Meeting Agenda
Wednesday, November 20th, 1996
- Location:
- DC 1304
- Time:
- 11:30 AM
- Chair:
- Balasingham Balakumaran
1. Adoption of the Agenda - additions or deletions
2. Coffee Hour
- Coffee hour this week:
- Tali Zvi
- Coffee hour next week:
- To be determined
3. Next meeting
- Date:
- November 27th, 1996
- Location:
- DC 1304
- Time:
- 11:30 AM
- Chair:
- Bill Cowan
- Technical presentation:
- Balasingham Balakumaran
4. Forthcoming
- Chairs:
- Itai Danan
- Matthew Davidchuk
- Chris Davies
- Tech Presenters:
- Bill Cowan
- Itai Danan
- Matthew Davidchuk
5. Technical Presentation
- Presenter:
- Richard Bartels
- Title:
- Towards a Generic Editor for Subdivision Surfaces
- Abstract:
-
We'll tell you what a subdivision surface is
and what software abstractions we looked at to
produce an editor that can edit a number of different
surfaces in a uniform way.
6. General Discussion Items
- CGL Christmas party -time -location
- Lab meeting next term - time
7. Action List
-
Navid Sadikali and Richard Bartels:
UofT visit in April
8. Director's Meeting
9. Seminars
The Institute for Computer Research (ICR)
Presents a Seminar on
"Recent Progress in Modelling and Simulation of High-Speed VLSI Interconnects"
by: Dr. Michel S. Nakhla
of: Department of Electronics
Carleton University
Date: Monday, November 25, 1996
Time: 10:00 a.m.
Place: William G. Davis Computer Research Centre, Room 1304
Abstract:
The intense drive for signal integrity has been at the forefront
of rapid and new development in CAD algorithms. With increasing
demands for high signal speeds coupled with a decrease in feature
size, interconnect effects such as signal delay, distortion and
crosstalk become the dominant factors limiting overall perfor-
mance of VLSI systems. On the other hand, interconnect structures
can be diverse and present at any of the hierarchical packaging
levels including integrated circuits, printed circuit boards,
multi-chip modules and backplanes. Although conventional CAD
tools such as SPICE are used routinely by many engineers for ana-
log simulation and general circuit analysis, these tools do not
handle adequately the new emerging challenges of interconnect ef-
fects.
Moment-matching techniques have recently proven useful in the
analysis of large interconnect structures containing lossless and
lossy high-speed interconnects with linear or nonlinear termina-
tions. At a CPU cost of a little more than one DC analysis, these
techniques are 2-3 orders of magnitude faster than conventional
methods.
In this talk an overview of interconnect simulation techniques
will be presented with emphasis on the diverse algorithms and ap-
plications of moment-matching techniques. The underlying basic
concepts will be demonstrated by several practical examples.
Host: Professor Ajoy Opal, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Everyone is welcome. Refreshments served.
ICR gratefully acknowledges the support of its Corporate Members
for this Seminar Series: DALSA INC., Hewlett-Packard (Canada)
Ltd., and NCR Canada Limited.
CS Colloquium Series
Computer Science Department
University of Waterloo
What Does It Mean To Be Right In Realistic Computer Graphics?
By: Eugene Fiume
Of: Department of Computer Science
Alias/Wavefront and
University of Toronto
Date: Tuesday, November 26, 1996
Time: 4:00-5:00
Place: Davis Centre, Room 1304
Abstract:
The development of techniques to realistically model and render
interesting visual phenomena is a preoccupation of many researchers in
computer graphics. Most of us work by adapting models from other
mathematical sciences, from which we hope to derive good visual
depictions. But just what is a "good" depiction, and how true do we
need to be to the "reality" expressed by mathematical models? Perhaps
by framing the question around a case study, some glimpses of an answer
may emerge. We consider the issue of visual error and distinguish it
>from numerical error. We will then look at some recent work done with
Jos Stam on the depiction of smoke, mist and fire under the influence of
turbulent wind fields. We use a stochastic model for generating
fine-scale turbulence, and we use advection-diffusion equations to mimic
the evolution of gaseous densities (e.g., wisps of smoke), temperature
(fire), and light (multiple scattering). At each step, we shall make
egregious assumptions but the results nevertheless look pretty darned
good. Is realistic computer graphics just smoke and mirrors, or is it
an emerging mathematical science of visual depiction? Both.
Biography:
Eugene Fiume has been on faculty in the Department of Computer Science
at the University of Toronto since 1987. From 1987-1992, he was also an
NSERC University Research Fellow, and he helps to run the Dynamic
Graphics Project. Prior to his faculty appointment, he was Maitre
Assistant at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. He holds Ph.D. and
M.Sc. degrees from the University of Toronto, and a B.Math. from the
University of Waterloo. His sabbatical last year was split between
iMAGIS in Grenoble, France, and Alias/Wavefront in Toronto. This year
he has been splitting his time between the University of Toronto and
Alias/Wavefront. He won ITRC's Innovation Award in 1995 and a couple of
teaching awards; he is a member of several scientific advisory boards,
and he has published two books and about fifty papers.
Everyone is welcome
COMPUTER GRAPHICS SEMINAR
-Wednesday, November 27, 1996
Guenther Greiner, IMMD, Friedrich Alexander University
of Erlangen-Nuernberg, Germany, will speak on ``Splines
in Real World Applications: CNC-Programs and Lens
Design''.
TIME: 3:30-4:30 p.m.
ROOM: DC 3301
ABSTRACT
In the talk we present two applications of spline
theory. Both have been developped with industrial
partners:
(1) Optimization of CNC-Programs (with Siemens
Automation Group, Erlangen)
Modern CNC control units can process spline data. Many
of the existing NC-programs still use linear path
description for specifying the geometry. These
descriptions usually require a huge amount of data,
thus making the production process very slow. By
conversion to a cubic spline representation, the amount
of data can be reduced substantially. Of course,
specified tolerances have to be met. Among other
features, sharp edges have to be detected and
preserved.
(2) Design of progressive lenses (with R + H, Optische
Fabrik, Bamberg).
When designing progressive lenses, i.e. lenses with a
varying refracting power, one cannot avoid that optical
errors (astigmatism) occur. The aim is to keep these
errors as small as possible and try to move them to
non-important regions (boundary of the lens). The tool
developed uses the variational approach to spline
modeling, i.e. suitable functionals will be minimized.
10. Lab Cleanup (until 12:30 or 5 minutes)