Albert Cardona is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of California Los Angeles. His current research work targets the 3D modeling of the fine microarchitecture of the fruit fly brain neuropile, i.e. the fine structure of neuronal arborizations and synaptic connections. His tools range from pure programming in python, C and java to build powerful image processing software packages, to wet research involving confocal and transmission electron microscopes, and a variety of cell and molecular biology techniques.
Albert Cardona's webpage:
www.mcdb.ucla.edu/research/hartenstein/acardona/
How to setup a game that simulates a real world environment, and how to control Blender's game engine from external programs.
In particular:
- how to setup the game logic appropriately for external two-way control;
- how to use python scripts to talk to external programs using python sockets;
- how to store state in python scripts during the game engine's execution;
- how to craft C python modules for use during the game engine execution;
- and how to capture the OpenGL buffer in the game engine's screen for pixel processing.
For illustration the Monster Truck simulation has been showed. Albert built it at the neuromorphic Engineering Workshop 2007, in Telluride, Colorado (USA). The Monster Truck is a real remote controlled car which sports a silicon retina for visual input, and a built-in small Sony vaio running the jAER: a Java program implementing the Address Event-based Representation system. The jAER processes sensory events without a clock, asynchronously, using neuromorphic principles (i.e. emulating the way neurons work).The simulation he build creates synthetic events from the game engine's OpenGL screen buffer.
A line recognition system coupled with a driver unit is capable of driving the car along a path painted in the pavement. The simulator I built in Blender enables us to test and develop our image recognition and car steering software in a variety of textured and object-enriched 3D environments.
Toby Delbruck and his Monster Truck:
www.mcdb.ucla.edu/research/hartenstein/acardona/viewer.html
A snapshot of the first version of the simulated Monster Truck, in Blender + jAER:
www.mcdb.ucla.edu/Research/Hartenstein/acardona/img/monster_truck_blender_jAER.png
The jAER and blender files involved in the Monster Truck simulation:
https://jaer.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/jaer/trunk (svn project)
The jAER guide:
Neuromorphic Engineering Workshop 2007:
https://neuromorphs.net/ws2007/
Source files Albert used:
https://jaer.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/jaer/trunk/blender/