This month I have made some real progress, but the goal from October is still not met. November and December had the same goal, which is the population of the database, whereas October had the goal of a working prototype. The database-issues has been solved by directly importing an existing SQLite-database from the Internet, and I believe populating the database now that framework is completed will be an easy, if tedious and time consuming, task. So for now I have mainly been concentrating on programming, but the birds I described in the last post have been implemented in the database.
I’m still working with:
- the algorithm for selecting the right birds based on input.
- the selecting of colors/features system
- the results from queries.
When these are completed I will be able to say that the prototype is complete. The majority of the month have been spent trying to deal with these and/or planning their implementation. For December my plans are to finish the prototype, populate the database and see what parts of my project description I can use for my thesis.
My last meeting with my supervisor was the end of September. We discussed the pros and cons of having an external database with a web interface. The result was that first version of the application will have an on-device database and when this works we want an external database (so that the device can be updated over the net) and a web interface (so that anyone can add too the external database). It is also possible to make the external database so that it will be updated with other web-resources. I hope that some of these features will be implemented, if not, they will be described further in the Future Work section of my thesis.
I made good progress with this database in the beginning of October, but sadly ran into some bugs while on cruise with my family. Upon returning I caught a bad flu and is just starting to recover now.
The goal was to get a working prototype. That goal has not met.
So far I have done the following:
Created the database for housing birds - currently buggy :(
Read books on birds in Norway to identify the main features that need to be included for search. I decided I need coloring and pattern selection for these areas: Head, back, wings, belly, tail.
Other features will be habitat (branch, lake, bush, sea) and size.
Features depending on season and location I plan to hide from the user as birds only seen south of Germany in the summer will probably never never come to Norway.
I also made a list of some of the most common norwegian birds as to include them in the prototype (norwegian names): Kjøttmeis - Parus Major, Blåmeis - Cyanistes caeruleus, Bokfink - Fringilla coelebs, Gjerdesmett - Troglodytes troglodytes, Grønnfink - Cardeulis chloris and Gråspurv - Passer demesticus.
The goal for November is to populate the database, I intend to get back on track and meet this goal before the end of November.
Today I have been to a meeting with my supervisor. We discussed the pros and cons of having an external database with a web interface. The result was that the application will start of using an on-device database and when this works we both want an external database (so that the device can be updated over the net) and a web interface (so that anyone can add too the external database). It is also possible to make the external database so that it will be updated with other web-resources. I hope that some of these features will be implemented, if not, they will be described further in the Future Work section of my thesis.
Other than that...- I’ve been to the library and gotten a huge collection of books on birdwatching.
- Subclipse is also up and running and the project has been committed to the SVN-server.
- The blog has gotten an overhaul.
Hi! This is a work log more than a blog. Here I will post the progress of my master thesis. I started one month ago and progress have been slow and steady. Maybe a bit too slow...
The master thesis consists of an Android application that is supposed to help people in the wild with identifiying birds during birdwatching and the evaluation of this system in use.
So far I have:- Gotten my "office" set up, last guy wasn't really done so it wasn't really ready for me.
- Started programming, have some of the main framework in place
- Struggled with SVN, did not get it do work
- Edited my project description to be placed in masters text
- Rented a book on norwegian birds
- Made a detailed plan for further work in October
- Looked at dbpedia.org and other sources of information
