CASA Archives - Digital Urban

MQTT Scroller for the Pimoroni Stellar Unicorn: THE: Time, Headlines and Environmental Information

Andy — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 08:49:16 +0000

Pimoroni make a range of LED matrix displays with Pi Pico W’s built in – previously we have used the large scale Pimoroni Galatic Unicorn and added a series of scripts on GitHub to allow it to scroll MQTT messages. Pimoroni have just released two new versions, the Cosmic Unicorn at 32 x 32 pixels and the Stellar Unicorn at 16 x 16 pixels, both of these are also pefect for scrolling information and as such we have updated our scripts and provided laser cut templates, firstly for the Stellar.

The code is set up around our THE: Time, Headlines and Envivronmental Information stream, this links in feeds from our own MQTT server, providing details on the time, news, weather and earthquake information. You can choose to leave this in place (good for a first test) or add your own MQTT feed. The code uses different coloured backgrounds for different text in feeds – ie News, Weather, Time, you can edit these accordingly to match your own feed. Our feed updates every couple of minutes, for a constant stream of information.

To set it all, all you need do it copy all the files to your Stellar Unicon using Thonny – edit config.py to add your Wifi and MQTT broker credentials.

Headover to our GitHub Repository to download the files.

The Case

Three files are provided to laser cut:

The laser cut front as pictured with Etching (THE: Time, Headlines, Environmental)
The laser cut front, minus text
Front cut for the clear acrylic

The work has been created as part of work at the Connected Environments Group at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London, the GitHub page has its own discussion forum if you would like to ask any questions or request changes to the code.

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Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year (Movie)

Andy — Thu, 19 Dec 2013 10:30:36 +0000

2013 has been quite a year for research – the Smart/Future Cities discussion has moved forward with a notable pace, new setups such as the Future Cities Catapult and the Smart London Report from the GLA are starting to drive the uptake. It has been a year of research around cities with multiple new grants, awards and PhD funding at The Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (home of digitalurban).

UCL Quad in the Snow London 2050

Of note in the literature is Mike Batty’s new book on The Science of Cities along with new papers in the CASA Working Paper Series – now up to number 194 and all available to download. We have launched a new MSc in Smart Cities and Urban Analytics as well as an MRes in Smart Cities to run along side the current MRes in Advanced Spatial Analysis and Visualisation, opening up a number of new routes to gain a Masters Degree at CASA. As a note to the season, our Christmas Movie is below:
2014 brings with it teaching of the Occulus Rift Virtual Reality Headset on our Masters courses, new research into the emotions of cities and a continuation of everything cities at CASA – from all @CASA and @digitalurban have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year….

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Two New Lecturer Posts in CASA – Closing Date 12th July

Andy — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 08:09:25 +0000

We are pleased to announce two new lecturer posts here at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis:
Lecturer in Urban Analytics- Ref:1345485
and
Lecturer in Spatial Modelling and Complexity – Ref:1345477

Closing Date 12 Jul 2013

Latest time for the submission of applications 2pm

About CASA

The Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) is an initiative within University College London to develop emerging computer technologies in several disciplines which deal with geography, space, location, and the built environment. As an interdisciplinary research centre expertise is drawn from archaeology, architecture, cartography, computer science, environmental science, geography, planning, remote sensing, mathematics, geomatic engineering, and transport studies. This generates a unique blend of personnel who operate from CASA and associated departments within UCL. CASA is a department within the Faculty of the Built Environment (http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk).
Salary
Salary will be dependent on experience. The minimum spine point for a Lecturer is Grade 7 spine point is 33 (currently £36,064 including London Weighting). Applicants with significant experience and research publications may be appointed on Grade 8.
How to Apply
To be considered for this position, please submit an electronic application, completing the UCL Application Form.
The online application system is accessible from: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/hr/jobs/
Full details of the posts and person specification can be found on the main UCL HR site: Lecturer in Urban Analytics and Lecturer in Spatial Modelling and Complexity

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UCL Live Campus Augmented Reality App – Created by Masters Students at CASA

Andy — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 08:23:03 +0000

UCLive is an Augmented Reality Map of UCL developed by students on the Masters in Advanced Spatial Analysis and Visualisation at CASA. Featuring live data, the augmented reality android app works by simply pointing your mobile device at any of the UCL maps across campus.
Running in Unity and mixing a number of GIS and Agent Based Modelling elements, the development is outlined below:

A three dimensional base model was created with SketchUp on top of the UCL campus map;
Moving agents and transports are added into the application to show local bus and tube routes;
Sounds are embedded into the application from the UCL Soundcloud;
Online data on buildings, Twitter and PC Cluster availability – live;
The user’s location is shown in the application map.

Augmented Reality UCL Map

Produced by Ayana Kito ( http://3rdplat.blogspot.co.uk ), Balamurgan Soundararaj ( http://geoidin.wordpress.com ), Daniel Lam ( http://spatiametrics.wordpress.com ) and Nicola Clark (http://cityofblindinglights.org ) it represents the output of the final visualisation project on the masters course. The movie illustrates the app in action:
Take a look at the main UCLive page for full details and updates, we are currently exploring next steps to move the app towards release on Android and iOS.
You can still apply for 2013/14 entry to the MRes in Advanced Spatial Analysis and Visualisation the final full time deadline for applications: August 2nd.

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