Ah, so we submitted the project successfully.... somehow managed to, thanks to college for keeping us so tight with the schedules.

And the results are in, we're at some 67/100 points. Not bad!

What lies ahead? I guess we should port it to Python and release the source so that anyone can start playing around, maybe build more, move ahead with his/her own fork!

Soon...

As for now you can get the source here - http://spacelock.madetokill.com/SpaceLockmodules.zip

adios

Ah, major work in SpaceLock's UI got over this weekend. No wonder everyone has buried their heads into books, lab reports and other things these days. But, I can't leave it just like that, there is loads to be done to make it user friendly, there are no tool tips to hint the user, no documentation to guide them. Given the very less amount of time we've got (end sem starts next monday!) I guess we won't be able to do all that, including the testing.
The code still looks horrible, things can be organized properly, redundant pieces here and there can be packed into functions, variable names can be changed to make some sense, name of the controls too can be changed to make some sense. But, again no time for that too.
So, finally planning an Alpha version, not so user friendly, neither developer friendly, so no code for now!
Loads to do, adios!

Not much progress made today -

• Tried SQL server compact edition (thought it might be a ripped of 3 MB edition of kam chalau SQL server), turned out something else, so back with SQL EXPRESS 2008 now.
• Tested if the MDF database file can be accessed by ASP.NET and C# programs simultaneously - turned out that it is possible. Just have to take care of closing the connections after every small use.
• Of course LINQ comes into picture here too, easing the access to data
• Prabhat did major work with the Control module - is waiting for the database design to get over.
• AVR-CDC came along with driver issues, we realized that people won't be dedicating a laptop for surveillance in most of the cases, so USB is out of question unless AVR-CDC works well.
• If it doesn't - enter, parallel ports
• Harsha got the Radar style motion detectors working... working on video writer too.
• And, as I write, I feel like cooking some coffee and finishing the database and controllers by the time Prabhat wakes up.
  

It seems we gotta decide how to go about fixing the threshold values for motion detection.
Some approaches -

• Fix it, keep it constant -- doesn't give flexibility to the user
• Let user select from
  
  • 3 levels of threshold, whatever suits best for the environment.
• Let the user select from the 2
  
  • 3 levels, and also
    
  • provide advanced options, for geeks and interested beings to set it optimally for their workplace.
• Or lets have
  
  • 3 levels of threshold for quick selection
  • an advanced option (slidebar/textbox) for advanced users to set it
  • A diagnostic style (question answer based) test to let user select the best
    Eg. asking the user to perform action, detect motion by increasing/decreasing the threshold on the basis of user feedback and fixing it as result of test
    

I believe 3rd option is good, but the 'question answer based' threshold fixing should be optional, same for 'advanced' option. Let the user see 3 levels of thresholds determined best by our experiments, by running the system under tubelight, window light, sunlight, evening, college etc.
And for seekers of perfection, the other 2 options.

Letme know your opinion over this...

just add comments / append this post

For SpaceLock's Web Interface, I've started using LINQ to SQL. LINQ stands for LanguageINtegratedQuery. You no longer put SQL queries into strings and drive them using various objects provided System.Data.sqlConnection. Instead, these queries become a part of your code itself. Yes, we're talking about integration as the name implies. Read more here to see how LINQ minimized the code and improved security.
While the listed code on the blog that uses classical SQL query is still vulnerable to lot of tricks.

Finally the designing phase of web interface for SpaceLock is done...
Time for a short Anime break.... then probably some walk to stretch out...

Night is the time for Database and Controllers... Hope to work upon the M-Jpeg Streamer from tomorrow.

Adios

Testing a Web App on different environments is necessary. And I'm happy to announce that the design for SpaceLock's web interface looks ditto on a Windows XP machine with IE6. Here are the results-