From 23 to 27 October 2023, Justus Chlupka, Luka Condric, Noemi Finckh & Domenic Zöllner completed their BOGY internship at the Visualization Institute of the University of Stuttgart (VISUS). They were given an insight into the everyday life of a computer scientist and the world of programming. They were able to try out different technologies and work on their own projects. The internship was carried out as a cooperation between VISUS, the SFB-TRR 161 and the Cluster of Excellence IntCDC.
We - that is Domenic, Justus, Luka and Noemi - had our BOGY week at the VISUS (Visualization Institute) at the University of Stuttgart. In the following, we want to report on the experiences we gained there and the insights we came to in order to provide an understanding and hopefully make others want to do a BOGY in visualization research. The different days are each written from the perspective of one of the four of us. Have fun reading!
On Monday, we were first given a brief overview of the upcoming internship and the University of Stuttgart. Then we were allowed into a computer room (also called a "pool" there) and of course we were always allowed to ask all our questions (even if there weren't always too many). Apart from that, we started with the basics of the C# programming language in preparation for the coming days and had our first experience of finding our way around the gigantic campus and between the many buildings of the University of Stuttgart.
On Tuesday, we attended a lecture on data visualization in English. The lecture was very informative and interesting. We learned how to visualize data in an appealing and understandable way. Afterwards, we walked through the VISUS building and saw the Powerwall and the technology behind it. The Powerwall is a large projection screen that can display around 88 million pixels on an area of around six by two meters. We also saw other technologies such as servers, 3D printers and laser cutters. It was very interesting to see how these technologies are used at VISUS.
On Wednesday, we first attended a lecture on computer graphics, an introduction to the C++ programming language. We were then introduced to a project for visualizing music. For example, how VR glasses can be used to show which notes have been played correctly and which have not, or how a piece of music can be displayed in such a way that you can see whether it probably sounds good without having to listen to it. We were also told a lot about the opportunities - especially with a computer science degree - at the University of Stuttgart. After a visit to the Mensa, we were then given an introduction to Blender, a program for modeling 3D objects. We had a lot to do here, as Blender is quite a complex program with many functions and possibilities, be it for modeling, texturing or animating objects.
On Thursday, the day began with an introduction to the game development software Unity. We were given the task of using Unity to create the game TicTacToe. In order to be able to do this, we were given a sheet of paper with useful hints and tips. Of course, there was also a supervisor present who was familiar with Unity and who we could turn to if we had any questions. We then worked on this task for about three hours until it was 12 o'clock and we went to the Mensa for lunch. After the approximately one-hour lunch break, we went straight back to Unity and continued programming TicTacToe. Although we hadn't had anything to do with Unity before that day, we still managed to finish the game with the help of the supervisor and the task sheet. On this day we mainly learned the basics of programming with Unity and were very happy with our final result and we were amazed at how easy Unity can be.
On Friday we arrived at the VISUS building at 9:30 as usual and immediately started working on our program for a TicTacToe game. After we did this for about 2 hours and partly finished it, we went to the cafeteria. After we walked back, we were shown a demo of the HoloLens 1 from Microsoft. These are augmented reality glasses that you could see through, but also display additional virtual information and things. This was very fascinating as we had never seen anything like it before. You could place molecules freely in space and walk around them without them moving.
Conclusion
To sum up, we all really enjoyed the BOGY at the University of Stuttgart. We would generally recommend the internship to anyone who enjoys and is interested in programming, as this was the biggest part of this internship, but of course you should also have a little interest in the insights into AR. In the course of the internship, we all managed to gain a lot of experience in programming and expand our programming skills.
Justus Chlupka, Luka Condric, Noemi Finckh & Domenic Zöllner
More information (in German) can be found here.