Writeup for 2DO3: Individual Opinion Paragraphs
Isaque Hossain
After learning about text analysis through the first 2DO3 project, I wanted a chance to create a functional text analysis tool. Once we formed the group with the intent to visualize movie screenplays, I volunteered to be in the part of the group responsible for actually building the visualization tool. As a result I learned some valuable things about ruby, regular expressions, and even about the limitations of Flash. VizTrans was really my first experience in writing code other than ActionScript or HTML, and was a very useful learning experience.
In terms of VizTrans as a project, I was very interested in what our program would be able to output, and how using icons instead of words would affect the communcation of meaning, especially for reading quickly. Eventually, I noticed the similarity between using images to represent words, and the use of pictographic symbols in some asian languages. However, since VizTrans replaces words only as sets of characters without analysing or even identifying their meanings, any semblance of meaning is mostly coincidence. Also, the word lists and icon sets are very limited, even for the sample scripts, and I regret that I wasnt part of the icon group so I could have made sure that VizTran's icon "dictionary" was as robust as possible for scope of this class.
Overall, I was satisfied with our results. We managed to create a working tool that can replace words with images, and the resulting processed texts are generally understandable. I hope to continue working on VizTrans in the future, particularly to improve the word replacement script to utilize more text analysis, and to improve the dictionary by increasing word list and create icons with even clearer meanings.
Jamie Demeter
What I have learned the most while working on this project is how to form a project with a large group of people. Time management is key if you are to get anything done when working in a group of seven people.
Secondly, my task, for the most part, was to come up with the ideas of the icons. I learned that text provides so many things that images cannot, even though text in it of itself is a symbol. How does one properly allow the user to see the image and experience the action of reading the text also. For the most part, the icons were easy, except for a few of them...the word close may seem easy, but for me it was not.
Ultimately I would have liked to have dabble in the programming side of the project, but thats what you get when you volunteer to take on the icons. Learning [how to use] the Wiki was an invaluable tool in our communication and I will enjoy using [Wikis] for future projects.
Kyle Katsuyama
VizTrans has been an exciting experience. As well as being apart of the programming team and learning from the in class tutorials about Ruby and its efficiency for manipulating text, I was also able to participate in the icon group in order to create some of the images that replace the text.
For this project, I did research on language and meaning and attempted to draw parallels between the works of D.S Clarke, George Lakoff and John Searle and the philosophy behind using the icons that we chose to use. During this time, I learned that getting meaning out of icons was more difficult then we had originally thought. Also, when it came to certain words, it was almost impossible to clearly represent their meanings through the use of an icon. After revising many of the icons it became clear that we needed to take a majority rules approach over certain images as this would assure that more then the person who chose the icon would be able to identify the meaning of the icon.
After having come up with the original concept with Isaque, I am very pleased at how the project turned out. While we originally had an idea in mind about how the project might look in the end, the end product is different; however the group has produced a very interesting piece of software. The criteria behind the original concept has become a reality with the finished version of VizTrans in Phase 1, and I have had a fun time being apart of this team. While there are a few things that we would have liked to have done differently, I feel the end product was a successful project.
Luis Lima
Being a fan of cinema and various films, from the start of the project, I was intrigued from the fact that images were going to be used to replace words within a movie screenplay. Having studied advertising and film, I've always understood the importance images can have on a document. Moreover, this seemed like an interesting and fun project to hop onboard. I expected this project to be alot of work and demand a great deal of organization, especially since there were seven of us compilled into one group. All together, the group work and the project went smoothly. By meeting with each other twice every week and keeping in touch through emails and a wiki page, each group member was well aware of how the project was developing.
From this project, I wished to have learned more about programming. I have had experience using the languages Turing, C, and a bit of Actionscript. Ruby though, was a new experience. I have never really dealt with object oriented programming. From this project and reviewing the code that was written for the search and replace module, it gave me an introduction in the potential and capabilities of Ruby. In addition, I was able to work with Actionscript a bit more in constructing the user interface. If problems arose, websites and books were used to assist in searching for solutions to the various tasks.
Tom Dang
When I first joined this project, the first thing that came into my mind was if the viewers could actually understand the movie scripts when we replace most words (excluding adjectives and pronouns) with images. Initially, I thought it would be a fun experiment to do because I love movies and I thought it would be fun to play around with words and images. My expectations for this project were very high and had nothing but positive results. The main goal I wanted to achieve when I joined VizTrans was to create a project from scratch as a group to make viewers read things in an alternative way. One of the goals as a group wanted to see if the viewers can still understand what it is trying to say. Although our project may not show the sentence exactly the way it is in the script, that did not concerned us.
What our group accomplished in my point of view was that the ability to work very well together as a team. We always had a group meeting every Wednesday and we always had good communications. The major reason that we worked so well together in my point of view was because people stepped up and took the initiative to do what was needed to be done. Another thing that I believe we accomplished was that even though we had a general idea what we wanted to do with the project, people kept coming up with new ideas to add on to the project. For example, the user is allowed to pick any celebrity from our celebrity icons to play a role in a certain script. In other words, our group constantly kept bringing up new ideas to improve this project.
What I learned during this project is that it is essential to communicate well in our group in order to make this project successful. Communicating in group discussions allowed us to be active and at times helped brought up new ideas. Another thing that I learned was that some words we needed an image for was hard to find a picture for. Some pictures we had to be picky with because we did not want to send a different meaning than what we intended it for. Then we realized as a group that for some images, we needed to edit the pictures to help the user understand. Also, before the start of this project, I never knew how important text analysis is. I learned the importance of text analysis and that it can help us do our project more efficiently, especially for a project such as VizTrans.
Justin Ho
From this project, I wished to have learned more about programming. I have had experience using the languages Turing, C, and a bit of Actionscript. Ruby though, was a new experience. I have never really dealt with object oriented programming. From this project and reviewing the code that was written for the search and replace module, it gave me an introduction in the potential and capabilities of Ruby. In addition, I was able to work with Actionscript a bit more in constructing the user interface. If problems arose, websites and books were used to assist in searching for solutions to the various tasks.
Gary Cheng
It was fun yo.