Project Proposal for a Digital Photo Album, …whitmore/courses/ensc305/projects/2006/...February 5, 2006 Steve Whitmore School of Engineering Science Simon Fraser University Burnaby,

February 5, 2006 Steve Whitmore School of Engineering Science Simon Fraser University Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6 RE: ENSC 440 Project Proposal for a Digital Photo Album Dear Mr. Whitmore: The following document, Project Proposal for a Digital Photo Album, describes the purpose and goals of our ENSC 440 project along with various other aspects concerning the project. The project we wish to pursue will provide a large range of users the ability to easily store and view digital photographs on a screen that is approximately the same size as a conventional printed photograph. This proposal will provide an overview of our device, a description of sources for our motivation, resources, budget issues as well as a proposed schedule and team contributions. We will also briefly discuss how we compare to similar products that already exist in the market. Our company, Imago Solutions, consists of four creative engineers with strengths in different areas. The team includes Timothy Chueh, Albert King, Ali Rowshanaei, and Patty Sa. Sincerely,

Timothy Chueh Imago Solutions Corp. Enclosure: Project Proposal for a Digital Photo Album

Project Proposal for a

Digital Photo Album

Project Team:

Albert King

Ali Rowshanaei Patty Sa Timothy Chueh

Contact Person:

Timothy Chueh

[email protected]

Submitted to:

Steve Whitmore

Andrew Rawicz

Issued Date: February 6, 2006 Revision: 2.1

Proposal for a Digital Photo Album

Copyright © 2006, IMAGO Solutions Corp - i -

Executive Summary It is a reality now that digital cameras are the camera of choice for consumers. Digital cameras now outsell film cameras, and major manufactures have continued to make announcements regarding cut backs to their film divisions [1][2]. As the digital camera install base continues to grow, so does the market for digital camera accessories. Digital cameras have opened up new ways for photographers to share their photos. With personal computers, people can share their digital photographs with anyone on the internet. However, unlike popular purse sized photo albums that let you share your photos with people on spur of the moment occasions, digital photographs still need to be printed in order to be shared in a similar manner. Digital photography is also limited by memory to store photographs. You’re on a family vacation, snapping away with pictures, when suddenly you run out of space on your memory card. Unlike buying more rolls of film, you are faced with the dilemma of purchasing more costly memory or going through your camera and deleting the “less important” memories [3]. This document proposes a device designed to solve these two short comings of digital photography. The device will fill the need of the “aunt” or “grandma” who likes to carry some photographs of the family vacation or the grand children. In order for it to enter the desired market, it will be as easy to use as filling a photo album with photographs. Imago Solutions is composed of four engineering science students in a variety of disciplines. Our skills are diverse and encompass background in programming software for numerous platforms as well as working with and testing custom hardware. Our past experience with projects and courses has given us the necessary skills to undertake this project. We propose to complete a working prototype in a thirteen week period. In order to accomplish this, we will follow a tight schedule with the flexibility to adapt as necessary. Our preliminary budget for this project is $2000. The budget includes a contingency amount to cope with unpredictable circumstances. We will find funding from a variety of sources including our personal assets. Imago Solutions’ goal is to solve problems and deficiencies in life by applying new technologies to scenarios we face in day to day living. Our belief is that new technology does not have to be cutting edge nor creating its own market in order to be viable. Technology often finds its best fit when it is placed into existing situations and can improve our existing standards by significant margins. Just as new technology has pushed aside film cameras, our proposed device will fill the gaps that digital cameras can not fulfill on their own.


Copyright © 2006, IMAGO Solutions Corp - ii -

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive Summary.......................................................................................................... i

1. Introduction ...................................................................................................................1

2. Device Overview..........................................................................................................2

3. Device Alternatives ......................................................................................................3

4. Preliminary Budget ......................................................................................................5

5. Schedule .......................................................................................................................6

6. The Team......................................................................................................................7

7. Conclusion ....................................................................................................................9

8. References..................................................................................................................10


