Tag Archives: spring project

TANDEM (0.5)

Let’s build a GUI that combines the power of Google’s Tesseract OCR and FeatureExtractor.

The idea is to build an environment (web-based or standalone) where you can take your text overlayed object, toss it in, and have a save ready output file to take away with you. Generate the data you need to visualize, explore, parse apart, and build the story. There is an interesting dialogue between text and images happening in comics, children’s picture books, marketing materials, illustrated maps, illuminated manuscripts, etc. Get your data, understand the output variables in simple and easy to reference ways, and get back to finding your story.

  • Team Note: Be ready to learn. Everyone involved in this intimidating project will bleed through their role and engage in collaborative learning of each of the elements needed to complete the project. Developers must understand design, designers must understand branding, outreach/branding must understand how the thing works, and the project coordinator must understand how to get conversations rolling to hit deadlines.
  • Developer:  Bravery. Develop clean and clear code that will allow us to wrap our OCR and Image Processing Software as modules to be placed in the overall software. Working understanding of code and willingness to dedicate time to digging into what needs to be written to get this off the ground. Knowledge of Python or a single language at the very least.
  • Designer: Understand user interaction and develop aesthetically simple, intuitive interface. Understand design basics, have a working proficiency in Adobe Design programs. Also maintain brand identity in conjunction with Outreach Coordinator.
  • Outreach Coordinator: Social butterflies. We need community support. Work on creating a voice and an audience for this project. Using not only social media but having the ability to track where our message is working best. What tweets work, what outlets are giving good feedback. We need to make a communal conversation that helps us reach our goal.
  • Project Manager: Keep your hand on the pulse of the schedule, set deadlines, gather learning resources, keep open lines of communication between team members. I have so many people in mind for this and each one can potentially bring an entirely different outcome to the project. I want a project manager who wants to see this thing materialize.

Reassurance – Let’s say we build it in Python and Javascript – Here are key some pieces we can consider:

Google’s Tesseract OCR

Python-tesseract is a python wrapper for google’s Tesseract-OCR

FeatureExtractor (Let’s talk to Lev about this. It is one of his tools afterall.) –

PyJamas GUI Toolkit

#skillset@SteveReal

I tried to think about what I would bring to each of the roles. Here is my #skillset:

Project Management: I have 30 years of experience managing software development projects. This is such an obviously good fit, that I think I would prefer a role that is new to me and forces me to learn. I would gladly help out in the project management capacity.

Developer: I am a “baby” Python programmer, which is to say that I know the basics, but have little experience. I know a little R and have old experience (can you say COBOL?) developing code. I am quite tenacious at problem solving and learning new technology and have a pretty broad background at the conceptual level. I would enjoy this role.

Design/UX: In my career, I have quite a bit of experience in this area as it pertains to software usability. I have seen a project fail when it met all the requirements, but was hard to use. I am not a graphically talented person, so making a project “look beautiful” is not something I would be good at. I would be glad to play this role focusing on “ease of use”.

Outreach: I have limited ability to use social media. I am a Twitter and Facebook dabbler. I am dubious that this would be the best use of my labor.