MSEC Multimedia Elective, Fall 2002, Homework 7: Synthetic Interview Integration

Due December 10, 2002

Assignment Requirements

For this homework you will be creating a synthetic interview, using the video files from the last assignment. A synthetic interview is an interactive simulation where user questions are answered by a life-like video persona. Possible applications for this technology range from entertainment uses to to answering frequently asked customer service questions. The following steps are necessary to create your synthetic interview:

    1. Compile the list of questions from the last homework into one text file called questionClips.txt that should look like the one in http://peso.ecom.cmu.edu/~hauptmann/questionsClip.txt. You should have an average of at least 3 questions for each video clip answer. The format requires the video file name as the first item on a line and the 'question' on the rest of the line. One video answer can have multiple questions. You should avoid punctuation or blank lines in the question file. 
      The question file must have the form "<videofilename> text of the question" and typically looks like this:
      psy01.avi what is your name
      psy01.avi what are you called
      psy02.avi when were you born
      psy02.avi what was your birthday
      ...
    2. Login to peso.ecom.cmu.edu using your login id and the password as provided earlier. Ty van den Akker has your password if you have forgotten.
    3. On peso.ecom.cmu.edu, create a directory called "cgi-bin" inside your public_html directory. To do this in unix, login, then type "mkdir public_html/cgi-bin". To ensure the proper permissions are set, also type "chmod 755 public_html/cgi-bin" at the command prompt. Ftp or otherwise copy your questionsClip.txt file from the first step into this public_html/cgi-bin directory. To make sure the right file permissions are set, type "chmod 755 questionsClip.txt" when you are in that directory. For simplicity I have copied some sample video files to my public_html directory on peso as well. Look at the files and their permissions on peso in /raid0/home/hauptmann/public_html and /raid0/home/hauptmann/public_html/cgi-bin as an example of what the files look like and where they are.
    4. Copy the provided template code in http://peso.ecom.cmu.edu/~hauptmann/si.cgi written in Perl for a synthetic interview, to your account on peso into the cgi-bin directory that you have created. Modify this file to change all references of "http://peso.ecom.cmu.edu/~hauptmann" to be wherever your video files are on the web. Make sure the permissions are properly set with "chmod 755 si.cgi", they should be identical to the permissions for in the hauptmann/public_html/cgi-bin/si.cgi file
    5. If you have done everything right, you should be able to access http://peso.ecom.cmu.edu/~yourlogin/cgi-bin/si.pl and actually have a talk with a synthetic version of yourself. 
      A fake example of what it might look like using random video clips and the above questionsClip.txt file is in http://peso.ecom.cmu.edu/~hauptmann/cgi-bin/si.cgi

Common problems in past years have included:
    - Not having the files permissions set properly  (chmod 755 * will fix this).
    - The question file and video files must also be readable  (chmod 755 * will fix this).
    - Specifying file paths incorrectly. The code must point to the right video files in one directory.
    - Question files are not in the correct format, include punctuation, blank lines or empty lines after the end of the last text line

To get a grade better than "B": Modify the si.cgi template code in any way you want to make the interview more appealing. This could include adding "advertising", changing colors, better initial layout and graphics, synchronized media, a special video clip for when there is no answer, background images and sounds, flash animations, etc. You can also improve the program if you like. Feel free to be creative. Make sure you tell us what you changed from the standard template.