I had thought that the script I created previously to convert ETRS89 latitude and longitude to OSGB36 eastings and northings would be sufficient for my purposes. I wanted latlng -> east/north primarily because I was building a mapping app which would allow a user to draw on it and thus generate a list of eastings and northings for import in AutoCAD Civil 3D - the idea being the user could draw tram lines etc. within a city, in the browser, using Open Street Map as a background layer; then if they wanted they could import this into C3D as polylines.

The problem came about when I wanted to incorporate some data from Ordnance Survey for postcode regions. These regions are defined as a polyline, but these polylines are specified as OSGB36 eastings and northings, this is a problem for my mapping app as it uses Leaflet which in turn uses ETRS89 lat lngs! So I needed a script to convert back again, from OSGB36 eastings and northings back into ETRS89 latitude / longitude.

I like to build a lot of mapping applications in my spare time, but I have a problem. Most data I use to populate my maps comes in OSGB36 eastings and northings not ETRS89 latitude and longitude which a lot of mapping packages such as Leaflet expect. I initally thought this wouldnt be a big problem, I could just use online converters such as gridreferencefinder.com - but as I started to use this I noticed some discrepancies between what gridreferencefinder.com would give me compared to other services. So I spent a bit of time looking into this and found the process was a little more challenging than I first thought!

Quick Response (QR) codes have intrigued me for a while, it's interesting how they encode data in a seemingly random array of black and white squares; so I decided to try and learn a bit more about them.

Having seen a few simple cross stitch patterns I thought it would be interesting to produce a script which can convert colour photos into cross stitch patterns. I got inspiration for this after seeing a cross stitch kit for Hiroshige's the 'The Great Wave off Kanagawa' for £50 and thought I could produce a script to do a similar thing.

I started by reading a photo into Python then reducing the number of colours in the image - a process called quantisation. The user can set the number of colours they wish to use, by default it's set to ten colours. Next I pass through the image and remove any extraneous 'pixels' - it can be a pain to cross stitch a single stitch in isolation so the script checks to see if it has at least one other stitch of the same colour nearby.

Next, the colours are compared to a set list of available DMC colours, trying to find the closest visual match. The closest match is recorded and added to a table of selected colours - along with the associated information such as the RGB values, the DMC number and name.

Finally I produce a number of SVG pattern outputs:

• Black and white with symbols
• Colour with symbols
• Colour without symbols
• And finally a key

Next steps? I could adjust the script to take into account the Aida count of the fabric used and then indicate what length of each colour is required.

I've had a Raspberry Pi for a while but it's only recently I decided to really get into using it to its full potential. I had tried out making stuff with breadboards and LEDs etc. and linking with the Twitter API to light up LEDs when a certain search term was mentioned.

Since then I've been exploring a bit more about how it can work with sensors and used to control motors etc. Using a cheap robot chassis kit and a lot of wire, veloboard, sensors and soldering I managed to make a robot which could navigate a room; successfully avoiding walls and objects.

Currently it has a small LED screen which displays the robot's IP address (allowing wireless connections) and ultrasonic sensors to aid autonomous movement. I've added a camera on a three axis moveable bracket, powered by servos, allowing a full field of view.

Next steps? I also have a few Raspberry PI zeros; I'd like to create something with these. First thoughts are to combine one of these with a small red, black and white e-ink display and portable battery pack to create a mobile sensor of some sort - perhaps a GPS logger of some sort. I've an interest in mapping and it might be cool to see my movement throughout the day on a map.

On another one I may place a sensor of some sort and embed a sim card to transfer sensor information across the web to display on a dashboard.

I started with virtual reality when I realised it could be done relatively inexpensively using your mobile phone and a Google Cardboard VR headset. For this we require a certain type of image, a 360 degree 'equirectangular' image. I work in construction and one of our software packages (Revit) has the option to export 360 degree images as a cube map in which your view is represented with 6 separate images (actually one, but six separate sides of a box are contained in this one image).

To get these Revit renders into a equirectangular format I could have used any number of online convertors but I was interested to learn how these weird, warped images are made and so I set about learning about the equirectangular format. Once I had a good understanding of this I wrote a number of Python scripts to convert these cube map images into equirectangular images.

To go along with these scripts I also wrote an iPhone application to show these equirectangular images - and embedded the conversion code within the app so it could work with Revit cube map exports. It was pretty cool seeing inside your Revit projects.

With my interest growing I purchased a 360 degree camera (a Samsung Gear 360, version 2) and noticed that it used a new format, a dual fish eye. This format consists of two circular images side by side, one for each of the Gears two cameras. The camera came with software to convert these images into equirectangular but again I was interested to learn how it was done so I set about learning and producing a conversion script in Python.

Next steps? I'd like to take a look at how VR can be incorporated into a website, nothing fancy, just a viewer for equirectangular images basically. Most 360 cameras record the GPS coordinates and so it could be interesting to map these using a custom built web app.

You can find out more about the conversion process using the link below.

I started this as an introduction to procedural generation of terrain. Procedural generation of landscapes os something I'd been interested in for a while but thought it might be a bit difficult to get some good results. However, I stumbled upon an article for generating terrain using a combination of a voronoi diagram and simplex noise.

First we needed some triangles to manipulate; we could do something just based on generic repeatable triangles but I decided I'd prefer something which looks a little more random, more natural to some extents. This is where the voronoi diagram came in, with this we can place a load of random points on a plane. I can then produce a voronoi diagram using these points. With can then split each polygon into a number of triangles, I do this by finding the centre of the polygon and then drawing lines out from each of these to produce the triangles.

