CECS - CECS News

Animation-reality blur

2008-07-14 09:00:00

Computer animation has brought characters to life on screen across the world, but its potential is only just being realised. PhD student Yifan Lu is part of a team of researchers at the Department of Information Engineering, CECS, that is looking at pushing the boundaries of today's technology to produce tomorrow's animated film as just one aspect of its research in computer vision.

The research team including Professor Richard Hartley, Dr Lei Wang, and Dr Hongdong Li, focuses on markerless human motion capture that uses cameras instead of markers on a performer's body to record their movements. This is a complex area of research requiring advanced algorithms to record a person's movements in real time.

Read the full story in the Sunday Canberra Times, 13 July 2008

Sun rises over ANU multicore computing

2008-07-14 09:00:00

ANU is responding to a shift in computing technology, which could bring supercomputing power to the desktop. Dr Peter Strazdins and Dr Alistair Rendell in the Department of Computer Science, CECS, have just taken delivery of a $30,000 T2 CoolThreads multicore processor donated by industry partner, Sun Microsystems. The processor will be used in the department's teaching and research programs, particularly for a new masters level course in multi-core computing that is being offered in 2009.

According to Dr Strazdins, there is an urgent need to train the next generation of software engineers to meet the demand that the new multicore processors will make of them, and the environments in which they will operate.

Read the full story in the Sunday Canberra Times, 13 July 2008.

Immersed in ICT

2008-05-15 09:00:00

Torben Schou

Few people would think that playing computer games could lead to a PhD and a bright future in the creative ICT industries.

But Torben Schou has turned an off-the-shelf Nintendo Wii controller into an inexpensive virtual reality (VR) pointer system, and in the process won the ACT Tertiary Student Project iAward for 2008.

A Canberra native, Torben wanted to explore how computer game technology could enrich VR as part of his Bachelor of Software Engineering with a major in computer animation at The Australian National University (ANU).

He used the source engine from the game Half-Life 2 to create a detailed VR version of the ANU campus. He then redesigned the logic supporting the Nintendo Wii wand - designed for use within the limited range of movement on a television screen - so that it would interface with a fully 180 degree environment.The project in the Wedge VR theatre at the ANU College of Engineering and Computer Sciences was a success.

"People found that the high-quality graphics and the physics system [which influenced how users interacted with the space] were some of the most engrossing elements," Torben says.

The young researcher says his work demonstrates that it's possible to create cheap VR technology, which could have great potential for training scenarios or interactive entertainment. As for his potential, Torben is in the early days of a PhD at ANU which he says will deepen his interest in interactive technology, perhaps even exploring how creative technologies can respond to human interests and emotions.

Whatever way this research unfurls, Torben says he wants to keep working on projects that will provide scope for his creative side.

"I used to be keen to get into special effects work on movies, but these days I'm leaning more towards the computer game industry. I'd love a job in either of those fields, or perhaps even a hybrid of the two, given how they're slowly merging."

Engineering the right image

2008-04-21 09:00:00

Canberra Times journalist, Nyssa Skilton, reports on the work that the College is doing to encourage ACT high school students to consider studying engineering at ANU by talking to Glenn Dickens (one of our engineering alumni) about where a degree in engineering can take you. Professor Mick Cardew-Hall, acting Dean, discusses society's perception of what an engineer actually does, and Dr Uwe Zimmer talks about his latest outreach project - building and flying a UAV for search and rescue in the outback.

Read the article here (reproduced with the permission of The Canberra Times).

Canberra BarCamp

2008-04-21 09:00:00

Some of the BarCamp Canberra crowd during one of the presentations. Image: Flickr

What's a BarCamp?

According to Wikipedia it is, "an international network of user generated conferences - open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants - often focusing on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies, social protocols, and open data formats".

The inaugural Canberra BarCamp was held in the Computer Science and Information Technology (CSIT) building at ANU on Saturday 19 April.

"Almost 60 people attended, including several of our students in DCS as well as people from Sydney fresh from their own BarCamp held about 3 weeks ago at UNSW," said Bob Edwards, Chief IT Officer in the Department of Computer Science.