Copyright © 2006, IMAGO Solutions Corp - 1 -

1. Introduction As digital cameras continue to replace film cameras in households, people are beginning to notice some of the shortfalls of digital photography. It is still more expensive to buy the digital equivalent of a film camera. Although digital cameras are more expensive, consumers are sold on the justification that their total cost of ownership will be less by virtue of future savings on film and film development. While this will be true in some circumstances, it is not the case for most. At first, the one time cost of reusable memory appears to be a bargain compared to the continuous cost of film. Extended periods of time without access to your computer will quickly expose the limitations of the memory space in your camera. Vacations are an all too common example of this scenario, where you are forced to either purchase more memory, or begin erasing your memories. Since you reuse the memory in your camera, after making prints, users without backups are left without the digital original that will “last forever”, unlike being able to keep your film negatives. Obvious as it may seem, it is often overlooked that the market for digital cameras are camera users, not computer users. Digital camera owners who are not computer users continue to have their photographs printed as they did with film. Not only do they lose out on the assumption that they would save money on developing their photos, but digital prints can be 37% more expensive than an equivalent sized film print [4]. We all have family or friends who keep photo albums filled with memories to share on their shelves. Even with digital photographs, people prefer sharing their pictures with photo albums in the comfort of their living room rather than sharing on a computer in a den. While digital photography is being widely embraced, the versatility of sharing photographs via internet is not. For many, sharing photographs remain an activity best enjoyed in the presence of those with whom you are sharing. The motivation for our proposal is to improve the ways that digital photographs can be stored and viewed by developing a device that is dedicated to these functions. The device will be designed with camera users in mind, not computer users. Our device will complement digital cameras in ways that allow you to take advantage of the benefits offered by digital photography, regardless of your tech savvy. At the same time, it will supplement the void left by some of the benefits offered by film photography. This proposal provides an outline of our device. It discusses what we have identified as potential competitors as well as their deficiencies. Also included are a preliminary budget and a Gantt chart detailing the way in which we intend to approach the design of this device.



2. Device Overview The device we are proposing is intended to be as simple as possible and perform its main functions in an efficient and user friendly manner. The purpose of this device is to make sharing and viewing your photographs a convenient, portable, and affordable experience. Our goal is to make a device that is dedicated to photographs; this removes the complexities brought on as a consequence of the feature-overloading that most products in the market try to do. Photographs often seem like a tacked on feature on portable music players and video players. Much like using the scissors on a Swiss Army Knife, often times they just don’t cut it. The device should turn on instantly and allow you to quickly display your desired photograph on a screen similar in size to a standard photograph. To navigate, you can move forwards and backwards through an album and quickly switch between albums. Slideshows can be initiated that will automatically scroll through the photos in an album. To get photographs on the device, you can connect the device to your camera or your computer. Photographs can also be transferred on to the device by inserting the memory modules often used in digital cameras into the device. The memory in your camera can be freed by deleting the photos that you have transferred onto the device. Photographs can be organized in a variety of manners. They can be sorted into albums, by date, by categories or even viewed in random order. Users who have become accustomed to printing their own photographs directly from their camera to their printer will find that our device can also print photographs directly to a printer. The graphics in Figure 1 gives an approximate idea of what our device will look like.

Figure 1: Front and Back Concept Art The device aims to be simple to use and its physical appearance will reflect that. The actual device will differ from the appearance of our concept art.



3. Device Alternatives There are several products in the market that can more or less perform the same functions that our device will perform. However, by focusing on photographs, our product will magnify the deficiencies in what the other products have to offer to digital camera users. By setting our device apart from the products that are currently available, we expect an adequate demand and sufficient market share to sustain our company. The following section outlines the advantage of our device compared to five products in the market that have some of the same functionalities.

iPod The recent phenomenon of the iPod line of products will be a big competitor, especially with its recent release of the fifth generation iPod capable of displaying photographs and videos. This product is marketed towards the younger and tech savvy crowd who are looking for all in one products and don’t mind looking at a small screen for a long period of time because of good eye sight. Our product will be catered towards an older demographic, such as those who would want to carry a photo album to show family pictures. Our product will be simple enough for anyone who can use a camera while at same time elegant and stylish enough to attract the younger populace. We are also targeting to sell our product in a lower price bracket compared to the iPod. [5].

Digital Cameras (and Cellular Phones) Digital cameras are now widely used by the general public and have taken a considerable market share in the photography business. Most digital cameras have a small screen that can be used for viewing photos that were taken. Many of them also have outputs to view the photos on a television. Standard digital cameras use flash memory for storage, and although there are flash memory cards can certainly hold a day’s worth of photographs, it would be impractical to expect you digital camera to hold your entire photo album collection. The small screen results in a considerable strain on the eyes of the viewer when it is used to view pictures for a longer period of time and it also prevents the viewer from seeing a lot of the detail that can be captured in a photograph. Our product provides a screen closer in size to a conventional photograph for comfortable viewing, manageable controls for easy access of the pictures, and large storage space that can hold the digital equivalent of a shelf of photo albums.



PDA Personal Digital Assistant s, more popularly know by its acronym, are versatile digital devices that can perform many of the functions found on personal computers. PDAs are now being widely used by corporations and as well as individuals so that they can stay connected to their work. Most modern PDAs can display digital pictures on their touch screens which are in most cases large enough for comfortable viewing. The PDAs’ target market is the business sector and those who are technically savvy. They have a problem with limited memory space and they can be pricey, making them impractical for people who only desire the photo viewing capabilities. Our product provides a less expensive solution for viewing photos and it has ample memory space to hold photographs.

