Blog | About Pranay

Augmented Reality and Deep Dish Pizza

March 10, 2012 ASB, Grad School, Travelogues 4 comments

I still have no clue how the spring break flew past. Each day was more fulfilling than the previous one, yet so short lived! If you have no clue what I’m talking about, I was in Chicago over the spring break, volunteering at the Adler Planetarium. Read the first post in the series to know how Chicago’s architecture left me awestruck and how I almost laughed myself to death!

My weekdays were spent working at the straight-out-of-star-trek Space Visualization Lab (SVL) at Adler Planetarium. This was my first tryst with Augmented Reality technology. Have you heard of Layar? It is an augmented reality app available for various mobile platforms which enables users to digitally engage and interact with objects in the real world by delivering digital experiences on top of them. Working at SVL, I developed a layer for Layar (you read it right!) which can be used by visitors to interact more engagingly with the Milky Way Galaxy Wall exhibit in the planetarium. Using this layer, visitors can simply point their phone’s camera to the wall to get more information about stellar objects hidden in the wall. See us in action -

Testing it out with Caitlin, in front of the Milky Way Galaxy Wall!

And it works! NOTE: Julieta Galaxy is just a fictitious name for testing! Dont go ask about it to an astronomer!

I would love to come back another day to Adler and experience the exhibits, just hovering my phone’s camera over them! And I’d also like to come back, for Chicago. The city never failed to mesmerize me, every day, at every street corner. From the raw humility of Buddy Guy performing live, to the grand extravagance of the Field Museum – it was a sojourn worth remembrance. Ohh and the best deep-dish pizza did happen. Lou Malnati’s is the place to be if you want to savour those gigantic, calorie-filled, sinfully perfect pizzas!

Contextual Inquiry on Chicago!

February 28, 2012 ASB, Grad School, Travelogues 4 comments

I am spending my spring break from school at Chicago to savor some authentic deep dish pizzas, experience the city’s jazz/blues music scene, get a photo clicked by ‘the bean’ and well, just live the mid-western big city life for a week! Oh and I am also interning at the Adler Planetarium!
This post marks the first in the series of my Chicago/Adler posts. This is the first time I am actually living in a big US city – not counting short stints with Los Angeles, San Francisco and Detroit (really?!).

Two and a half days in Chicago – and it’s almost love at first sight. I can see why one of my professors Malcolm McCullough (teaching Networked Cities) cites Chicago so often in the lectures. It is an architecture enthusiast’s paradise where the old and the new blend seamlessly to create a unique experience. I could still spot those old printing press shops in the city and was left awestruck by the sheer beauty of the stained glass ceiling of Chicago Cultural Center. And then suddenly, across the block I was face to face with soaring marvels of modern architecture – the Cloud Gate (popularly known as ‘the bean’), Willis Tower and so on. After taking a self-guided walking tour of the city loop area, I can vouch for it as the best way to see the city. If there’s anything that I feel at loss of, is a good camera. I am definitely coming back with one!
When you feel hungry out of so much walking, you’re never far from good food – even on when a budget. I have sampled Rudy’s burgers and quesadillas, fine beer at Hackney’s, and some fast food Indian at Chutney Joe’s. I think I’m yet to have the best deep dish pizza – but that’ll come soon.

Today was my first day at Adler Planetarium, where I would be working for the rest of the week at the Space Visualization Lab. Yep, it is indeed as sci-fi as it sounds, and the office space is straight out of a Star Trek movie with large displays, controllers, touch screens, weird LED lights and the works! I will be working on improvising a Milky Way exhibit to make it more engaging for people, and would also design a solution to link it up with The Milky Way crowd-sourcing project. It’s bound to be a really fun and knowledgeable experience. And did I mention that the view of Chicago downtown from Adler is to die for?

View of Chicago downtown from Adler Planetarium

Today ended with loud and hearty laughs at The Second City improv show. They are possibly one of the most outstandingly hilarious live acts I’ve ever seen. If you’re in Chicago/LA/Toronto and haven’t experienced it, you’re definitely missing on some laughter therapy!

That’s about it for today! Signing off from the windy city!

Edit: Read the second post in the series! Warning: Deep-Dish Pizzas ahead!

The Showstopper Snail!

February 19, 2012 Grad School, Graphics Design No comments

This semester is definitely going to be one of my favorites at grad school. Why? Primarily because of the Graphics Design course. It is something that I have always wanted to study professionally. Not only am I learning the fine skills of the trade (like typography, color composition, marketing design etc.), but the course also gives me the creative freedom to drive my imagination and paint the canvas as I like. The canvas being – Photoshop and Illustrator.

The last class’s lab exercise was incredibly fun. We had to create a graphic of a snail on Illustrator. The results are for you to see..

Presenting… :drumroll:.

Week 7 – Lab – The Showstopper Snail

Hop over to my scribd profile to check out some other creations – including a bunny with a dark secret, some jquery sliders, business cards, posters etc.

http://www.scribd.com/sethip_520/shelf