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Zhihao (Ryan) Ruan

Minecraft Game Programming

In the fall of 2020, I finally had a chance to explore the field of computer graphics at University of Pennsylvania, and did a very interesting course project which builds a simplified Minecraft from scratch. This game is built on OpenGL 3.2 with Qt 5.15.0. Through building this game, I learned a lot about OpenGL rendering pipeline, game engine & texture mapping. Demo Video Overview Minecraft is originally well-known for its block-like structure.

Real-Time On-Device Flow Statistics Detection and Prediction

This project was served as the Undergraduate Major Design Experience at UM-SJTU Joint Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Background: The Impact of COVID-19 The outbreak of novel coronavirus COVID-19 in 2020 has brought huge attention to the administration of human society. “Social distancing” has been advocated as a very effective method to fight the virus. In order to facilitate the implementation of social distancing, we propose an idea of building a portable device that is capable of detect and predict flow statistics in real time, in order to provide insights and suggestions for traffic management.

Witnessing the COVID-19 Pandemic

As COVID-19 virus spread around the world causing serious pandemic and deaths, it also has seriously impacted countless people’s lives. As a resident in the United States, my everyday life has also been affected by this pandemic in multiple aspects. After making sure that social distancing can be properly kept when I was outdoors, I decided to take my camera and witness the changes of my daily life. Ann Arbor, MI

Capturing the "Blue Hour"

“Blue Hour,” by definition, is the time period in a day when the world is covered in blue lights from the dusk or the dawn. It is usually formed in the period of twilight in the morning or in the evening when the sun is right below the horizon (more details check Wikipedia). Blue hour is so famous due to its beauty. During this period, all the surroundings would be covered in the romantic blue, indicating the end of the day and the start of the night.

Hong Kong, China

Hong Kong has been one of the fastest developing metropolis in China. When I was young, my impression of Hong Kong came with the Hong Kong TV shows. Hongkongers were so good at joking and acting that their movies and TV shows have had significant influences on me, especially with the fact that I can understand Cantonese :-). Not only me but also Chinese people in the 1980s and 1990s were greatly influenced by Hong Kong cultures.

Michigan, USA

As a travelling enthusiast, there is no doubt that the state where I lived must somehow appear on my wishlist. During the two years in Ann Arbor, I also spent some time to explore Michigan. What represents Michigan? It is very easy to think of the slogan of the State of Michigan — “Pure Michigan.” However, in what way does the State of Michigan look pure? Clearly it shouldn’t be the way in which Detroit and Lansing look.