Creative Zen Vision Creative’s Zen Vision provides a solution for all your portable media viewing needs. This product is equipped with a hard drive that can hold large amounts of video, audio and pictures. It has a reasonably sized screen that provides a good viewing experience. The multi- functional capability of the Zen Vision is actually its own Achilles heel; it makes this product unfocused resulting in a device that can be confusing for people unaccustomed to modern electronic devices. This product can also costs more than twice as much as a digital camera making it too expensive to be considered an accessory [6][7]. Our product focuses only on the photo viewing function and on the simplicity of its use. We are aiming to sell our product in the hundred dollar range.

Photoco PhotoShare The product that comes closest in terms of the target market of our product is Photoco’s PhotoShare series. The PhotoShare7 has a 7 inch screen that provides a comfortable viewing area. This product is exclusively designed for photo viewing by reading the removable storage found in digital cameras. Unfortunately for the PhotoShare, it does not support many of the memory types used in digital cameras, including the very popular Compact Flash [8]. The advantage of our device over Photoco’s is that our product will offer built in storage as well as stronger support for the memory types used in digital cameras. Though the PhotoShare can display photos, the need to swap in and out the memory and the lack of its own internal storage prevents it from truly complementing a digital camera.



4. Preliminary Budget The preliminary budget for our device is listed in table 1 below. The second and third columns show the estimated costs of the equipments used for development for two possib le designs. The fourth and fifth columns show the estimated mass-production cost of each part, and the last row contains the totals. As seen in the table, the development cost for our prototype is much higher than the estimated production cost. This is due to several reasons; first, some of the equipment listed such as the LCD kit and Development kit contain the software development kit (SDK) which are only used for development and design; second, mass-producing is of course less expensive. Since we are not going to do packaging, we did not include it in the prototype cost.

Table 1: Estimated prototype and production costs (US dollars)

Equipment Prototype (Design 1)

Prototype (Design 2)

Production Cost 1

Production Cost 2

LCD kit $900.00 (6.4” screen)

$700.00 (5.7” screen)

$20.00 $15.00

Development Kit (microcontroller) [9]

$400.00 (Better Chip)

$350.00 (Slower Chip)

Board and Chip $10.00 $8.00 Hard Drive [10] $300.00

(8GB) $180.00 (4GB)

$30.00 $20.00

Battery $10.00 $10.00 $3.00 $3.00 User Interface $50.00 $50.00 $1.00 $1.00 Case $20.00 $20.00 $1.00 $1.00 Wires $20.00 $20.00 $0.50 $0.50 Packaging $0.50 $0.50 Total Cost $1700.00 $1330.00 $66.00 $49.00 The Estimated Production Cost 1 and 2 shown in table 1 are respectively based on the design 1 and 2. As a rule of thumb, we double the estimated production cost which is $66 as shown above for design 1 and $49 for the design 2, so we come up with $132 and $98 respectively as the wholesale prices. As with any other product designed, the cost of building our prototype is much higher than the cost of the finalized product. Hence, we are considering all the funding resources available to us. In addition, all the team members are willing to share any outstanding financial costs needed to finish the project. Since all the costs are estimates (overestimated by about 10%) and most likely will change as we go through different phases, we will keep an accurate account of all the costs and make the appropriate reimbursements at the end of the project.



5. Schedule The following figure is a Gantt chart of our proposed schedule. Milestones are marked with diamonds.

Figure 2: Gantt Chart



We have planned our schedule with as much detail as possible at this point. Time is tight; and in order to finish, we need to manage our time accordingly. We are aware that there are numerous factors that can come into play that will force us to adjust our schedule. Our intentions are to maintain a Gantt chart to reflect our need to adapt as the project rolls forward. Milestones mark key points in our development that we must try to reach on schedule. Other tasks will rely on the completion of our milestones. The phase allocated with the most time is our development stage. During this stage we will work on assembling the hardware and writing software for both the device and PCs. Development kits for our hardware will have to allow us to work on both hardware and software concurrently in order for us to follow our schedule. The critical milestone of working hardware will have to be achieved as soon as possible for us to begin integration testing with the software. Though we have an aggressive calendar, ambitious projects require ambitious schedules. At the same time, we are aware that more important than following this schedule is the ability to make adjustments and to always have the overall “big picture” in mind. As a team, we will accomplish this by consistently committing time to the project and focusing on individual milestones.

