Datasets: First Attempt

Last Sunday, I decided to take a break from studying for final exams and take some photos for my datasets. I've uploaded the images to my imagestation.com account. These images were taken on December 3, between 1:30 and 2:30 pm with my Sony Cybershot DSC-W1. Serge recommended keeping the internal camera parameters constant across all photos (per sculpture) to make calibration easier, so I turned off auto-focus and flash.

Red Shoe (focus: 3.0m, 85 images)
Sungod (focus: 7.0m, 40 images)
Bear (focus: 7.0m, 43 images)

I learned several things while taking these photos. First of all, 2 in the afternoon is probably not the best time to take photos during the winter since it gets dark quite fast. 9 or 10am would be a "brighter" time. Second, each of the three sculptures has at least one tree in its vicinity that prevents me from taking unobstructed pictures of the entire sculpture. When I was taking photos of the Bear, the sun was reflecting from the windows of the CSE building onto the back of the Bear, making it much brighter than the rest of the sculpture. Also, lens-flare was a problem when I was taking photos of Sungod.

I may try taking the photos on a cloudy day because I suspect the ambient lighting might better illuminate the sculptures and help to reduce lens-flare and the lighting caused by reflections. But it may be worth it to use these photos anyway since the problems I encountered are the same problems other users would have using my application. Anyway, the plan is to use testsets for now and then retake the photos when the time comes if necessary.