Sharing Technology

2008-04-17 09:00:00

Don Kretsch

Representatives from one of the world's major innovators in computing products and services, Sun Microsystems, visited the ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science recently to talk to staff and students about one of the most challenging issues in high performance computing (HPC) today - developing the software for HPC applications.

"High performance computing is an exciting and fast growing area of information technology," said Don Kretsch, Engineering Director at Sun Microsystems.

"Originally developed for analysing and processing complex scientific data, the technology is now mature enough for people to apply it effectively in many industries and applications so that it is used to bring us not only climate forecasts and nuclear weapons, but also Pringles potato chips and Tide detergent," he said.

The presentation focused on HPC industry trends and the company's strategies and tools to develop the best hardware and software for its clients to meet and anticipate industry needs, before Don Kretsch and his colleague Liang Chen discussed Sun's multi-core system and parallel programming tools.

Fulbright Scholarship Winner

2008-03-14 09:00:00

Ramtin at the Canberra Hospital

"I'm delighted to be able to formally congratulate Ramtin Shams in the Department of Information Engineering, for winning a Fulbright Scholarship to Harvard, USA," said Professor Rod Kennedy, Head of the Department.

"This has been possibly one of the worst kept secrets in the College, but we had to wait until the official announcement from the Fulbright Program!" he said.

The prestigious Fulbright Program was established by Senator J William Fulbright in 1945. At the time of its establishment, he is quoted as saying, "the Fulbright Program aims to bring a little more knowledge, a little more reason, and a little more compassion into world affairs, and thereby to increase the chance that nations will learn at last to live in peace and friendship."

"I think that it is particularly fitting that Ramtin won the scholarship because he is not only highly intelligent, he is also charismatic and charming. He will be a great ambassador for Australia."

Ramtin is developing a new kind of medical scanner that would be able to create very detailed, three-dimensional images of the insides of humans, essentially rendering patients 'see-through' and aiding in diagnostic and surgical procedures.

"Existing real-time scanners produce low quality images," Ramtin said. "I intend to use image registration and fusion of high-quality pre-operative scans with lower-quality images taken during the operation, to produce high-quality images in real-time and allow the surgeon to have a virtually transparent view of the patient."

To achieve his research goals, Ramtin will gain access to state-of-the-art imaging and massively multi-processing equipment during his tenure at Harvard University, later this year.

Media release

Ramtin Shams

Exceptional award for pioneer of signal and adaptive control systems research in Australia

2008-03-14 09:00:00

Distinguished Professor Brian Anderson of the ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science has been honoured by His Majesty the Emperor of Japan by being awarded The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon. Professor Anderson was presented with the Order at a special ceremony hosted by His Excellency Mr Takaaki Kojima, Ambassador to Japan in Canberra last night.

"The award is for his outstanding contribution in bringing Australia and Japan together in the academic sphere including the scheme he initiated to invite Japanese researchers to ANU and his ongoing collaboration with Japanese researchers," said Professor Mick Cardew-Hall, Acting Dean of the College.

Professor Anderson pioneered signal and adaptive control systems research in Australia, and founded the Research School of Information Sciences and Engineering at ANU. He led the team that won the bid for NICTA and was its first Chief Scientist.

"On behalf of all staff and students in the College, I'd like to congratulate Brian on this exceptional award," said Professor Cardew-Hall.

Broadband challenge harvests efficient ideas

2008-03-06 09:00:00

Two of the College's research staff in the Department of Engineering who specialise in telecommunications and sustainable energy systems recently shared the main prize for the inaugural Eckermann-Telecommunications Journal of Australia Broadband for Environmental Sustainability Challenge.

In their paper, Broadband Communication Enables Sustainable Energy Services, Drs Haley Jones and Michael Dennis propose that broadband communications could be used to support distributed generation and intelligent appliances that rationalise energy usage, reducing emissions and costs.

"As people around the world become more attuned to the environmental sustainability issues that confront us, it is important that the role of engineers in society to help solve these problems is highlighted wherever possible," said Dr Jones.

"This competition particularly highlights the role of technology in dealing with sustainability issues. And winning the prize is very exciting because it gives us visibility in this burgeoning area," she said.

