Week 3 - Photos for project documentation

Announce

  1. ASME Design Competition: Wednesday, May 30 More details TBA

  2. Beta Project funding for Spring: would you help a freshman, sophomore or junior?
    • How to apply (web page)
    • Information session, Wednesday, 4/18, 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM, EB 502H
    • Proposals due on Friday, 4/27, at noon, via email to Don Mueller muellerd@pdx.edu

  3. President Shoureshi speaks at ASME-sponsored event

    When: 6:30 - 8:00 PM, Wednesday, April 18, 2018 Where: Smith Memorial Student Union, Room 327. What: Presentation Title: The Future of Wearable Technology

    Please use the Registration Link: https://goo.gl/forms/oz5nuh9M6PVc8Lk02

    More details: https://www.pdx.edu/events/presentation-dr-rahmat-shoureshi-asme-fellow-and-president-psu-future-wearable-technology

  4. Consulting with Brad Helm

    Bradley Helm bhelm@pdx.edu will be available for consulting on Thursdays, from noon to 1:00 PM in EB 420.

Learning Objectives for this Class

After completing the activities in this class, students should be able to

  • Explain characteristics of effective photos and images used in engineering reports
  • Have at least one clear idea of an effective image for the final report

You can download the slides for the presentation on using photos for engineering documentation. Warning, it's a 50 MByte file.

Markdown Editors and Previewers

During the preceding class meeting I was asked about ways of previewing Markdown files in order to help with the homework assignment. The following list by operation system is an incomplete set of Markdown editors and previewers.

Note that the previewers will not be able to interpret the Jekyll processing commands embedded in the double curly brackets, e.g. {{ "/projects/images/capstone_team.jpg" | absolute_url }}.

For Windows

For Macintosh

For Linux

Rstudio is an integrated development environment for R. Rstudio is installed on computers in the MCECS network.

Rstudio can be used as an editor and previewer for the Markdown file you are creating for your web page assignment using these steps

  1. Launch R Studio
  2. Open the Markdown file, e.g., myteam.md
  3. Click the Preview button in the toolbar or select Preview from the File menu You can then edit the Markdown file and click Preview to view the changes.

Using Photos and Images in Reports

Outline

  1. Uses of images
  2. Language of images
  3. Techniques for creating good photos with and emphasis on mobile phones
    • Lighting
    • Depth of field
    • Stable platform

Refer to the slides for details.

Also refer to the slides on using photos to create document images from Lecture 3 in ME 491.

On-line Information on Phone Photography

There are many internet sources of advice on taking photos with your phone. A common list of recommendations is

  1. Make sure your lens is clean
  2. Be mindful of the light
  3. Hold your phone steady, by
    • bracing your elbows against your body, or
    • resting the phone on or against a solid support
  4. If available, use the touch-to-focus feature to make sure the primary subject is in focus
  5. If available, use the touch interface to adjust the brightness (exposure)
  6. Be mindful of composition: rule of thirds, leading lines, keep foreground objects in focus
  7. Consider buying an app that unlocks advanced features such as HDR and RAW capture if those features are available on your phone.

Remember that I am not advocating that you have to learn a lot of technical information about your phone to complete the Capstone sequence or become an effective engineer. The point – for ME 493 – is to know a little about making better pictures, especially since the use of photos is prevalent in technical documentation.

If you want to dig deeper, I recommend the Cameralabs blog which has Phone photography tips in a series of videos. Gordon Liang is very knowledgeable and provides good explanations of technical features without the hype. Start with the Exposure and Close up videos.

Of course there are many other sources of information.


Document updated 2018-04-03.

Go back to the Lectures page.