Show r Section Wednesday March 6 2002 Pagel The Herald Journal 2 By Byron Spice Pittsburgh Post-Gazette universes ByMattSyme F orgiveme if I seem a bit philosophical today but I find my perspective on life and technology's place in it changes rather rapidly given our society’s present circum- stance Lately it seems that I person-all- y exist in parallel modes of life one being tangible containing the realities of the present And then I live a virtual life a life in steady pursuit of information diversion and entertainment — generally disposed of through some sort of electronic device I don’t think I’m alone in this subconscious division but I daresay that during most days I barely realize die difference That is until something jolts me out of my stupor Such was my experience while travelling a few days ago I came fully prepared for thefour-h-l I planned to finish a hour lengthy novel I dug up my portable CD player and carefully selected some relaxing music I even prepared myself for conversation with a fellow passenger (I generally avoid such chitchat but I was feeling whimsical at the prospect of escaping the inverted temperature chamber that is Cache Valley) I quickly learned this would be no ordinary flight when die attendant began handing out actual head phones (not the acoustic tubular sort but the electronic Sony Walkman type) Just as my neighbor and I exchanged pleasantries the attendant happily announced that die personal televisions situated in the headrest of every seat would provide free live broadcast television on 24 con-versc- ly The image is grainy and poorly lit but the video camera imounted atop a small tracked robot shows die robot’s progress through a service corridor of die collapsed World Ikade Center’s second tower! As the robot comes up to a rubble pile the video shows this top of a corpse’s head and a wristwatch The chilling image recorded a week after the Sept 11 attack demonstrates both a strength and a weakness of the robots now available for urban search and rescue operations said Howie Choset a mechanical engineer at Carnegie Mellon University The tethered robots similar to miniature tanks can search areas inaccessible to or unsafe for humans but the inability to crane their necks or probe into rubble piles limits what they can see Imagine Choset said if the robot’s camera was mounted on something akin to an elephant’s trunk The camera could peer over the edge of the rubble or perhaps probe through spaces between the rubble to search for other larger voids where survivors might be Or separated from the tracked Engineer probe the concept of long flexible robots for search and rescue robot the long segmented device might slither like a snake deep into the nibble in its search for survivors The concept of snake-lik- e robots isn’t new but Choset is leading a research effort to overcome problems with strength navigation and locomotion that have restricted use of these robots His lab recently was awarded an $800000 grant from the US Department of Energy to extend the technology perhaps making these robots available for use in waste tank or bridge inspections surveying of sites or robotic surgery as well as for search and rescue operations “hyper-redundan- The beauty is both the ability of these robots to do what humans can’t do such as squirming through tiny gaps and to simply do alot of different things from dipping its head into a coffee cup thought to contain anthrax to serving passively as a makeshift support amid shifting ’ debris t” “Sometimes it's more important to have something that's versatile rather than to have something that does one task well” Choset said The potential value of snake robots became obvious in the h of the Twin Towers’ collapse after-mat- tech tettln better but don’t throw out your compass and topo map just ye experts By advise- - PafBohm TVoctle features writer he Global Positioning Systran is yet another marvel of the last quarter century’s explosion of technological invention A simple handrheld GPS receiver lets its user determine position with an accuracy that borders on the magical within 300 feet anywhere on or above the Earth While GPS vocabulary may be complicated — Doppler shift orbital data parameters clock correction algorithm — its usefulness grows day by day Current uses are as diverse as talking maps in rental cars measuring the speed of a downhill skier predicting the course of a wildland fire not to speak of multiple military tasks Ilie GPS is the most recent in a series of navigational methods that humans have been working on since prehistoric times Starting with die use of landmarks trekkers directed themselves on land and by remaining near the shore on the sea as wellI Later travelers iused the stars to chart a course Next the magnetic compass and the sextant allowed voyagers to find their way even with channels! My morp experienced neighbor informed me that the television signal is transmitted over the same digital satellite system available onthe ground The airplane’s receiver is smart enough to track the satellite’s relative position as the plane changes direction and attitude There was even a channel that provided real-tiflight progress and an aircraft position indicator Cod stuff especially if you re like me and get antsy cooped up in a flying bus with no real idea where you are So as tins was my first exposure to television I put away my ii bode brushed