Tuesday, 4 October 2011

Increase size of VirtualBox harddrive(.vdi)!!!!!!easy steps...

VritualBox 4 or updated versions introduced new command "VBoxManage modifyhd". You can increase the size of guest hard drive easily.

Step 1: Increasing the size of .vdi
           Open terminal and then run command "VBoxManage modifyhd <vdi_path> --resize <newsize>"
            e.g. I increased WinXp.vdi from 10GB to 15GB and command was "VBoxManage modifyhd /home/albot/.VirtualBox/HardDisks/WinXp.vdi --resize 15000"

         -- unallocated space is now ready to create a new partition or merge with existing partition in your virtualOS.


Step 2: Creating new partition or merging with existing one
            ...Turn on your virtualOS then follow..
            For Win7: Open Computer Management then go to Disk Management and then do whatever you want.
            For Xp: Have to use GParted liveCD (Open Source) or Partition Master Home Edition (Free) or other alternatives.

Saturday, 6 August 2011

Perceptual Map

A perceptual map is a representation of one’s immediate environment that one creates as one moves about in the environment. With it, one could  immediately point to things out of sight, or know one’s current position in the environment. In short, it is a description of the spatial layout of things in one’s surrounding, using a global co-ordinate system centered either on the self or an arbitrary part of the environment. As the perceptual map is  intended to describe the spatial layout of one’s immediate surroundings, it is not intended as a representation for one’s total experience. 
Nonetheless, robotics researchers  have developed algorithms for computing a perceptual map for the entire environment explored by the robot and these environments can still be quite large. Their algorithms are probabilistic in nature and  their aim is to  allow the robots to simultaneously localize and map the environment [1]. Hence, they refer to their problem as a SLAM problem. They argue that the standard state-space approach to SLAM is well understood, and future key challenges lie in developing larger, more persuasive demonstrations which involve mapping a city or structures such as the Barrier Reef or the Mars surface. However, the fundamental question is how nature solves the mapping problem of one's own environment. In particular, we ask: do humans (and animals) employ a SLAM-like algorithm to map their environment? If not, why not and what would their algorithm be like?