Week 25: 9th March - 15th March: Group Meetings and Schedule

Today we had group meetings with Dr Ozveren to discuss our progress. Below is my progress report which I did in preparation for today's meeting. Included at the end is an up-to-date gantt chart.

Progress Report

INTRO:

My Project is entitled 'Realistic Modelling for Motion Involving Collisions with 3D Environments' and I am looking into how basic 3D movements can be simulated realistically and at what point the calculations need to be approximated so that processing speed is not compromised too much.

Project implementation has been broken down into four main areas. Stage 1 - point mass bouncing on an inclined plane. Stage 2 - point mass bouncing on a curved surface. Stage 3 - sphere colliding with an inclined plane. Stage 4 - sphere colliding with curved surface.

PROGRESS SUMMARY

So far, the project is still in its first stage although it is close to being finished. At the moment, there is an inclined plane in the scene with the point mass falling and bouncing off. to finish this stage, all that needs to be done is some more calculations and some extra calculations involving friction and bounciness. Once this is complete the project will proceed into the next stages. So far for the dissertation, the literature review has been started but it is not near completion as of yet.

PROBLEMS

The problems encountered so far have really come down to time. I have spent more time than expected working through how the maths can be put into OpenGL. It has also been made clear that I spend to much time bogged down on one tiny aspect of a calculation. e.g. I spent days working out what was wrong with the rotation of the plane in the x and z axes and this was completely unnecessary as it was not an important part of the project at all. Not to sure if I do that maybe to unconsciously avoid moving on to more tricky tasks. I have also spent time worrying about whether I am doing calculations correctly without just simply going to see my supervisor.

CHANGES

Looking at my original gantt chart, I should be starting stage 4, so it looks like I am miles behind. However, the original gantt chart does seem a little too optimistic and there was too much time scheduled for testing etc. which when I look at it now, can be done as I go along (and probably should be because then it will be clear what calculation is at fault.) A new gantt chart has been made, this time without time specified for extra work as I know now there will be no time for this (at least no time to do it well) so just need to focus on getting stages 1-4 done well.

OVERALL ASSESSMENT

The project, at the moment is behind, however even though it has taken longer than expected to complete stage 1, most calculations will be repeated in the later stages so I do think it is best to take time now to get them right. Worst comes to worst, I may have to leave out stage 4 also, but this is not too big a problem. Learning from mistakes made already and what I know about myself and how it does take me longer to do things than others, I just need to focus on getting work done every day from now on.