Projects and Interests 

General Interests and Ongoing Projects:


Suspended Projects, mostly done, but which could be reactivated:

Inverse 3D Modeling
GOALS:  Take an arbitrary shape given as an unstructured B-rep and express that shape
                in a combination of parameterized procedural program segments.
(Jimmy Andrews)

Symmetrical Embedding of Low-genus Regular Maps
GOALS:  Regular maps are graphs with all identical vertices, edges, and facets, and with
                additional global symmetries that make all the above elements indistinguishable.
                The best-known examples on genus-0 surfaces are the Platonic solids.
                I have already found nice, symmetrical embeddings for all regular maps of genus 2 and 3.
                For the moment I am focussing on finding such embeddings for maps of genus 4 and 5.
(open to interested students with a good background in geometry and computer modeling)

Advanced Sweep-Morph Constructions and Spline Warping of Objects
GOALS:  B-spline-type blending between multiple specified cross sections.
                Warp geometry contained in a cylinder around the z-axis along path specified by a spline.

Escher-like Tilings on Higher-Genus Surfaces
GOALS:   Create an efficient texture mapping module for Catmull-Clark subdivision surfaces.
                  Use that module to design and display some intricate Escher-like motifs on a Tetrus surface.
                  Create a module to output the solid shape of these tiles to a Rapid-Prototyping machine.
                  Assemble tiles of different color into an overall Tetrus shape.

Design Modular Architectural Wall Elements
GOALS:   Use a subdivision surface to design a stackable wall-element in the form of an open higher-genus brick inspired by the work of Erwin Hauer.
                 Enhance that element so it might have some internal channels that properly connect and then can serve as conduits for aircontitioning or illumination.
                 Make a models of such elements on one of our Rapid-Prototyping machines.

Sound Analysis and Synthesis of Solid Objects
GOALS:   Analytically determine the sounds of shells struck in different ways.
                 Construct virtual and physical bells with new and interesting sound qualities.

Parameterized Bell Model in  SLIDE
GOAL:  Capture the shape of a 9-inch bronze bell and design modifications to it for different sounds.

Modeling of Urban Landscapes
GOALS:   Connect billions of 3D surface samples into a hierarchy of best fitting surface representations capturing different LOD (levels of detail).
                 Create visualization schemes that can move seamlessly through this hierarchical representation without popping artifacts.

Connectivity of Sensor Networks
GOALS:   Study the effectiveness and reliability of the communications network for various 3D arrangements of sensor motes in future smart materials.
                 Compare and contrast the performance of regular arrangements with from 3 to 14 nearest-neighbor motes.

Former Projects, now Inactive:

Surface Optimization
Creating the best-looking surfaces from only the truly relevant constraints by using energy functionals.
(PhD Pushkar Joshi)

Fair Curves for Font-Design
Exploring Minimum-Variation curves's and Cornu spirals as the most effective way to model perfect outline fonts.
(PhD Raph Levien)