6. The Team Imago Solutions will consist of four engineers with interests and strengths in different areas. Our diverse backgrounds are an important factor when facing the various aspects of developing a product from manufactur ing to marketing. To ensure the team is up to date with each other and kept on schedule, we have all decided on a mandatory weekly meeting. To increase interaction between the team members we have also opened up an online caucus and emailing list, thus keeping each other updated in everyway possible. The Team Players

Timothy Chueh I am a fourth year Computer Engineering undergraduate student at Simon Fraser University. I have experience working with hardware and software in a variety of settings. My strongest asset is the ability to learn quickly and adapt my existing knowledge to new settings. In the past, I have programmed and designed the graphics for a cellular phone game without having had any experience with phone software or J2ME. I was able to both learn the necessary technologies as well as manage my time with a partner in order to meet a deadline. I enjoy project oriented work and am the type of person who takes pride in writing good documentation.



Albert King I am currently a fourth year engineering student enrolled at Simon Fraser University’s engineering department doing Systems Option. I was born and raised in the Philippines to a Chinese family that is why one of my ability is to be able to speak three languages fluently. Through my two yeas of university in the Philippines and my four years with SFU I had the chance to work with mechanical equipments such as lathes, milling machines, and CNCs and electronic equipments like microcontroller, FPGA board, and computer related equipments. I am also quite skilled with some standard computer programming languages like Java and C++; I also know assembly language for the Motorola HC12. I have some experience with standard server environments like Microsoft Exchange Server and Window’s Active Directory. I also work well with people, and I have good communication skills.

Ali Rowshanaei I am a fifth year computer engineering student at Simon Fraser University doing my final semester. I have finished all my co-op terms, two in BC with Glentel Inc. and one oversees with Iranic Inc. My responsibilities included software design, development and testing. Since I am really interested in software design and implementation, I also took some extra Computing Science courses including CMPT 212 (C++ programming). Our project is going to involve embedded-programming, which I am really interested to learn more about and experience. So, I am really looking forward to starting this exciting project.

Patty Sa Now a fourth year electronics engineer at Simon Fraser University, I have finished 2 out of 3 of my coop terms with HTC Computer Corp. in Taiwan. Working in HTC’s Product Assurance department, I dealt with various product issues and performed various software and hardware tests to solve them. My favorite subjects in the faculty tend to lean towards large group projects that are at the end pitched as a sellable product. Since I also have experience in sales from working at a Telus dealership for over a year I find it a useful skill when pitching a product. I am also a very outgoing and positive person which can help the team in keeping good spirit.



7. Conclusion Imago solutions is committed to innovation and focused on creating smart solutions for day to day problems. For our first line of products, we intend to make viewing digital photographs as simple and comfortable as flipping through a photo album. Our device will complement the use of digital cameras, while providing an elegant solution for sharing photos with others. We are not only designing this device for its practicality and value, but we stand by the principle of making life a better experience with technology. In order to meet the demands of this project, our team is committed to devoting our time and energy over the course of our thirteen week schedule. By planning out our schedule with as much detail as possible, we intend to follow it as closely as possible while still be prepared for all the unforeseen challenges that may arise. We can already see our device being used to share our photos with one another when we return from a well deserved break after the completion of this project.



8. References [1] B. Dobbin, “Kodak digital sales outpace film for first time”, Associated Press, 2006.

[Online]. Available: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM. 20060130.gtkodakjan30/BNStory/Technology/. [Accessed: January 2006]. [2] T. Smith, “Kodak to drop 35mm cameras in Europe, US”, The Register, 2004.

[Online]. Available: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/01/20/kodak_to_drop _35mm_cameras/. [Accessed: January 2006]. [3] Personal Conversation, W. Liang, January 2006. [4] Kerrisdale Camera, “Photo Finishing Price”, January 2006. [Online]. Available: http://www.kerrisdalecamera.com/store/uploads/Photo_Finishing_Price_display.pdf.

[Accessed: February 2006]. [5] Apple iPod, [Online]. Available: http://www.apple.com/ipod/ipod.html. [Accessed:

January 2006]. [6] Creative Zen Vision, [Online]. Available : http://www.creative.com/products/ product.asp?category=210&subcategory=211&product=12985&nav=1. [Accessed:

January 2006]. [7] Kodak Easyshare Point and Shoot Series Digital Cameras, [Online]. Available:

http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=9/19/32&pq-locale=en_US. [Accessed: February 2006].

[8] PhotoShare Products, [Online]. Available: http://www.photoco.com/ photoshareproducts.html. [Accessed: January 2006]. [9] Digi-Key Corporation, [Online]. Available: http://www.digikey.com [Accessed:

January 2006]. [10] Memory Suppliers, “Microdrives”, [Online]. Available:

http://www.memorysuppliers.com/ibmmicrodrives.html. [Accessed: January 2006].

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Project Proposal for a Digital Photo Album, …whitmore/courses/ensc305/projects/2006/...February 5, 2006 Steve Whitmore School of Engineering Science Simon Fraser University Burnaby,