A blueprint of my life

Nope, it’s not Whistler, but it’s polish phonetical twin. I left Koblenz this afternoon to get here before the IMCSIT Conference starts where I’ll present a study about image region classification. The flight to Katowice was pretty smooth though I still can’t avoid worshipping the flying spaghetti monster during take-off. Breaking through the clouds is a phenomenon every time and from above it just looks like a giant skiing playground. The rest of the trip to Wisla was a bit weird because discussing with a taxi driver on polish without knowing a single word of polish is not that much fun. Well, now I’m in the Hotel Golebiewski feeling a little struck by all the grandiose interior. Here are some examples:

Yeah Warren Miller Entertainment chose a wordplay as title for their newest winter sports movie. Seriously the title sucks but fortunately the trailer doesn’t. I’m definitely in on that one and it’ll be Frankfurt on November 15th I think. Who’s in, too?

Links:

Official Website & Tickets (DE, CH, AT), Facebook, Warren Miller Entertainment on Youtube

If I were american I’d be there. Just to banish stupidity from the pole position of american export goods and reinstall arms on its rightful place!

Website: rallytorestoresanity.com
Facebook: [...]/pages/Rally-to-Restore-Sanity/118934204828981
Video: http://www.thedailyshow.com/[...]/rally-to-restore-sanity

DMFCam Protoype

As I wrote in project summer skiing my tutor and me did a trip to Zermatt the 25th of August. Purpose was a final test of my diploma project – the DMFCam. Though we started from Lausanne at 4:00 a.m. the trip was absolutely worth getting up that early. When we arrived on top of the small Matterhorn round about 8:00 a.m. we faced perfect conditions for testing. I’m talking about a solid snow cover, and the bluest sky I’ve seen in a while. The amount of people on the slopes was just right to have enough space but also be abled to provoke some tracking interferences. Unfortunately this meant waiting in the crowd for almost 15 minutes and another 10 in the lift between each run. It turned out that 4 world cup teams had a training day there and that all their staff joined too. To me it seemed like everyone of them was wearing a red suit or jacket which was kind of scary in the first place as we had prepared on tracking my friend Lutz wearing, guess what, a red jacket! But the tests performed surprisingly well considering all the things that could have gone wrong. And the reaction of the people was also funny to watch. All in all it was just prefect! Watch it fullscreen or maximized in youtube, it’s almost HD resolution.

I’ll do a second video that will be more focused on the scientific part, but here are some short facts you should know about:

• tracking results start at 4:26min
• most of the time I don’t look at Lutz (my friend in the red jacket). The cam is adjusting itself to him.
• the video shows a 135 degree view angle but the tracking was (for technical reasons) only performed on the inner 70 degree which is a little less than a third of this video’s resolution
• due to a bug in a used library I could only use a sixth of the possible framerate for tracking (so 8 to 11 fps).

I was just editing the videos from the evaluation trip to Zermatt as I found this old clip on the cam. I wonder why I didn’t attach it to the published demo video??? … maybe because nothing was working when I tested the “stupid helmet” inside before the demo. In Zermatt it turned out that the helment wasn’t stupid after all. Some short clips will prove that in a couple of days. Until then you can gaze at my pimples in full HD quality. Amazing features those cams provide around here! ^^

I’m currently preparing for a skiing trip to Zermatt on wednesday. Yes, I know it’s end of August and this doesn’t only sound weird – it also feels a little decadent. Maybe I should bring my shorts! The occasion is some final evaluation of my DMFCam (the subject of my diploma thesis) and it turned out that Zermatt Tourism has scraped up the last freckles of snow.
The thesis itself is proceeding pretty well and the algorithm works quite stable in a defined environment though a bug in OpenCV reduces the performance a lot. In other words: don’t move too fast. I’m curious about how the system finally behaves in a winter sports environment. I really hope to get some nice shots like filming someone following me on the slopes. We’ll pack an extra camera to document on that trip and of course all the glitches in between.
The only thing left to say is that I’m really excited to ski the Matterhorn, test my stuff and fulfill my part in the destruction of alpine glaciers. Wish me good luck so I don’t destroy the hardware five minutes after the start.

Sometimes sexism is based on inconvinient facts

Last weekend we teamed up with some friends from ETH Zürich to conquer the Alps around Saas Fee. All in all the trip was just amazing. The first day brought us via a moderate via ferrata to the peak of Mittaghorn and then back down to a nice  camp site in Saas Grund. After a pretty cold night we started early to catch the first sunrays on our way to the Jägihorn which has some kind of impressive via ferrata. In general it requires moderate to advanced climbing skills but there was also an optional path that was pretty scary. When you see the pics there’s no need to explain anything.

After a record speed descent back to the gondola station which should take us back to Saas Grund we were lucky to get a Trotti for every one of us. That is a special kind of scooter with really thick wheels and a sooooooooooo-much-fun-factor.  I didn’t expect that because it sounded pretty much like a mountainbike tour when I was told. But I enjoyed almost every bump or curve on the 11km track down to the valley. After that ride we split into two groups – us heading back to Lausanne, and the others back to Zürich. When passing the Château de Chillon in Montreux we had a short stop to finish the day with a swim in Lake Geneva and a beautiful sundown shortly after. Unbelievable weekend – here’s some proof:

I’ve been a bit lazy with blogging the last weeks. Here are finally some Fotos of the Lab’s trip to Lac Tanay three weeks ago. It was a less sportive Weekend but we still hiked two Peaks nearby, the Grammont and Les Jumelles. On Grammont we were rewarded with an amazing view over Lake Geneva down to Lausanne and Montreux. On Les Jumelles it was really foggy but having a direkt view into Nirvana was worth the hike. And Lac Tanay itself is a little paradise which keeps average tourists away as cars are not allowed and the next parking lot is a tough walk below the scenery. But it can happen that a snake overtakes you while swimming once in a while. See for yourself:

Lac Tanay

When you talk to me and I affirmatively grunt or say “uh hu” from time to time – then it’s very likely that I’m not really listening to you. Instead it’s either Homer Simpson’s monkey that’s in my mind or one of the following playlist‘s songs: