Week #795
On Thursday we had an idea for camera filter. It has based partly on Hatch Show Prints and partly on Gradient overlay photos. It is a pretty easy effect to replicate in any image editing software. You have your base image, convert it to black and white, adjust the contrast/brightness to taste. Then on a second layer add a gradient and change the blend mode to “screen”. Even though this is easy to do in software, it is also fun to see it being applied in realtime with the colors you choose. This allow you to better compose the image and quicker to snap and share.
We’re trying to wrap-up a few projects before starting a new one. Several months ago we were brought onboard to just “Update an API in an app” which lead to a MUCH bigger mess. We re-wrote the whole thing, changed the API 2 or 3 more times and switched backend partners. This week, we finally got to the state where we can be “done”. It is now their job to turn this prototype into a product. They plan on raising money and building a team around the idea. It’s be great to help, but now we need to move to other projects.
For the WebRTC project, we’ve added more sample content. We’re experimenting with vertical video content and all the samples we can find are “shorts”, so we had to manually crop some longer videos into a vertical format as a test.
We published UBS-C Non-Power Delivery, because we’re always trying to optimize our travel cable carry and this threw a wrench in the gears!
The bigger project we’re moving into is a result of our trip to Miami. We presented and pitched some prototype ideas on the request of a client. Their internal team now needs to make the call to use this new platform or a more expensive existing one. They are under massive deadline pressure, so it makes sense to go with what works. We’ve split the project into 4 parts and we’ve got the green light on the first part (not our team), the second part is controlling a bunch of LEDs. It looks like we can start exploring using an ESP32 and string of LEDs to get an iOS app to turn them on or off on demand. The 3rd part is the proper web admin tool and iOS apps. The 4th part is integrating their CRM of choice into the web app to keep things in sync. They definitely want todo steps 3 & 4, but maybe not for any summer deadlines.
Week #796
This is another short week here in Iceland. Thursday is a public holiday and Friday is a write-off as well.
Monday turned out to be a day full of follow-up meetings on various projects: 11:00, 12:00, 14:00, 15:30, & 20:00! A lot was accomplished and it unblocked us to continue the rest of the week.
Tuesday started with an early meeting. We needed a tool to manage phrases in an upcoming game prototype. We could do it in the Unity editor, but we decided not too since that would be a bit bulky for someone to do quick ‘live-ops’ edits. Instead, we built a quick PHP website with an sqlite backend to manage these phrases. With a JSON dump we can now easily import into the Unity project and even push changes back to the website.
In the background to all these tasks, we still have two lingering projects. Last week we tried to finish-up everything for 1 small iOS app, but this week we got a request to add 3 more small features. It depends on some backend changes (which we’re not part of) but then we can implement what’s needed.
The other software project still has not officially been green-lit, so we’re working on it enough to show progress, but it can’t take all of our time right now either.
We continue to work on the Gradient Camera app, which has been renamed to Split-fount. It’s not a name that rolls off the tongue, so we wouldn’t say it’s final, but it does better explain what it does.
We also settled on 11 color gradient options. They run the spectrum and offer bright options that make an impact. We’re very happy with these options and will continue to snap more photos as tests, but we don’t expect to expand or change these much.
We also added an “invert” option. We were finding that on grey, dreary days, the sky was so white in the photos we never really say the top gradient color. When you invert the image, it flips the black and white image to a negative and then applies the screen gradient to that. It is a completely different look and feel.
This all can be done in post-production, but there is something magical about framing your shot and seeing how the final product will look. You change your angle, position and composition to make sure you capture the feeling you want.
Bric-à-brac
Our friend Andr3 alerted us to this posted entitled: Welcome The Entire World. This is in reference to a presentation we gave at Codebits in Lisbon, Portugal, back in 02009. You can read the back story for Welcome the Entire Land. It was one of those follies that has somehow struck a cord with folks!