Imager Alumni

Professors

• David R. Forsey

Associate Researchers

• David Botta

PostDocs

• Erin Austen
• Xavier Granier
• Daniel Meneveaux
• Rob Scharein

Ph.D. Students

• James Boritz
• John W. Buchanan
• Hamish Carr
• Andrew Csinger
• Rhian Davies
• Paul Fearing
• Scott Flinn
• William F. Gates
• Jason Harrison
• Christopher G. Healey
• Kori M. Inkpen
• Paul Lalonde
• Gene S. Lee
• Robert R. Lewis
• David Martindale
• Pierre Poulin
• Vishwa Ranjan
• Lisa Streit
• Valerie Summers
• Roger C. L. Tam
• Vadym Voznyuk
• Robert J. Walker
• Marcelo Walter

M.Sc. Students

• Katrina Archer
• Kevin W. Arthur
• Ian Ashdown
• Brook Bakay
• Lior Berry
• Dave van Blankenstein
• Stephen Brooks
• David Bullock
• Dave Burke
• Andrew Chan
• Changching (Chris) Chiu
• Richard Corbett
• Kevin M. Coughlan
• Davor Cubranic
• Joel DeYoung
• Jean-Luc Duprat
• Christopher J. Ellefson
• Ben Forsyth
• Jennifer Fung
• Mark Hancock
• Kristian Hildebrand
• Gang (Glenn) Huo
• Stanley Jang
• Brian G. Johnston
• Lun Ke
• Raza S. Khan
• Fred Kimberley
• Dave Knott
• Miranda W. S. Ko
• Mach (Tony) Kobayashi
• Russell W. Krywolt
• Karen Kuder
• Tony Tat Chung Lau
• Anne Lavergne
• Cedric Lee
• Ning Li
• Lili Liu
• Yushuang Liu
• Arthur Louie
• Gary L. MacIsaac
• Kirk Marple
• Joanna McGrenere
• Steven Page
• Larry Palazzi
• Michael Penn
• Brian Pidcock
• David Pritchard
• Allan G. Rempel
• Chris A. Romanzin
• Adrian Secord
• Dana Sharon
• Alexander Stevenson
• Sonja Struben
• Joanne M. Thiel
• Matthew Thorne
• Tien Truong
• Lifeng Wang
• Carolyn Wick
• Matt Williams
• David Wong
• Dan Xiao
• Hailin Yan
• Sidi Yu
• Peng Zhao
• Torre Dana Zuk

Undergraduate Students

• Dragana Radulovic
• Beau Skinner
• Kimberly Tee
• David Westrom
• Mike Xue

I am interested in the following topics, in no particular order: global illumination and radiosity, image-based rendering, acoustic radiosity, and computer vision.

My research currently focuses on physically accurate radiosity rendering techniques, but life is complex — it has real and imaginary components.

My dissertation focused on two tasks, point location and manual path tracing within a three dimensional computer environment. In this context I studied the following factors: monoscopic vs. stereoscopic display, fixed viewpoint vs. head tracked display, target position, target orientation and path complexity. Point location and path tracing are fundamental to most interactive virtual environments and to many other interactive tasks.

In my post-doctoral work I expanded upon both the tasks under consideration and the factors that may influence them. In the near term, I plan to investigate a pointing task (sometimes known as raycasting) and a volume specification task (the two dimensional analog is area selection). The additional factors that I plan to study include, the the effect of textured object surfaces, increased object density and shadows. Earlier studies have indicated that these factors have an influence on perception of three dimensional environments, but there have been few studies to evaluate their effectiveness in interactive environments.

My primary academic interests lie in all areas which can be applied to realtime interactivity, games and entertainment. Specifically, computer graphics, physically-based animation and simulation, algorithms and machine learning. Non-academically, I'm interested in game development, film and music production, and electronic toys and entertainment.

My MSc research focuses on sketched-based modelling.

