As my second week of working at CURVE ends, I begin to reflect on my time spent there, the progress made, and its overall usefulness in the name of research. Working at CURVE has truly made my lasts jobs seem so mundane and unbearable. Honestly to me working at CURVE no longer feels like a job, let me explain. The room is a high-tech visual and research oasis. As a computer science major, I am continuously at awe with all that the space can do for students at GSU, especially those dedicated research students. The workstations each have either a pc or a mac of incredible quality. The PCs have 12 core processors and 128 GB of RAM (making them extremely fast and capable of loading things with a lot of data), while the macs 1 TB of hard drive making them able to store a significant amount of data and files. These workstations are all set up with high resolution samsung screens making the visuals great and are arranged for groups with multiple seats all around the station. The interact wall is immense. The wall of screens seems to stretch over more than half of the space.  This screen has recently been used to display medical models of the human body to allow a class of students with  medical related majors to clearly examine all that they can. The 4k screen adds to this high-tech lineup of equipment allowing for an area for viewing detailed images. Although the room is filled with such great resources for students the traffic has been very slow due to its very recent opening this summer. Not many students are aware of the space, it is still very early in the semester, and it is strictly for research and group projects. I see nothing but potential in this space and I constantly feel so privileged to work in such a collaborative and academic-forward environment. Although there has not been a large use of the space, our group project has had a chance to meet in the space and discuss our projects progress.

Meeting with the group we tok the liberty to use one of CURVE’s many workstations. Attempting to create an interactive 3d model of Decatur street during the height of the blues movement, Robert Bryant( a fellow SIF and graduate student at Georgia State University), pulled up the walkable model of the street he began in a game engine called Unity. He had about five or six buildings set up with a side walk. Although he said it wasn’t much the street looked great! the buildings were so realistically 3D and he had used an old 1937 map of of the street to create a sidewalk with the an accurate measurement of the actual street. The old map was great for all of kinds of information that will help us make the street as realistic and historically accurate as possible. We were able to see exactly where buildings were, in between which buildings were there alleys, and where  there were fire hydrants. I think one of the most important, was where exactly theatre 81 was located. When discussing the progress and direction of the project we had decisions to make upon which direction we wanted the interactive part of the project should take. Should we all someone freely walk around and they can only interact with certain parts of the street that we want to explore, or should to be sort of like a movie where they are guided to separate places and then when they are there they are able to click on things to interact with it and therefore gain more information and knowledge of the subject.

Our main goal is to make the model and street as interactive and as game-like as possible in order to promote it to feel like more of a game and ultimately more fun than an educational tool. Therefore, of executed correctly as a player continues to play they are exposed to various historical aspects and information that they are kind of forced to learn something of the time period and its significance.

As we continue to work on this project, I am continuously challenged and shocked at the intelligence, dedication, and ambition of the project members around me. This project has repeatedly continued to excite me and reinforce my belief that gaining knowledge and learning is fun and essential to growth.

 

Since last week I went with a more technical and underlying mechanisms kind of post, I have decided to theme this post over the historical aspect of my projects research. As stated before, I am apart of a project that is working on creating an interactive 3d online model of a historical blues block in the heart of downtown Atlanta, which is ale the heart of the Georgia State University campus. With this being said, since having taken on this project,  I can’t help but relate my everyday strolls in Atlanta to its bluesy history. I wanted to shed some insight and perspective on how the past of Atlanta’s streets can be seen today.

This weekend I had the privilege to attend Atlanta’s biggest music festival, Music Midtown. It is a two day music festival at beautiful Piedmont Park. The festival, in its peak years, reached an attendance of 300,000 people. Therefore this year, as a multitude of people traveled to Atlanta for the festival so did vendors of all kinds and street performers of all kinds. These vendors and street performers were looking for success either financially or just through popularity. They took advantage of the crowd. Walking both towards Piedmont park and leaving the festival from and to Marta both vendors and street performers caught my attention but I gravitated more towards the dedication and up beat attitude of the street performers.

When reflecting on all the street performers I was confronted by, I began to realize their uncanny similarities. All performers had some sort of bluesy aspect to them, either by their instruments, songs played, or style of playing. The performers included a duo of two young males, one with a trumpet and one with a saxophone. They played contemporary songs with their instruments. Both the trumpet and saxophone are common and essential instruments used in a blues song and band, and are honestly not all that popular in today’s top hits music. In addition to these performers was an older man with a bass guitar playing very bluesy riffs and rhythms, he played with such conviction and when looking back acted as a preserver of blues. Also seen, was a man playing the guitar while also playing the harmonica that was strapped to him. Both the guitar and harmonica are very prevalent in blues music. All these performers displayed a modern day  interpretation or influence of Atlanta’s past.

This experience was very eye-opening, since I would have expected much more contemporary music played by street performers given that the festival’s lineup was mostly of contemporary music. I believe that Atlanta’s history has influenced many individuals even today. Although Atlanta was a blues hub in the 1930s, you can still see the preservation and strong influence that the blues period had on Atlanta and its current population.

With this information I plan to research if there are organizations or locales around Atlanta that attempt to preserve this genre of music as well as how and why it is done. I believe connecting with this aspect of my research will allow me to better understand why this project is important and relevant to us today as well as how it is.

