Another interesting essay from Donald Norman that states 5 simple rules on “How To Write an Effective Manual“.
One point e.g. is his advice that he manual should be activity-centered and many more information for Technical Communicators.
Also a lot of potential for Augmented Reality applications.
I just came across following post on one of my favorite Blender NewsSites http://www.blendernation.com/:
The pantograph was a special tool invented in the 1600’s to copy diagrams. Today, with the advent of tools such as CAD, computer-based tools have become the norm for designing and drafting. But where does Blender fit into this? Simple. Blender user rocketship has created a new plugin renderer called PantoGraph which can render your models not to a typical image file, but as Scalable Vector Graphics.
When one renders to PantoGraph, it generates a sleek vector version of your model. Vectors are a special method of defining imagery which use shapes rather than pixels, and therefore can be scaled indefinitely without loss of quality. As you can imagine, this is an extremely useful feature when drawing diagrams and designs.
The latest version of Pantograph supports:
* Hidden- line rendering
* Solid colors (with- and without alpha) only
* The ability to use simple closed, convex volumes to do a boolean “cut-away”
* Control over lineweight and color for:
o Silhouette
o Crease
o Mesh
o Hidden lines
* A simple GUI that allows the saving of pens and pen settingsrocketship has done his best to ensure that PantoGraph produces precise images which require very little in the way of post-processing. One of his inspirations was Edward Tufte’s concept of “Smallest Effective Difference,” and rocketship has tried to make PantoGraph produce a degree of useful subtlety which is not present in existing non-photorealistic (NPR) renderers. If you ever use Blender for architecture, or any other form of diagramming, consider giving PantoGraph a look. (To do post-processing on your new vector images, Inkscape is highly recommended, a terrific free SVG editor.)
PantoGraph v. 0.4 was just released, so this is the perfect time to check it out!
After some years of different rumours on Adobe FrameMaker, now version 8.0 finally is available. It is one of the real and most flexible authoring environments in technical documentation.
Between a list of different news for this software 2 features are of big interest for and reinforce my actual research and will need to be tested:
“Rich media support (New)
Create more engaging online documentation by incorporating 3D models, rich Adobe® Flash® Player compatible animations, and simulations created with Adobe Captivate™ software. Generate Adobe PDF files with live 3D models.DITA support (New)
Use a prebuilt DITA application to author, publish, and distribute topic-oriented information in XML and create DITA maps.”
In the online science section of the Austrian national public service broadcaster ORF an interesting interview with Prof. Dr. Alois Ferscha was recently published. Here he talks about the fact that he wants to integrate by means of Pervasive Computing technology into our First Life.
Like Donald A. Norman describes in his book the “The Invisible Computer” he is of the opinion that technology should be designed in a way that it gets integrated into everyday life hidden from sight. Both state clearly that we need therefore to find solutions and possibilities in ICT (information and communication technologies) and product design.
Second Life on the other side is seen by Alois Ferscha as a project, which is going diametric in the other direction in implementing Reality into Virtually.
From my point of view and following the Reality-Virtuality Continuum Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) could be a good solution between these 2 extremes. Worldwide researches in AR and MR technology look for ways and solutions to find and improve tracking, authoring and viewing software, input-/output-devices and usability. They look for pervasive and ubiquitous solutions to integrate this technology in different fields of application. From my academic background I also research for and I am interested in ways to apply AR/MR for technical communication and see the opportunity to improve this way e.g. technical documentation, technical (e-)education etc.
This “Open Source car” project seems to be very ambitious. It is interesting to see the gathering of the community to get prepared the direct work on the project. We will keep an eye on this and the decision on Open Source Tools.
Background of the OScar-project:
Release 0.2
It is the goal of the OScar Project to develop a car according to Open Source principles. In our opinion, a car is not a vehicle full of high-tech gadgets. Instead, we are looking for a simple and functional concept to spread mobility. Form follows function.Apart from that, OScar is not just a car. It is about new ways of mobility and the spreading of the Open Source idea in the real (physical) world. On this website, you will find a great community of developers and drivers who want to invent mobility anew and together.
The project started in 1999. In December 2005, it reached release 0.2. Starting in 2006, everyone is welcome to participate.