Next, I generate a square of 2D simplex noise, and combine this with a circular fall off function meaning there are is no noise towards the edge of the square and we're guaranteed to have the island contained within the square. I then used this noise map to generate the heights of the the triangle vertices in the voronoi diagram. For each x,y coordinate in the list of triangle vertices we find the corresponding pixel in the noise map. The noise map will either be fully black for 'zero' height, or fully white for 'full' height, or somewhere in between. We can multiply this by a maximum island elevation to get the elevation for each point.

With an x, y and z coordinate for each of the points in the triangles we can now get onto rendering. We just need one more bit of information, the colour to use. For this I so a simple colour based on the elevation of each of the points. If the elevation is zero, it is recorded as sea, and as it increases in elevation it gradually changes colour from turquoise to a sandy colour to light green, green, grey then white.

Next steps? I'm not working on this anymore, choosing to focus more on a procedurally generated planet rather than a single island. If I were, I would have looked into using a biome system somehow. Combining moisture, temperature and elevation maps to style the island better. For example high up, in a wet environment we might have snow, in a wet tropical environment we may have a deep green rainforest.

This is an unfinished project in which I'm trying to generate a planet procedurally. It's something I've been interested in for a while - I'm not particularly creative and having something which looks quite nice, that didn't require creative input from myself (other than the programming) is quite appealing. Initially when I thought about procedurally creating landscapes I focused on creating procedural islands as I thought this would be easier - and it is, there are fewer polys and the geometry is less complex to deal with.

I then took a step back after producing an app which produced relatively nice islands, it still had a problem - the islands were all the same shape as they had to fit within the same defined area, they all took on a circular shape as they have to fit within a square plane. And so I took a look again at producing procedural landmasses on a globe, this would mean we could produce much more interesting landmass shapes.

Now, obviously - we cannot use a sphere directly, everything in graphics relys on triangles so I looked at trying to find the best way to represent a sphere using triangles and I decided upon a subdivided icosahedron. This starts out as a shape with 20, equilateral triangle faces. I then subdivided each of these faces into a further four faces each and repeat this process until I have reached a set depth of recursion. Whilst doing this I also project out the points onto a unit sphere so gradually we get a spherical shape. The more subdivision we do, the more spherical the planet looks - but of course this comes with a performance hit. I ended up setting on subdividing all triangles to a depth of four; although five still worked quite well.

I then find all the neighbours of each triangle, this is then used to convert the triangles into hexagons and 12 pentagons - with both of these being termed as 'cells'

With the neighbours all found we can then 'seed' a set amount of continents on random cells, so in my case I seed 10 continents. I then loop through extending the continents out from the seed points until no more unassigned cells exist. With this I then convert a number of these continents into water, so out of 10 continents I set seven as water, and the remaining three as land.

What next? This is at it's very early stages - it's not particularly efficient and could do with some more optimisation of the data structures so it's easier to find neighbours. It would also be nice to come up with a different method for creating continents, something more akin to what actually happends - such as with continental drift. After that I could look at introducing weather and climate effects, both of these will affect how the planet will look.

This was a team project, in which I worked with a fellow student at UEA. For this we were given the challange to come up with an idea for an application. We came up with a navigation application in which the user would select where they wished to go and the application would calculate the shortest route. I programmed the iPhone app, and my partner coded a parter application for the PC.

JRNL is a journal application for the iPad. I've always been interested in recording a journal, my first proper attempt to do one was on my trip to Japan and it was something I really enjoyed doing. When I got back I continued to write a paper journal but wanted to be able to search entries, include pictures etc - so that's when I decided to create an iPad app. The app uses Core Data to store entries and settings and also allows users to export their whole journal as HTML or XML. I'm currently working on PDF output and a few other features. Click the image above for further images.

I developed this application for use at work to assist us in planning how much time is available to work at a certain location below a certain tide level. Previous to this program it would take days to work through pages of tidal data, this now takes seconds.

Originally this used data supplied from a tidal prediction program, it has now been updated to predict tides on its own, from first principles.

I made this in my third year at Uni, and the aim was to create a piece of software which would allow users to navigate through an ocean scene populated with enemy boats. The software allowed users to torpedo enemy ships using a radar and targeting system. Particle systems were used for emergency flares, and octrees were used for spatial partitioning. Click the image above for further images.

A lot of my other projects have revolved around university work, these programs involving subjects such as a submarine simulation, boat game, top down rpg and most recently working on a project in which the Microsoft Xbox Kinect system will be used to teach people martial arts. Image above is a loading screen taking from Sine City - A university project in which I did all of the 3d modelling, the collision detection and the weapons system. Click the image above for further images.

I quite often make my own Christmas or birthday cards. This year I decided to do something different and make a full-on 3D Christmas 'card' (not a popup).

I wanted a 3D Christmas scene; so I started by producing a terrain model. I work for a construction company so I come across drawings with terrain contours all the time. I started by drawing out a rough set of contours in AutoCAD on my iPad; ensuring there were enough flat areas for me to put in my Christmas trees.

I printed out these contour templates and used them as a guide when cutting coloured cardboard. Next step was to create the elevation some how, at the moment all the contours fitted together but were flat with the pieces joined together like a puzzle, I needed to elevate each of these pieces.

To elevate each of the surfaces I cut small strips of card with some tabs and double sided sticky tape and joined these to the surfaces. Finally to finish I cut out four sides to match the terrain contours and stuck these on.

For the Christmas element I created a couple of origami Christmas trees!

Next steps? I'd quite like to model Hogwarts, or at least a part of it - probably the viaduct to begin with. This is a little challenging as there aren't a huge amount of actual set drawings; and the fact it changes between films, but I can make a reasonable approximation. I've produced some sketches in AutoCAD and produced a paper model, the next thing will be to improve the design a little before producing the viaduct (or at least a section of it) in card.