretty colors and create some order from the randomized initial state.

Related Links: Color Management Systems Lab at RIT where I was a labbie in 2002; Munsell Color Science Lab at RIT

Navigational Hyperlinks:


Other areas of the internet to which I contribute on a semi-regular basis:


Pictures


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