Visual Computing Day

Date:

Friday 2 March 2007

Time:

9:30 - 17:30

Place:

Waterfront Museum, Oystermouth Road, Maritime Quarter, Swansea SA1 3RD, (01792) 638 950
(click here for more information)

Complete Set of Event Photos!

Announcement

The Visual Computing Day aims to bring together researchers with a common interest in visual computing, i.e., visualization, computer graphics, computer vision, and related topics. This event will be held in an open atmosphere of presentations, informal discussions, open exchange, and personal interaction in order to foster future research directions and a sense of local community.

Invited Persons

1. Alfie H. Abdul-Rahman	-assistant organizer and speaker
2. Min Chen	-assistant organizer
3. David Chisnall	-session chair and speaker
4. Lyndsey Clarke	-session chair and speaker
5. Darren Cosker	-new department member, attendee
6. Rudy Hashim	-speaker
7. Chuck Hansen	-special guest and speaker
8. Dan Hubble
9. Owen Gilson	-speaker
10. Joanne Gooch
11. Phil Grant	-attendee
12. Shoukat Islam	-speaker
13. Ken Johnson	-speaker
14. Mark Jones	-attendee
15. Ravi P Kammaje	-speaker
16. Joran Kikke	-special invitation, photographer
17. Robert S. Laramee	-organizer
18. Chris Miller	-speaker
19. Faron G Moller	-attendee (morning)
20. Benjamin Mora	-attendee
21. Nicolas Roard	-speaker
22. Ben Spencer	-session chair and speaker
23. Harold Thimbleby	-speaker
24. John Tucker
25. Simon Walton	-speaker
26. Sitsofe Wheeler	-technical support
27. Siti Zaleha Zainal-Abidin	-speaker
(If you know of someone not on this list that may be interested in attending the event, please contact the event organizer.)

Note To Postgraduates:
Each postgraduate attending the event is required to give a 15 minute talk (with approximately five minutes between each talk for questions and answers). We prefer that the subject of your talk is about your thesis, however, if you prefer a non-technical talk, please contact the event organizer, Robert S. Laramee, to discuss this. Please send the title and a 2-3 sentence abstract of your talk to Bob (csbob) by Monday 19 February 2007. Also, If you'd like to put a copy of your talk online, we can put a link to it on this page in the program.

Note To Departmental Faculty:
Each faculty member is encouraged to give a talk, preferably a technical talk, however this is not a requirement.

Note To Session Chairs:
A session chair's responsibility consists mainly of three constituents: (1) introducing each speaker, i.e., name + title of talk, (2) conducting the subsequent question and answer period (of roughly 5 or fewer minutes), and (3) letting each speaker know when their allotted time is up, e.g., giving a two minutes remaining time warning and a signal to conclude the talk when 15 minutes have transpired.

A Note on Laptops:
A Windoze laptop will be available, with Powerpoint, in order to give presentations. It's best if you load your presentation on the laptop the day before visual computing day, in room 508 of the Faraday tower, before 17:00 or during session breaks on Friday. David Chisnall is requested to bring his Apple laptop for those wishing to use an Apple for their presentation.

About Parking:
There may be some information about parking on the Museum's web site, although Bob was not able to find it. According to staff Bob spoke with, parking is available via Oystermouth Road, opposite (to the side) of the Large Tescos, by the old Liesure Center.
Contributed by Harold Thimbleby: Park opposite Tescos. Buy a parking ticket, walk to the museum, get the ticket stamped, return to the car park attendant's hut (which you've already walked past) to get a refund. That was the procedure last time I parked there. Maybe better to buy ticket, ask the attendant about a refund.

Visual Computing Day Program:

(Note: we are looking for post graduate students who are interested in participating in the discussion panel. Please contact Bob if you are interested.)

