Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 20:12:29 GMT Server: Apache/1.1.1+ Content-type: text/html Content-length: 5693 Last-modified: Mon, 08 Apr 1996 22:29:44 GMT Integrated Graphics, Modeling, Design and Manufacturing

University of Utah
Department of Computer Science


Integrated Graphics, Modeling, Design and Manufacturing


People

Principal Faculty: Elaine Cohen, Rich Riesenfeld, and Sam Drake

Staff members

Graduate students


Research

The group is engaged in both fundamental and applied research in developing methods for representing, specifying, manipulating, and visualizing geometric models, including assemblies and mechanisms, on a computer, as well as associated process planning, and manufacturing issues for both traditional (milling, turning, CMM, EDM), and innovative (layer technology) manufacturing processes. The group explores these issues as integrated problems. In motivation of this approach, note that proper perception of shape is important in design, and proper calculation of first and second order geometry properties are critical for manufacturing. Without accurate lighting models and computational methods for rendering shape, perceptions of shape can be distorted. Without proper methods of transforming a piece of metal to a final shape, the final manufactured object can be wrong.

The group is also actively researching issues related to the Scientific Visualization of data arising from a variety of applications. This involves the development of new algorithms and interfaces for rendering both realistic and abstract images and interacting with the resulting visual representations.

As early users of our results, affiliated prominent projects in robotics, vision, and engineering design serve as sources of relevant research problems. Collaborators from this adjunct community have contributed to and influenced our work.

As a site of the NSF/ARPA Science and Technology Center (STC) for Computer Graphics and Scientific Visualization, we have 24 hour televideo communication with the Brown, Caltech, Cornell, and UNC-CH sites. Ongoing research collaboration topics include user interfaces, modeling (Brown), and using special purpose graphics architectures in design (UNC-CH). All sites participate in a 5-way, collaboratively taught Advanced Graphics Seminar.

Research in the area of design and manufacturing process integration is carried out through the ARPA Concurrent Integrated Design and Manufacture (CIDAM) project.

We also engage in collaborative research with the Scientific Computing and Imaging group and the Vision and Robotics group at the University of Utah. One such project, sponsored by NSF, is the Virtual Prototyping of Mechanical Assemblies project.

Current Research Issues include:


Sponsors

This project is a Utah State Center of Excellence. The group's research and facilities are sponsored by ARPA, NSF, the NSF STC for Computer Graphics and Scientific Visualization, and various industrial sponsors.


Facilities

Local Research Laboratory Facilities include:

Research Facilities Available through the STC include the remote use of:

Distributed Results



Comments or questions to: a1-web@gr.cs.utah.edu