off my headin and plugged my In I found no time that dd phones familiar: channel flipping rhythm CNN NBC’s Olynmc coverage die History Channel Like old friends met unexpectedly on the road they were all mere And I was happy Once ksettled on a Family mid rerun at 34000 fed I took a look around Almost without exception all passengers were plugged into their respective TVs While not unexpected Uas nevertheless a surreal moinent like watching some sd-- fi movie scene of hnmenoid creatures in stasis awaiting delivery to the next transport station The cod blue glow provided by dozens of liquid crystal displays only added to : ' the eeriness V WelL the surreal was real and it! caused me to recogmzemy own tendency to qiiickly tune out die reality Ptipta Bustratkin by Mitch Mascara for The Herald Journal out a clear night Before the first half of the 20th radio naviga- century had passed ground-base- d tion systems were in use The drawback was choosing between high positional accuracy and large area coverage radio waves provide accurate positional information but can only be received in a small area Lower frequency radio waves like AM radio cover a large area but are not precise regarding position Locating more info Paler H Dana The Geographers Craft Project High-frequen- cy htlpwwwcoloradoedugeographygcrafl notesgpsgpsjhtml The Aerospace Corporation htfe:wwwaeroofpubtication&'G PS PRIMER Indexhtml See GPS on C8 in-fli- know-neighb- or stuntmen are really animated LOS ANGELES (AP) —The gangly skeleton pauses at the top of the staircase and then fear- lessly dives headfirst crumpling in an apparent-l- y bone-jarrifall Petros Faloutsos chuckles as he replays the clip on his laptop computer Again and again the UCLA scientist commands the virtual char-- ! ng actertodive The animation is primitive the technology complex v - Beyond the initial command to jump the fall is completely unscripted Physics not the com- puter animator’s mouse controls the action Although just a prototype Faloutsos believes ’ his animation program will one day allow virtual stunt artists to replace their counterparts in pernmning otherwise deadly feats of derring-d- o ' “Maybe people will be directing virtual ' actors and we’ll have to give them Oscars too” ' ' Faloutsos mused The brief clip is a glimpse into the nascent i field of physics-base- d animation The technique f whether used for movies or video games' strives to create a virtual world consistently guided by the same physical laws that give order to the trad world “It’s the Holy Grail of character animation Everybody wants to do it but there’q not 4 whole lot of itout there right now” sid Damien Neff senior artificial intelligence designer for NFL Fever 2002a Microsoft video game that! makes limited use of the technique ‘ As the technology matures real stunt artists flesh-and-blo- od - oftheprebydrowningitintheV din of mass communications It occurs to me even now how seldom I simply contemplate meditate or think Or worse biotf infrequently I communicatewith people fece-tface without background noise pr interference vReal internal silence has practically no place in my life Drive the car turn on talk radio Come home T from work— surf die Internet Lie down for bed — read a bode Kids ' me crazy— turn on die TVi AhTV As Americans pastime whcther'tuned baseball or no4£:’ V bectanes the perfect sedative fog the 'unengaged mind' y o- z' : l y ' 'V -- 'J y- -- ''v : A y l?- - v M M KivfcW See SYME on C8 f : computer-generate- d skelbtontaiapa on v another Programmer peter FakJutoos says animated deters could replace real ones doing death-defyinstunts’ g “There’s a positive side arid a negative side: t Tb talk positive it’s made it safer to do a stunt you don’t have to lay your neck but on the ’ line as much as you used to But it’s taken some cash away also!’ said Ben Scott a Hollywood stuntman who works on the HBO serjes “Six Feet Under” Traditionally animators have relied on their ' own talents to draw characters that appear to move naturally ' Movie studios and game developers also bank increasingly on libraries of hundreds of stunts bodies amassed by filming the d of teal performers Time “captured motions” can then be matched to virtual characters and inserted into movies or games Animation systems such as that created by Faloutsos and his former colleagues Michiel van de Panne Demetri Terzopoulos and Victor Ng- Thow-Hin- g attempt to trump both methods The key is using mathematical formulas that only loorely choreograph the movements an animator wants a character to undertake Command say a character’s arm to move and the momentum will force its torso and head to shift as well j The range of motions available to a character ultimately guide how it behaves as does its own d sensitivity to both gravity and any forces imparted by its virtual surround- " sensor-studde- computer-generate- ! inga"-- Different environments for example will prompt tire same character to move differently ! — and unpredictably A fall on slfek ice won't be tiie same as one dptm ai steep flight of stain In mqvies pbyrics-base- d animation tech- - i1- heen used to render inanimate niqueshave tilings like the waives in “The perfect Storm’’ or the shock of blub hair tint coats James P Sulli- ' van in “Monisten Inc" ' In video gamei tiiey Crop up in programming that simulates sudi action as racing or flying-- ' : - i '5V'! 1 ' S l 'M ' ' I |