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Post by X7[Q2C] on Oct 22, 2009 4:12:50 GMT -5
FW: Science with Quark
quark.sourceforge.net/forums/index.php?topic=372.0
Since I'm not sure who to send this to specifically, i thought i'd just post a general note on the forums here.
I'm a graduate student at Princeton university, and I'd like to thank the general quark community for all the work they have put into this project, as it has been a large help in the research my laboratory is conducting. Last week we published a paper on using Quake 2 as the basis for a virtual reality system for mice, and we designed all of our experiments using Quark. You can read a popular summary of the research on Wired (www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/10/mouse-virtual-reality/) or the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8308537.stm). Note the video is not really the experiment in the paper, and you should not be convinced the mouse in navigating based solely on that video.. its mostly just to give people a sense of what the setup is and how it works. The paper has much more convincing data than shown there.
I can't underestimate the time and effort Quark saved us in the process. We have many people in the lab, with a wide range of programming abilities, but everyone is able to learn the basics of how Quark words and design their own custom experiments in a matter of weeks without much training. In fact, the environment used most extensively used in the paper was conceived over lunch, and implemented that same afternoon. A testament to how easy Quark is to use.
Its also been great to customize.. and not just with the god awful ugly high contrast textures we like to use on our walls. I swear we are not trying to make the environments ugly, its just high contrast is easier for mice to see, but with lots of extra options we want to apply to triggers and such.
Open source software has been an incredible boon to our scientific pursuits, and I'd like to thank everyone in the community that has contributed to this effort. I hope you are pleasantly surprised to find out your efforts have lead to something beyond video games.
-Forrest Collman
quark.sourceforge.net/forums/index.php?topic=372.0
fcollman said:
Since I'm not sure who to send this to specifically, i thought i'd just post a general note on the forums here.
I'm a graduate student at Princeton university, and I'd like to thank the general quark community for all the work they have put into this project, as it has been a large help in the research my laboratory is conducting. Last week we published a paper on using Quake 2 as the basis for a virtual reality system for mice, and we designed all of our experiments using Quark. You can read a popular summary of the research on Wired (www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/10/mouse-virtual-reality/) or the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8308537.stm). Note the video is not really the experiment in the paper, and you should not be convinced the mouse in navigating based solely on that video.. its mostly just to give people a sense of what the setup is and how it works. The paper has much more convincing data than shown there.
I can't underestimate the time and effort Quark saved us in the process. We have many people in the lab, with a wide range of programming abilities, but everyone is able to learn the basics of how Quark words and design their own custom experiments in a matter of weeks without much training. In fact, the environment used most extensively used in the paper was conceived over lunch, and implemented that same afternoon. A testament to how easy Quark is to use.
Its also been great to customize.. and not just with the god awful ugly high contrast textures we like to use on our walls. I swear we are not trying to make the environments ugly, its just high contrast is easier for mice to see, but with lots of extra options we want to apply to triggers and such.
Open source software has been an incredible boon to our scientific pursuits, and I'd like to thank everyone in the community that has contributed to this effort. I hope you are pleasantly surprised to find out your efforts have lead to something beyond video games.
-Forrest Collman
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