Wow. I can’t believe that I am already done with my second year of college and my first year being a SIF. Time really does fly by quickly. Looking back, I feel like I have accomplished a lot compared to any other job I have done in the past. I have been involved in 4 projects in the course of my first year as a SIF.
The first project I got involved in was the SIF Outreach Project during my first semester as a SIF. Working with Thomas and Babacar, the objective of this project was to market the technology facilities we have to offer at Georgia State University. After much planning and research, we came across a list including the Digital Aquarium, the Exchange, Aderhold Learning Center and the CURVE amongst many more. Unfortunately, many of these spaces were undergoing remodeling, so we couldn’t really film them. The only space that was up-to-date was the CURVE, so that became our main objective. After filming, editing, voice-overs, and music searching, we finally came with a final product to promote the CURVE. We had many ups and downs with this project, but we were all pretty content with the end result. Check out the video and let me know what you think. 🙂
Moving onto the second project, the Latin America Social Media Branding. The name itself sounded very interesting. The objective was to market Latin American countries with the use of social media. This project unfortunately got deferred, but I am hoping it will open back up soon.
The third project I’m on is 3D Atlanta. Our team includes Robert, Nathan, Wasfi, Allie, Thomas, Ryan, and me. There are two sides to our team: the modeling side and the research side. Robert, Nathan, and Wasfi are on the modeling side. With the help of Blender and Unity, these guys take your old fashion 20s pics and turn them into a 3D virtual world that you can walk through with the use of an oculus rift. I am on the research side with Allie, Thomas, and Ryan. We basically give life to the 3D model. We research pictures, music, videos, and other information that can help us create a storyline for our 3D model to follow. Our research concentration at the moment relies within Decatur Street, which is also where the guys are modelling right now. We will expand over time to encompass the Georgia State campus in the 20s and towards the rest of Atlanta for the 20s and the decades beyond. 3D Atlanta is a major project we are continuing to work on alongside with Emory. Here’s the video Babacar made as a little teaser for our 3D model.
Last but not least, the 1934 Tax Maps. This is a project that Amber and Nicole basically put their lives too haha. Shootout to those two for creating awesome easy-to-follow instruction guides for all the undergrad SIFs and CURVE employees to use in order to do this project. So we begin with a simple tax map photo.
We stitch this tax map photo onto an actual outline of a map of Atlanta today. The red/green lines consist of streets and roads that make up Atlanta today.
The picture is then stitched transparently on the Atlanta map outline.
Afterwards, you search the street names on the map photo to locate them on the Atlanta map and then using control points, you align the picture to the actual map,
Here is a zoomed look on how the alignment of the photo and the map is done.
We did this to about 35 different tax map photos each and then clipped them to stick the two together. It was a great project to be a part of and learn how to use ArcGIS.
All in all, it was a great first year of being a SIF and I am more than excited to see what new adventures come my way in the years to come.
Til next time,
Krisna