9:30 - 9:45	Welcome and Opening Remarks -Robert S. Laramee and Min Chen
Session 1 9:45 - 11:00	Computer Graphics, Session Chair: David Chisnall
	Lyndsey Clarke -Creating Caricatures with Free-Form Deformations Abstract: This talk aims to discuss the 2D technique of Free-Form Deformation and its relation to my work. I will explain the technique in some detail, and I will attempt to describe some of the problems I have encountered whilst using this technique. I will also discuss how I am now going to try to solve some of the problems I have found so that I can hopefully achieve more effective caricatures as a result.
	Alfie Abdul Rahman - How to Derive a Spectrum from an RGB Coordinate Abstract: The RGB space is perhaps the most commonly implemented colour representation in rendering software and graphics platforms. However, the RGB representation presents us with several limitations. In this talk, we will examine a number of colour-to-spectrum conversion algorithms that can be implemented in a graphics system.
	Simon Walton -Volume Deformation for Dummies Abstract: In this talk, I will discuss a framework for intuitive deformation of volume data and provide implementation details of an interactive tool based on it. The talk will also include an overview of current GPU trends for those unfamiliar with the area.
11:00 - 11:15	tea, coffee, and biscuits
Session 2 11:15 - 12:30	Visualization Session Chair: Ben Spencer
	Owen Gilson - VizThis: Rule-based Semantically Assisted Information Visualization Abstract: When Information Visualization is considered as a mapping task, a number of advantages are gained, including automaticity (semantic assistance) and rule constraint. I will discuss the merits of this approach and give a demonstration of these concepts with the visualization of a real-life dataset using the VizThis software tool.
	Siti Zaleha -Interaction and Interest Management in JACIE II Abstract: Interaction and interest management are common issues in networked collaborative systems. Interaction management is concerned with the protocols that govern interactive activities among multiple users while interest management is concerned with the relevant-based data filtering. JACIE II has made the attempt to provide these features in the form of language constructs as a software development tool. In this talk, we examine the technical feasibility and usefulness of these features in JACIE II.
	Nicolas Roard -A Reflective Architecture for Visualisation Abstract: In this talk, I will describe a reflective distributed system used for visualising volume datasets. Specifically, I will show how the reflective nature of the system can help bringing self-tolerance and self-adaptibility.
	Harold Thimbleby -Visualising for the Visual Computer Abstract: This 3 slide talk will give a simple demonstration of the importance of getting visualisation right from amongst seemingly equivalent choices.
12:30 - 13:50	Lunch at China China, Unit 18 Little Wind St., Swansea, SA1 1ED, 01792 643 400 Note to Bob -Reservation made with Jonny Chang
13:50 - 14:00	Group Photo
Session 3 14:00 - 15:30	Spatial Data Structures and Types Session Chair: Lyndsey Clarke
	Ravi P Kammaje -Restricted BSP Tree for Ray Shooting. Abstract: A kd tree, the current state of the art for ray shooting, is a BSP tree that has splitting planes that are axis aligned. A Restricted BSP tree is a BSP tree that splits the geometry on a set number of planes. Unlike the kd-tree, it can have more than three split planes that are arbitrary and unlike a BSP tree these planes are not derived from the geometry itself. We aim to demonstrate that such a structure would result in a more efficient space partitioning method and could result in a more efficient method for ray shooting.
	Ken Johnson - Theory of Spatial Data Types and Constructive Volume Geometry Abstract: Spatial data types model data in space using algebras of total functions. We develop a general theory of spatial data types with Constructive Volume Geometry as our primary motivation.
	Ben Spencer - Hierarchical Photon Mapping Abstract: Photon mapping is an efficient method for producing high-quality, photo realistic images with full global illumination. In this presentation we will discuss a more accurate approach to final gathering using the photon map based upon hierarchical evaluation of the photons over each surface. We will look at how the technique may be used to reduce variance when sampling diffuse and glossy specular BRDFs in complex lighting environments. We will also show how such an implementation may be extended to represent illumination from environment maps, giving examples and analysis of the algorithm at work under these conditions.
	Rudy Hashim -Are Visual Signatures Technically Feasible? Abstract: We will discuss the results of two user studies that examined the effectiveness of different abstract visual representation and how ordinary users can learn to recognize visual signatures of different motion events.
15:30 - 15:45	tea, coffee, and cake
Session 4 15:45 - 17:15	Special Topics in Visual Computing Session Chair: Min Chen
	David Chisnall -The Future of Virtualisation Abstract: In the last year, virtual machines have become increasingly common, whether they are full-machine virtualisation environments such as Xen or more abstract systems such as the JVM or .NET CLR. This talk will look at some future directions for the technologies, and how they will fit in with evolving hardware.
	Chuck Hansen -Is Seeing Really Believing? Abstract: Direct volume rendering has proven to be an effective and flexible visualization method for interactive exploration and analysis of 3D scalar fields. At least a great deal of research has examined many aspects of volume rendering. However, while volume rendering is used in specific applications, why has it not been more widely adapted by the medical community? One reason is that volume rendering, by definition, takes the 3D data and generates an image as the result. This is powerful for exploring a dataset but is it sufficient for analysis? In this talk I will explore the idea of coupling volume rendering with segmentation for the analysis for 3D scalar fields with a particular emphasis on medical applications.
	Panel Discussion -What are the top challenges facing a PhD Candidate at Swansea University? Panel Chair: Robert S. Laramee Panel Members: 1. David Chisnall 2. Alfie Abdul Rahman (Alfie) 3. Darren Cosker 4. Mark Jones Each member of this panel will present 1-5 of the most pressing problems and challenges for completing a PhD in Visual Computing at Swansea University. Possible solutions to these problems will also be addressed.
17:15 - 17:30	Closing Remarks -Robert S. Laramee and Min Chen