BHIC Tangible Landscape

Turn on the interactive system for Coastal Game

• Start the computer (power button in the upper right corner).
• Start the projector (using power button on the remote control).
• To start GRASS GIS, use second icon from top in the top left corner (the icon is green and white).
• Select BH_Island as Location, and coastal_game as Mapset (should be preselected from the last time), press Start GRASS session.
• In case a dialog with title “Lock file found” pops up, click on Yes and then a second dialog pops up, click Yes again.
• Open existing workspace in the toolbar in the top part of the window (icon with arrow up), alternatively use Ctrl+O shortcut or File > Workspace > Open.
• Find file TL_analysis > coastal_game.gxw (it should be also in the Recently Used files)
  • Map Display window with the map should start placed on the model and Layer Manager on the laptop screen.
• You need to grab one side of the window and move it a little bit (just few pixels, e.g. one) so that the map covers the whole model - the white space disappears (there is a bug which we need to workaround here).
• Go to Console in Layer Manager, type g.gui.tangible and press Enter.
  • If you already did that before, press just arrow up which will show the previous command - it should be g.gui.tangible; press Enter.
• Values in the Scanning tab are the ones previously entered.
• Press Scan once to make sure it works and get a fresh scan.
  • The dark terminal window will show messages about Kinect (scanner) device connected and working.
• Show the raster layer called scan to see what is scanned.
• As long as the area between the dunes are the same color, you are good.
• If the colors are different, slightly rotate the scanner.
• In the Analysis tab
  • Check that there is file .../TL_analysis/coastal_game.py.
• See also:
  • Coastal game
  • Using the system

Layers in the Layer Manager

• you can show and hide individual layers using checking and unchecking the checkbox on the left from layer name
• order of the layers influences which are at the top
• General layers:
  • calm_ocean - water when the ocean is calm
  • transportation - roads
• Layers related to the game:
  • flooded - flooded buildings
  • lake - the storm water
  • breach - randomly generated arrow showing where to breach the dune
  • score - text showing rounds and number of flooded homes
    • Reset button removes all text for old rounds.
    • The format is: round number - colon - number of flooded homes, e.g. 2: 8 for second round and eight flooded homes.
    • Result is accumulated for subsequent games/rounds.
  • When you start GRASS GIS these layers will be the ones from the last previously played game.

Playing the Coastal Flooding Game

• Go to Flooding tab in the Tangible Landscape window.
• At the beginning show buildings and transportation layers.
• Scan once in the Analysis tab
• Reset in the Flooding tab to remove records from the previous games/rounds.
• Give sand (budget) to the player.
  • people often add more sand to the dune
    • this does not help because of how the game is set up
    • the real world analogy is that if we would know it needed reinforcement, we would already do that
  • sand barriers/dunes must be thick enough, people often build thin barriers to save sand
    • scanner won't see them
    • the real world analogy is that dune must be thick or dense enough to hold the water
• Push Breach button to generate new position for the breach.
  • Show the breach layer by checking it in the Layer Manager.
  • Make breach in sand where the arrow points.
  • Note that the Breach button and the arrow are just for getting a random position where to make a breach. They are not part of the analysis and you can make a breach at different place or multiple breaches.
• Press the Run button to run the analysis.
• Show lake, flooded and score layers.
• Optionally, before running another game/round,hide the storm-related layers.
• Fill breach before the next round.
  • Alternatively, you can be adding more breaches.
• For the next round, let a different person or give more sand to the same person.
• Continue with the Breach button and make (physical) breach in sand.

The computational model for Coastal Game

It is a reduced complexity (i.e. simple) model for coastal flooding based on the water level or the level of the waves during a storm event which floods everything reachable by the water at the given level. Turn off the interactive system

• Close the GRASS window from the layer manager.
  • It asks if you want to close GUI or quit GRASS GIS, select Quit GRASS GIS. Note: if you close GRASS otherwise (close terminal which shuts down the entire application), the clean up procedures won’t happen resulting in a dialog “Lock file found”, see solution during application start.
• Turn off the computer or put it to sleep
  • Use the power symbol in the upper right corner of the screen. It will asks you for confirmation.
  • Suspend from the menu (not by closing the lid). Once it is suspended you can close the lid.
  • Turn off the projector after suspending the computer.
• Turn off projector using the projector remote control, click power twice.
  • If you want to unplug the electricity, let the projector cool down first (there is a small indicator of the cooling at the projector itself - the power button on the projector is flashing red - which is not well visible when the projector is high). After few minutes after shutting it down, it should be save to unplug it.

Values for the Scanning tab

Field	Value	When to change
Scanned raster	scan	No need to change it
Reference DEM	BH_ground_1m_base	Changed only if we change data
Z exaggeration	4	When (exaggeration of) the model changes
Number of scans	2	More for more precise, less for faster
Rotation	180	Always the same for usual setup
Smoothing	7	More for smoother, less for faster
Resolution	2	Less for more precise, more for faster
Limit vertically	60 87	When setup changed vertically
Trim scan NSEW	20 42 38 45	When setup changed horizontally
Trim tolerance	0.3	No need to change it

Trim scan (NSEW) is measured from the center of the scanner. It is needed when the space around the model is not clear from other things (like laptop, piles of sand) but in any case must include the model. To set the values change the vertical limits to something wider (remember what you had there before) and you should then see some things placed on the table around the model as scanned and projected over the model. This will help you to see how far you are scanning and how much you want to trim. Do not trim too much to be sure you include the whole model. At the end, set the vertical limits back to the original values.

Troubleshooting

• sometimes scanner does not scan
  • in the terminal it may show no device connected or some other message
  • unplug scanner from power to reboot (use the electric cable to disconnect)
• scanning doesn't finish
  • Tangible Landscape window is all grayed out
  • output in the terminal is one line over and over again
  • go to Dash (...) or Launcher and start System Monitor
  • find process called r.in.kinect
  • right click and select Kill
• See also: Troubleshooting

If troubleshooting doesn’t help

• Contact your collaborators at NCSU or open an issue in this repository.
  • Include take a picture of the actual model and setup.
  • Take a screenshot of the screen (Prt Sc button on the keyboard).

Interactive system setup

• See: Setup

Animation model

• animation showing changes in coastline from 18.. to 2014
• physical model is based on 2014 topography data
• elevations magnified/exaggerated 10 times
• See also: https://github.com/petrasovaa/BH-Island-animation

Animation model projector setup

• Ratio of the projector:
• Auto-keystone off
• Keystone: -2

Raspberry Pi notes

Notes for advanced setup of the Raspberry Pi computer. See also:

• Raspberry Pi

Moving system menu bar

The system menu bar (which starts with Menu with a raspberry picture) can be moved around using right click on the empty space in the bar and selecting Panel Settings. Change the screen edge to stick it to using Edge selection under Position.

Preventing screen from going to sleep

These are the steps done for the Raspberry Pi computer.

Using the sudo and cp commands make a backup copy of the settings which are stored in a text file:

sudo cp /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.backup

Open the file /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf using sudo command and nano editor:

sudo nano /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

Use arrows to scroll down and find line

[SeatDefaults]

and then find a following line which says:

#xserver-command=X

and change it to:

xserver-command=X -s 0 -dpms

We removed # at the beginning to active the line and set the parameters which disable screen and power saving features. Use Ctrl+X followed by Y and Enter to save the file.

Coastal Game	Animation Setup