http://www.dominikdeak.com/ Dom's Home Page: A personal site about programming, web development, electronics and other tech related stuff. http://www.dominikdeak.com/index.php?page=web-projects-clients This is a collection of commercial web projects that were commissioned by my clients. Screen shots and a brief description of each project is included. The latest project was a web development job for Testequip, and my portfolio also includes clients such as seven thousand oaks, MDS Partners, Amber Anderson, Veganpet and Vignette Press. Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500 web-projects-clients http://www.dominikdeak.com/index.php?page=theremin The theremin was invented nearly 100 years ago. This instrument captivated audiences worldwide when it was first demonstrated by its inventor, Lev Sergeivich Termen. Despite mainstream interest in the theremin had faded by 1938, the instrument remained popular amongst electronics enthusiasts and hobbyists alike. Fortunately, building a simple theremin is not an expensive enterprise; anyone with moderate electronics skills can build one for themselves. This article will demonstrate an analogue theremin that also incorporates a contact-less volume control feature, as seen on the original instrument. The theremin circuit performs quite well, considering the choice of components are of cheap variety, not to mention accessible. However, the design also leaves a lot of room for improvement—perhaps that will be revisited on another day. Sun, 24 May 2009 00:00:00 -0500 theremin http://www.dominikdeak.com/index.php?page=dots Recent research has shown that the human brain constantly switches between the two hemispheres. In essence, consciousness alternates from one hemisphere to another, in a cyclic fashion. Experiences, such as Motion-Induced Blindness and binocular rivalry, might be explained by the perceptual oscillations that occur in the brain. I have written a program that allows individuals to test themselves and observe the effects of brain hemisphere switching. Thu, 26 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0500 dots http://www.dominikdeak.com/index.php?page=web-projects-other In this article you will find examples of my personal web projects. Some of these projects resulted from various graphics design experimentations conducted in CSS. Screen shots are included and working examples are also available for those who wish to explore menu design in CSS. Sat, 12 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500 web-projects-other http://www.dominikdeak.com/index.php?page=web-projects-non-profit This is yet another collection of my web projects, although these were done for various communities and for non-profit. Examples include phpBB templates for a web forum, a party promotion web site, and a comprehensive Technology FAQ page targeted for people who experienced technical issues. Sat, 21 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0500 web-projects-non-profit http://www.dominikdeak.com/index.php?page=micro-mouse-project Imagine there is a large table that resembles a maze designed for a rodent. In front of you, there is a little robot, called the Micro Mouse. Your task is to equip this robot with the necessary hardware and software to give it some eyes (or ears if you like), and a brain necessary for navigating around the maze. We did just that, as part of our a third year Digital Systems project at Monash University. Details on how a robot, such as the Micro Mouse, can be rigged with ultrasonic sensors is presented here. The technology is surprisingly simple, although practical limitations can make ultrasonic sensing rather challenging. Fri, 20 Oct 2006 00:00:00 -0500 micro-mouse-project http://www.dominikdeak.com/index.php?page=wavelet-compression Atlantis Graphics, a software development company, was prototyping a new TV set-top box, which required an efficient video codec. To meet this criteria, I took the responsibility of implementing a video codec based on wavelet transforms. Wavelet compression is basically an encoding scheme founded on frequency sub-band coding. Transforming images into frequency sub-bands has the advantage of eliminating image block artifacts as seen in JPEG and MPEG compression algorithms. Furthermore, wavelet transforms can be very low cost in terms of computation and complexity, hence they are suitable for real-time encoding applications. Mon, 03 Apr 2006 00:00:00 -0500 wavelet-compression http://www.dominikdeak.com/index.php?page=frame-grabber-library The Frame Grabber Library was a run-time image processing library written in C++. The project was commissioned in 2002 by the CEMA laboratory at Monash University. The idea behind the project was to allow real-time filtering of video streams for special effects purposes. The video was either captured by a camera, or it was played back from a video file. The library used the QuickTime SDK for decoding video files and for interfacing with the capture device. Sun, 02 Apr 2006 00:00:00 -0600 frame-grabber-library http://www.dominikdeak.com/index.php?page=graphics-assignments Computer graphics assignments at Monash University were always fun, even though the time to complete them was very limited. The assignments in question were quite simple and don't stand up to today's benchmark of computer graphics. That said, such projects can be educational for those who are interested, hence I decided to release the source code under the GNU General Public License. Mon, 08 Sep 2003 00:00:00 -0500 graphics-assignments http://www.dominikdeak.com/index.php?page=panoramic-rendering Various methods exist for rendering panoramic images using computers. As part of my Honours Degree in Bachelor of Digital Systems, and under the supervision of the CEMA laboratory at Monash University (2001), I investigated another method for rendering panoramas by exploiting the symmetrical properties found in concave surfaces of revolution. Only a brief overview of the project is presented here. Those who wish to delve into the technical details of this project may download the thesis directly off the Monash web site: "Panoramic Rendering for Concave Surfaces of Revolution" (PDF, 3.2MB). Mon, 08 Sep 2003 00:00:00 -0500 panoramic-rendering