Coding Challenge
Ok, LAVA Members You think you've got what it takes? Do you want to own a very desirable Grey LAVA T-shirt and White Mug?

All you need to do is participate and win our first official LAVA coding challenge.

Challenge Description:
Model the ripple effects of moving a mouse over a liquid.
Download the following AVI movie to view an example of the challenge.
 TSVN_waves_demo2.zip ( 639.65K ) Number of downloads: 1109

The minimum requirement is that your mouse disturbs the background image when hovered over it. The disturbance must be as close as possible to that of a liquid (ripples). The size of the image must be 500px wide by 200px height. You may use IMAQ tools and viewers, however the goal is to accomplish this challenge using the default picture control that comes with LabVIEW. If you know of a better native way to do this in LabVIEW, go right a head.

For bonus points you can implement the following features:

1. Ability to load any user defined image (jpg or gif).
2. Hovering the mouse over the image produces a light ripple effect. Click and drag the mouse produces a more pronounced ripple effect (waves).
3. The liquid density can be configurable.
4. Include random droplets of rain.
5. Include wind effects.
6. Include falling leaves.

The toplevel VI submited must be named Making_Waves.vi and can be stored in an llb file if desired. The use of sub-vi's is allowed. Please include them all. Scores for this competition will be based first and foremost on the functionality of your model and realism. They will also be based upon coding style. For help with coding style, see Chapter 6 of the LabVIEW Development Guidelines attached:  lv_style_guide.pdf ( 848.79K ) Number of downloads: 1137

Note:

• All coding must be done in LabVIEW.
• No external code, DLLs, CINs, exes, ActiveX, .NET, etc (DLL's or libraries that are part of the core LabVIEW are allowed)
• Have fun!

Submit all solutions to: codingchallenge@lavausergroup.org. Do not post them to this thread. The deadline is Nov. 30th 2005. You can use this existing thread to discuss the challenge or to ask questions.

Good luck!
PS. The winner will have the choice of showing a special icon next to their name on the Forums. They will also have a special signature image. The details of these images will be revealed soon.

Hmm.. every participant gets a t-shirt and a mug? Or am I thinking wishfully?

-Khalid

Wishfully... Read again....

This is more work than one would think at first glance.

Aren't all software projects

I've been thinking about texture mapping the image onto a surface and using the 3D plot to display it.

The plan is to warp the surface to simulate the wave motion.

So far I have been able to get RGB images displayed in the 3D display
(but only a flat surface, in 2D right now).

The big challenge there was the colormap, and I'm still not pleased with the display.
It looks like several colors are being clumped into one even though the image looks very nice in the PICTURE display.

Anyone have any thoughts on how to get better color mapping in my 3D plot?

I suggest you not use 3D plotting. Just a suggestion. It is not actually such a hugely complicated problem which is why people have coded it and added it to things like the logo animation that was posted. Look around a little, there's good info out there on how to do this without using a 3d mapping/rendering to make it look right.

Michael:

You mention in the challenge "the goal is to accomplish this challenge using the default picture control that comes with LabVIEW. If you know of a better native way to do this in LabVIEW, go right a head."

My version of LabVIEW 7.1.1 has several PICTURE FUNCTIONS that (according to the LabVIEW help documentation) are "NOT INCLUDED IN BASE PACKAGE".

I am not avoiding use of these picture functions in my coding efforts. I hope these are not the "IMAQ TOOLS and VIEWERS" you prefer us to avoid.

This is alright. The picture functions you mention are fine.

Is is ok to use vi's from OpenG or vi's derived from one of them them?
(if the code is included in the llb you submit).

Of course, no problem.

I also ment to ask if I can make more than one submission?
(first-try-in-case-I-don't-have-time-later submission, possibly followed by a refinement)?java script:emoticon(':clock:', 'smid_13')
smilie
Would all submissions count or only the last one? (can one person get first and second prize?)java script:emoticon(':rolleyes:', 'smid_22')
smilie

I'll list the winner and probably the next several runner ups. You can submit as many as you want until the deadline and I'll pick the best.

I know I should not send my submission here but I was not able to send it to codingchallenge@lavausergroup.org since it is a standalone executable

Anyway, if we all agree, this is just for fun. Right ? So find below my submision. Heu... Yes, I know I'm all wrong since it is all done with LabWindows/CVI but anyway it was fun to do some coding this week-end

Give it a try :
Put the .exe (no virus, I promise) in a /temp directory and double click on water.exe
You may need CVI 7.1 runtime engine but for what I know it comes with CVI and MAX

Once the application window in on the screen, select a bmp file and move the mouse over the picture
While the application is running, using the file menu, you can pick another bmp file. Don't pick a big one because the application is then quite slow.

The making of :
- it is all in CVI
- as you see, nothing else than the exe is required and the size of the .exe is quite reasonnable (40 KB)
- no external DLL nor IMAQ Vision lib involved. It's all about pixel arithmetic
- the code use 3 threads.
- Double check but the processor load should be acceptable on an "up to date" PC
- the source code is splitted in two .c files (200 lines and 130 lines respectively)

Have fun and let me know about my "wrong" answer, Philippe

[Edit: Michael Aivaliotis: I removed the attachement]

This post has been edited by Michael_Aivaliotis: Oct 25 2005, 04:00 PM

For the paranoid, I'll confirm it's a CVI executable, no virus per the latest version of Symantec.

I like it... I think it looks very realistic. As with most things of this nature, it runs great when the pixel count is low.