Dr Dennis, a keen advocate of engineers making a powerful difference in the environment, agreed advising that the Department of Engineering at ANU has world-class courses on Systems Design and Sustainable Energy Systems, and that in his role on secondment from the Fenner School he is helping to improve training in areas like energy efficiency.

Read the full article in the Canberra Times, "Broadband challenge harvests efficient ideas", 4 February 2008

Go CECS Students!

2008-03-05 09:00:00

Image credit: Yotophoto

"We have a lot of gifted students in our College, and it gives me very great pleasure to extend my congratulations on behalf of all staff and students to those that did so well in Semester 2 graduations," said Acting Dean, Professor Mick Cardew-Hall.

The University has recognized its outstanding Honours students since 1963 by awarding the prestigious University Medal at graduation. More than 650 students have been awarded the Medal over the years.

In February 2008 five students from the ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science joined other University Medalists on the University Medalist Honour Board recently unveiled by the Vice-Chancellor at University House.

Bachelor of Engineering with Honours and University Medal: Xiangyun Zhou

Bachelor of Software Engineering with Honours and University Medal: Torben Schou

Jan Vaughan

Bachelor of Engineering with Honours/Bachelor of Science and University Medal: Andrew Sutton

Bachelor of Engineering with Honours/Bachelor of Science and University Medal: Rebecca Dunn

"ANU is unusual in that these awards are only made to First Class Honours students that are supported by a distinguished academic record," said Professor Cardew-Hall.

In other student news, Mayank Daswani, a Bachelor of Computer Science (Honours) student in the Department of Computer Science, was awarded one of the 2007 Boyapati Computer Science and Mathematics Prizes for First Year students. This is one of several awards made to those students that have achieved the most meritorious results in computer science courses, and pathway level mathematics courses, at their year level.

CECS Students Helping to Engineer a Better World

2008-03-03 09:00:00

Students and Challenge partners

In 2007 Engineers Without Borders (EWB) Australia ran the first ever EWB Challenge for first-year students, involving over 3500 first-year engineering students from around Australia and New Zealand. The challenge for the students was to design, and in the case of our ANU students also to build, a sustainable solution to one of the various problems faced by the upcoming expansion of an orphanage in southern India; the expansion is about to be undertaken by the EWB organisation. Student projects were required to address one or more of the orphanage's many needs, including sanitation, educational, cooking, water supply or power supply, with teams being were required to consider a variety of technical, environmental, social and cultural issues.

Forty teams of ANU students from the course 'Discovering Engineering' took part in the competition, with three teams being selected for the national round of judging. A team of four students was then invited, along with five other teams from Australian and New Zealand universities, to compete in the finals in Melbourne last December. The ANU team of Ed Kearney, Shaun Gooneratne, Tegan Williams-Blaich and Rob Withers put in an excellent performance in presenting their solar cooking solution, receiving an honourable mention and also winning first prize in the poster section.

Power-up for solar study

2008-03-03 09:00:00

Prof Lawrence Cram accepts the cheque from ActewAGL and Fieldforce

Solar energy research at ANU got a boost on Wednesday 20th February with a donation from ActewAGL and Fieldforce. The donation will go to the University's Solar Energy Endowment Fund for Environmental Research.

Alumnus in the news

2008-03-03 09:00:00

H.E. Dr. Kusmayanto Kadiman with Christine Keller-Smith, Director Alumni, Jakarta 2006

ANU alumnus and Indonesian State Minister of Research and Technology, Dr Kusmayanto Kadiman, has won an Australian Alumni Award for Research and Innovation by the Australian Embassy, Jakarta. The award was in recognition of his leadership role in the development and setting of national science and technology policies and targets and, in particular, for his important leadership role in forging closer relations between the Indonesian and international scientific communities.

Dr Kadiman gained his PhD from ANU and was supervised by Professor Darrell Williamson (currently Deputy Director, Research Programs at the CSIRO ICT Centre) while part of the former Department of Systems Engineering (now Department of Information Engineering in CECS).

Lost & Found in the Supermarket

2008-03-03 09:00:00

The eyes (and the brain) have it

One of the major challenges for research in computer vision is object recognition and category recognition. How can a computer do what comes naturally to humans? How can a robot, for example, see, think and then do?