 

As a freshman honors SIF, I still have a lot to learn and experience during my career here at Georgia State University. As mentioned in my previous blog post, I am apart of a group that is working on an interactive 3D map of a block that was essential to the height of Atlanta’s blues scene in the early twentieth century. The historic block is at the corner of Decatur St. and Ivy st. (which is now Peachtree Center Ave.), where Georgia State University now stands. In order to create this informative and interactive plane we have to decide which software or program to use. The program chosen will be used to create the old twentieth century blues hub.

In my attempt to shed light on a subject that I know very little of, I used resources readily available to me in order to educate myself. I utilized lynda.com  to try and search for a relevant software or program. When looking through the hundreds of tutorials and softwares available on lynda.com, one program caught my attention: 3Ds max. This program can be used to create cityscapes. When referring to the purpose of the project, this program and its features may render useful and enlightening when exploring the best plane for our interactive 3D model.

When watching  the lynda tutorial: Creating Cityscapes in 3ds max, tutor Adam Crespi, emphasizes the importance of looking to the real world and real photos for architectural details and guidance. He points out  that if we pay attention to this it will make it ultimately easy to create a historically accurate model of Decatur St. and Ivy St. ( now Peachtree Center Ave.). I plan to use this information to be able to contribute to my projects conversation about where our efforts should  turn to next. I have also found through this tutorial that the more we research and investigate this time in history the more accurately we can portray it and truly do the time period justice.

When confronted with the view of Atlanta’s skyline I can’t help but note the differences in the structure, it includes everything from the incredibly old and beautiful to the modern, chic buildings. Although not all buildings are to each of these extremes neither are they all beautiful or interesting ( let’s be honest) but they do share a similar qualities. These buildings all serve a purpose, share a history/story of their existence, and contribute to the culture that is Atlanta. Why bring up such obvious inquiries, you may ask. It is because as human beings we become so accustomed to seeing the same things and eventually taking our scenery or surroundings for granted. We do not realize that the streets and roads we may walk or travel on every day have been there long before we have. They have been there collecting stories of the people before us and eventually after us. Although this may seem irrelevant to those of us who are here in Atlanta to attend Georgia State University and earn our degrees, it is very much applicable to our everyday travels around campus.

When conversing with my fellow SIFs about what project to bring to life this semester, we began to discuss the findings of old maps and historical evidence of our beloved centrally located Georgia State campus. We came to discuss that the block of Decatur st. and Peachtree center Ave. has a historical significance connected with the famous 1930’s blues scene in Atlanta. This block was very important during the times of the depression and was the hub for most all serious African American blues artists. Some key buildings/landmarks included theatre 81, Dinkins-Davidson Hardware co., and PF camp in addition to several small shops that included shoe shops and hat shops.

I was very interested in the topic and when I began to research I found very interesting cultural and social information of the time: When the depression began in 1929, Americans were rapidly losing all hope and their standard of living. Blues artists began to see the possibility of making some money off of playing music in Atlanta so they flocked here during that time. All African American blues artists preferred decatur street because they were free here from the humiliation of segregation and judgement from whites. African Americans enjoyed theatre 81 exactly for that reason. It was a crucial landmark during this time, it housed famous blues artists like Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Blind Willie McTell.  The district of Decatur street was very accepting of musicians, peddlers, and prostitutes. People would congregate in this district around parked trucks of moonshiners. When the moonshiners were shut down the prostitutes went on a strike because they were no longer getting any business due to the lack of moonshine. As you can tell there is a lot of history to already tell about this area that seems so familiar to us today but can tell us a completely different story of a different age.

So where exactly around campus was this located? Ironically enough where theatre 81 once stood as a musical hub, is now what we know as the Georgia State University library. You may also ask, how exactly can you create a project out of this especially while our specialty for the project is to use a 3D scanner and a program called agisoft. Although the plans are still in their early preliminary stages, here it is: Our goal is to create an interactive 3D  model/map  of the the block during its time. We are attempting to create an accurate portrayal of the area and display its significance and relevance to the university.

I am very excited to continue to research such a significant time period in Atlanta, and to continue learning more about the campus I walk around everyday.

• So much has happened during my first week at Georgia State University, from starting class and learning my way around the urban campus to meeting loads of new and interesting people to having the amazing opportunity to be an SIF. This week has been a start my research at CURVE. First and foremost I spent most of my time attempting to acclimate myself to all that the CURVE center has to offer. This includes attending the CURVE orientation with Mandy and discussing all the possibilities that CURVE has to offer, researching interesting projects to work on, and looking into workshops to  I am looking forward to working with CURVE’s brand new technology and learning new ways to incorporate it into students’ and faculty’s academic and research endeavors.
• While at CURVE, I will have the privilege of working on a project that incorporates 3D scanning and modeling. When deciding which project to immerse myself in this season, I visited the exchange where they house the 3D scanner. I was able to see the models that were made which included a Darth Vader action figure and a Storm Trooper pencil and pen holder. I found this incredibly fascinating and researched what exactly a 3D scanner was and how it worked. A 3D scanner is a device that examines a tangible, real world object or even an environment to gather information on its shape and appearance which can then be used to build 3D models. This is interesting and very useful in many aspects. 3D scanners are used in the construction industry, civil engineering, design process,  the scanning of artifacts and historical sites, and even the entertainment business. In conclusion, I still have much to learn and experiment during my time as a SIF, but I am excited and ready to begin work on such an innovative project.