I am interested in supporting distributed groups of people who wish to collaborate in real-time. I am extending the Virtual Network Computing application, adding a flexible turn-taking protocol and using haptics to convey basic information about the current collaborative state.

before	after

My thesis research presents a new model of snow accumulation for computer graphics. We are primarily concerned with creating and simulating fallen snow (not falling snow - an important distinction), with our ultimate goal to produce view-independent, static, 3D snow surface models that can be used in artistic and scientific visualization, film, and advertising.

I'm developing metrics for motions. These metrics will be applied to compare motions. Possible applications are motion databases, video surveillance, computer animation, animator training, and motion studies.

My work at UBC focused on achieving high quality in realistic image synthesis, by using a reflectance model based on and verified by measurement and experiments. One way to represent the reflectance property of a surface is BRDF. In our approach, BRDF is measured by taking images of a sample area using a 3-CCD camera from different positions. Subsequent analysis of these images will extract the BRDFs of the sample. Compared to other techniques, this is a simple and realistic method for most research labs.

During my MSc. I developed a computer vision-based system that tracks the head location and orientation of a user seated at a computer workstation. The tracked head location and orientation are used to infer a certain gaze direction. Applications of such a tracking system are numerous: it can be used as a human-computer interface, where the inferred user gaze direction is utilized as a location indicator for selecting menus or areas within the application window. The gaze direction can also be used as a perspective indicator dictating how a graphic application should redraw a scene, for example, in a virtual reality environment or in a computer game. The goals of this tracking system are responsiveness (real-time) and untethered/non-intrusive usage, requiring no special hardware except an inexpensive camera and a video input board. As imaging technology becomes more ubiquitous, such a tracking system is commercially viable.

To develop a technique to compare computer-generated images with a real photograph of the same scene. Previous techniques required the user to carefully align the two images before comparison. This algorithm will perform intial registration automatically, then analyze the remaining differences in a way that is related to the human perception of visible difference. A wavelet decomposition of the images is used for both the registration and comparison steps.

Pattern formation and growth in Mammalian Models

Image-based rendering and Augmented Reality

I have been exploring the effects on a subject's knowledge of specific paths through a virtual environment, and their understanding of its global layout, resulting from whether they were exposed initially to the environment through passive or active tasks. This was studied in an experiment wherein, after an introduction to the system (FledermausVR written in C++ and OpenGL) and a pre-test, volunteers were introduced to a computer-based virtual world in one of two main conditions: Active steering behind a pilot vehicle, or Passive following of the pilot vehicle. Within each main condition, further refinements were made; Active subjects were either tightly or loosely constrained to the path of the pilot vehicle, while Passive subjects either had or did not have the steering interface visible (akin to Front Seat or Back Seat travelling).

Within their sub-conditions, subjects were shown, by the pilot vehicle, specific paths through the terrain. They were then given the task of repeating them, and finally of finding their own paths through the environment, between starting and ending points with which they were familiar.

Non-photorealistic rendering is a branch of computer graphics which draws heavily from the traditional artistic disciplines such as painting, drawing, and etching. The emphasis of this research area is to provide rendering styles to artists that communicate, elucidate and express ideas clearly and with style without necessarily reproducing every detail. Our recent work has focused on two styles: a fast pen-and-ink drawing method that can be manipulated in real-time and a high-quality stippling algorithm for still images.

Augmented reality systems dynamically "augment" the user's view of the real world with computer generated virtual objects. These virtual objects may overlay a physical object or exist independently. The key to a convincing augmented environment is accurate registration between virtual and physical objects. By contrast, the user would only see computer generated objects in virtual reality system.

The Virtual Hand Lab (VHL) is a testbed which kinesiology researchers use to study goal-directed human hand movement. The VHL is a small volume which sits upon a desktop. Users can reach into this volume and touch the physical objects, while simultaneously viewing both physical and virtual objects.

Contextual programming is a novel programming paradigm for easing problems of software evolution and reuse through a combination of dynamic execution information and system structural information. This also has direct application to the construction and maintenance of large Web sites.

I am now working on sketch-based modeling which can turn simple and unordered sketches people drawn into 3D models. One example is to recognize face sketches and display cartoonish face model.