Research Fellow

Description

This is a full-time research and development job in the areas of computer graphics, mathematics, geometry, and physics. This is a part of a 3-year Singapore Media Development Authority funded project entitled "Visual and Haptic Rendering in Co-Space" which commences on 15 December 2008. The work will be carried out in Singapore at the School of Computer Engineering of Nanyang Technological University. The goal of the project is to propose an efficient interoperable mathematical model defining geometry, visual appearance and tangible physical properties of virtual objects in shared Co-Space - 3D virtual shared space on the web. The object definitions must be small in size and invariant to the rendering platform used in Co-Space. The particular goals of the project include development of the fast interactive definitions by implicit and explicit functions, description of complex geometry using parametric partial differential equations, introduction of function-defined physical properties to objects in Co-Space, and development of several exemplar applications illustrating the usefulness of the proposed approach, including an ability to establish physical contact with other party in Co-Space through haptic devices.
The project includes but not limited to the following tasks which will be shared between the researchers and graduate students working on the project:
- Definition of complex shapes with implicit, parametric and explicit functions
- Parameterization and implicitization of geometric shapes
- Definition of geometric shapes using partial differential equations
- Accelerating rendering of the shapes defined by implicit mathematical functions
- Interactive free-form shape modeling and rendering
- Definition of physical properties of the virtual objects using mathematical functions
- Definition of deformable objects by mathematical functions
- Collaborative shape modeling and haptic interaction using Sensable Phantom, Noving Falcon and potentially other devices
- Grid-based interactive visualization of the function-defined objects
- GPU-based interactive shape modeling and visualization of the function-defined objects
- Haptic interaction with the participants of the Co-Space