AS OF 21 DEC 2017 THIS WEB PAGE IS NO LONGER UPDATED.

PLEASE VISIT https://sreal.ucf.edu/people/welch/dr-gregory-f-welch/

Research & Teaching (Publications)

Past advisees (reverse chronological):

Student Committees (reverse chronological): Alex Blate (current); Kyle Martin (current); Remo Pillat (current); Corey Pittman (current); Min Wang (current); Baoyuan Liu (2016, Ph.D., Amazon); Rick Skarbez (2016, Ph.D.); Alexandra Carson (2016, BSN Honors in the Major); Justin Grace (2016, BSN Honors in the Major); Monika Schaeffer at Duke University (2011, M.S.); Brian Clipp (2010, Ph.D., Applied Research Associates); David Gallup (2010, Ph.D., Google); Andrew Nashel (2010, Ph.D., Cisco Systems); Tyler Johnson (2009, Ph.D., Scalable Displays); Seon Joo Kim (2008, Ph.D., postdoc, National University of Singapore); Lindsey McCarthy (2011, M.S. Dentistry); examiner for Philip McLeod at the University of Otago (2008, Ph.D.); Patrick Quirk (2006, M.S., SportsMEDIA Technology Corporation); Kok-Lim Low (2005, Ph.D., National University of Singapore); Michael Rosenthal (2005, Ph.D., Residency: Brigham- Harvard, Radiology); Benjamin Lok (2002, Ph.D., University of Florida); Nicholas Val- lidis (2002, Ph.D., National Robotics Engineering Consortium); Gopi Meenakshisun- daram (2001, Ph.D., University of California at Irvine); Mark Livingston (1998, Ph.D., Naval Research Lab); and Hans Weber (Sports Media Technology Corporation).

While not required to teach, I enjoy it and try and do so when I can. In the Fall of 2003 I created a First Year Seminar on 3D Computer Modeling and Animation in Computer Science at UNC. Since then I have had the priviledge of teaching the course on several occasions. Check out the Animation Festival (final project) results from Spring 2007, Spring 2005, and Fall 2003. (In 2003 I also created my own animation for the course.) I have also taught our Java-based Introduction to Programming course in the past. Here are a few of the coolest semester projects from the Spring 2003 offering. In the spring of 2001 I taught our Team Software Engineering Lab. In spring 1997 and 1998 spring I taught Exploring Virtual Worlds with Henry Fuchs. Check out our virtual amusement park and Televator (TM) project from 1997.

I need to add something about my current research at UCF here.

I maintain a Kalman filter web site. If you have anything to add, please let me know.

With Henry Fuchs (PI) and Anselmo Lastra at UNC, I am helping to formulate and lead research as part of the new (2011) "Being There" International Research Centre at Nanyang Technological University. This is a collaborative center, the partners being UNC (Henry Fuchs, PI), ETH-Zurich (Markus Gross, PI), and NTU (Nadia Magnenat Thalman, PI). The center is focused on telepresence, including room-based systems for joining many participants, and personal systems for "transporting" individuals.

Past Projects

I am working on a "smart grid" project with some collaborators at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The overall goal of the project is to develop advanced stochastic estimation methods for the national power grid, which is both very non-linear and has a very large state space. With Gary Bishop at UNC I am working on optimal placement of sensors over the grid. The Kickoff meeting was held on 30 November, 2010. The official opening will be 26 January, 2011.

I am leading (with Henry Fuchs) an effort to develop dynamic physical avatars for real and virtual people. We call one realization of this Animatronic Shader Lamps Avatars. The Chronicle of Higher Education recently ran an online aritcle on the work. New Scientist also has an article on the work.

I am leading (with Henry Fuchs) the UNC portion of an ONR-sponsored project called Behavior Analysis and Synthesis for Intelligent Training (BASE-IT), which includes collaborators from the MOVES Institute of the Naval Postgraduate School and the Sarnoff Corporation.

One of my fundamental research areas is wide-area tracking for Virtual Environments. A nice article (500 KB PDF) fom the April 2000 issue of Computer Graphics World provides a good introduction to our HiBall tracking system. These days I am primarily focusing on algorithms and methods for both design and use of tracking systems, and on optimal sensor placement.

In the late 1990s I began working on what we call tele-immersion, and a broad effort aimed at what we call the Office of the Future (OOTF). See some related news articles. These projects largely began as collaborative efforts, both within the National Science Foundation's Graphics and Visualization Science and Technology Center (STC) and the National Tele-Immersion Initiative (1997-2000). Although we still refer to our group as the "OOTF project," our scope has broadened to encompass many related sub-projects in projector-based graphics, computer vision, tracking, etc.

But why wait for the Office of the Future? Check out our related Office of "Real Soon Now" efforts. My current office however does not use projectors. Instead I have three 47" Westinghouse flat panel displays.

With collaborators at Brown University I worked on "Electronic Books for the Tele-immersion Age." The idea is to train trauma surgeons using life-sized, high-fidelity, three-dimensional, dynamic, and annotated graphical reconstructions of surgical procedures. Check out our 3D knot reconstructions,

 I also worked in a related area we call 3D Telepresence for Medical Consultation. The project goal is to develop and test 3D telepresence technologies that are permanent, portable and handheld in remote medical consultations involving an advising healthcare provider and a distant advisee.

 Our Being There project was aimed at exploring a new projector-based approach to visualizing re-creations of real or imagined places.

Besides tracking heads and hands for Virtual Reality, I have helped to track nanometer sized beads for a 3D Force Microscope (work with the Nanoscale Science Research Group).

In the early 1990s I worked on the AN/ALQ-135 (electronic countermeasure system for the F-15 Eagle) at what was then Northrop's Defense Systems Division.

In the late 1980s I worked on the Voyager Project at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. I was a member of the Sequence Team, the team that coordinated, simulated, and monitored the flight computer instructions that enabled ongoing mission activities. Humanity's Farthest Journey offers a nice look at the project. It also "stars" close friend, and Voyager Project Manager, Suzanne Dodd.

In 1985-1986, at Purdue University, I co-developed (with James P. Williams) “The Easy Chair: A Microprocessor-Controlled Wheelchair for Children With Muscular Disorders.” The wheelchair included an ultrasonic “bumper” system, a custom infrared touch-pad, motor controllers, and a user-programmable 8085-based control unit. The Easy Chair project was awarded Outstanding Senior Design Project by the Purdue University Department of Electrical Engineering Technology, in May of 1986. I have scanned the (typed, dot matrix printed, and hand drawn) preliminary report and final report.


Last updated Wed, Mar 7, 2018