Research staff and students in the Department of Information Engineering in CECS are part of a worldwide endeavour to solve this problem. The team hit on the idea of locating and identifying products on supermarket shelves to test and develop complex software for use in a range of applications in computer vision.

And when you consider the automatic decisions that we take for granted when shopping, from finding the correct aisle, walking down it, and then locating one box of cereal (size, shape, colour, weight) from amongst all the other boxes of cereal (different sizes, brands, shapes, packaging, etc) you get an idea of how complex the task really is.

Computer Vision Group, CECS

ANU students build awareness of climate change

2007-10-03 09:00:00

ANU engineering students and the wind turbine

In late August 2007, ANU students helped to build a giant wind turbine in Garema Place to raise awareness of climate change.

Organised by the non-profit organisation Engineers Without Borders (EWB), the project raised money to improve the lives of disadvantaged communities overseas by implementing sustainable engineering projects. The nationwide collaboration saw wind turbines constructed across Australia in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney.

ANU students supervised donating participants to build a 3m high, electricity-producing wind turbine from over 2,500 LEGO blocks.

Many oggled 'Big Brother Google'

2007-10-03 09:00:00

Roger Clarke

It was a full house for Roger Clarke's ANU-Toyota Public Lecture on 19 September, but those that missed out can listen to the podcast now published on Discover ANU:

Listen to the lecture (MP3, 19MB)

View the slides(4MB of PowerPt 97)

See supporting text and links to papers

'What a difference a day makes!'

2007-09-21 09:00:00

'Making a difference' gets the thumbs up from students

Many people in education and in industry are concerned about the general misconception that engineering and computer science don't provide humanitarian and social benefits to society, and unfortunately these technologies suffer from an image problem.

"Most people don't realise that engineering and computing are about finding and designing exciting and creative solutions for a wide variety of social and environmental needs, like medical advances, improving life in third world countries and contributing to a sustainable planet," said Lynette Johns-Boast, Lecturer in Software Engineering at the ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science.

To address any misconceptions amongst female high school students, the College developed a pilot project (Women in Technology: Making a Difference) in which it chose to highlight the social benefits that technology brings to the world. Year 11 and 12 students from Canberra Girls' Grammar School were the first to become involved in workshops and talks to get them thinking about this.

Staff and students at the College developed workshops, lectures and talks on biomedical engineering, robotics, software engineering, and solar renewable energy. Engineers Without Borders (much like Medecins Sans Frontieres) talked about engineering projects in developing countries, and everyone was treated to a session in the Wedge Virtual Reality Theatre which is a computer generated 3D image designed to literally put people in the picture.

Students showcase their engineering projects

2007-09-13 09:00:00

More than eighty final year engineering students undertook their individual project in 2007, and they condensed their work into seminar presentations, and a poster display at the ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science on 11 and 12 September 2007.

"With this many students there is an enormous range of project topics covering all of the major engineering disciplines and research areas in the College and beyond," said Dr Haley Jones, Lecturer in Engineering, who coordinated the engineering projects.

Smarter search engine on its way

2007-09-13 09:00:00

Dr David Hawking (an adjunct in the Department of Computer Science) and his PhD student, Paul Thomas are in the hunt for smarter search engines by exploring the idea of 'personal meta-search': search tools that are tailored to your preferences, location, and interests.

Giant leap for the search unknown, Sydney Morning Herald, 11 September 2007

We dug 'piled higher and deeper'

2007-09-12 09:00:00

by Heather McEwen, Marketing Manager

Jorge Cham, of PHD comic strip fame, drew a record crowd of almost 300 PhD students to the Copland Lecture Theatre, ANU last night (11 September 2007) where students did their best to prove the widely held view that laughter is the best medicine.

Jorge's talk, 'The Power of Procrastination' took a witty but thoughtful look at life as a postgraduate research student, and perhaps for many students, helped them to re-think the question they all ask themselves at some stage, "Do I want to do this for the rest of my life?"

In one of the few sobering moments of the talk, Jorge pointed out that in a recent UC Berkeley survey, 95 percent of all graduate students feel overwhelmed, and more than 67 percent have felt seriously depressed at some point in their careers. Of these 1 in 200 have attempted suicide.