Field Trip Report

The CS Department has posted a report on our recent field trip to Goblin Valley.

I was pleasantly surprised at the value of the field trip. I originally planned it because it might be useful but it would definitely be fun. It turned out to be fun (as expected) but also was more useful than many of the capstone class discussions we'd had prior to the field trip.

Unfortunately, the BYU Rental Fleet Safari vans have a low ceiling which meant I had to dip my head slightly for 6 hours while I drove back and forth between Goblin Valley. This left me with an excruciatingly painful headache after I got home. We'll have to solve that problem next time by renting an SUV from the fleet.

First Image: Erosion with Concavities

This image is our first fully rendered terrain generated using our model of surface erosion that admits concave surfaces. It obviously needs some serious smoothing, but it looks more like a Goblin than our last one. (Algorithm: Matthew Beardall, translation to and mock-up in Bryce by Darius Ouderkirk)

This work was done as part of our BYU CS Capstone class on sandstone erosion modeling.

First Synthetic Goblin

Matthew Beardall developed an erosion simulation algorithm which created the following hoodoo-like shape. If you look at it long enough, you can perhaps convince yourself that the algorithm is on the way to generating Goblin Valley Hoodoos (link goes to an image by Eve Andersson).

Average Sunset on Mt. Timpanogos

This image is the average image created by compositing 43 images of Mt. Timpanogos taken at 99.6% of the lit day over the course of the last 2 months. As such, it represents the average sunset over that time period. The average noon-day picture (taken at 50.0% of the lit day) is bit more murky.

Introducing the brand new Computer Generated Natural Phenomena Lab at BYU

My new lab is the "Computer Generated Natural Phenomena" Lab. I am working with a grad student (co-adivising with Parris Egbert) and two undergrads. We even made a lab webpage to increase our visibility.

Natural Phenomena isn't a hugely hot research area in graphics right now. There's usually a paper in two in SIGGRAPH and there's a Natural Phenomena workshop held with Eurographics each year. I believe that while CGNP is hugely important in visual storytelling, the fundamental algorithms and assumptions haven't changed much in 10 years. Computing technology has come along way since 1996 and it's time to rethink and re-invent CGNP technology. I intend to position my students at the forefront of a second wave of CGNP research.

Contact me if you'd like know more about our work including how you might participate.