Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
From Synthesizing Realistic Images to
Visualizing
Scientific Data
Dr. Robert Lewis’s doctoral research in computer graphics focused on global illumination, using wavelets to solve the problem of radiative transfer in O(N) (where N is the number of objects) time instead of the usual O(N2) time presented by most rendering schemes (e.g. raytracing, radiosity, etc.). This led him to study representations of reflectance and the unification of traditional ad-hoc computer graphics reflectance models with illumination theory and physics.
Further work in image-based rendering and local illumination uses multilevel B-splines (MBSs) to represent reflectance data captured from real objects. MBSs have the advantage of being able to impose structure on unstructured data. Attempts here continue with efforts to port the MBS reflectance model to programmable graphics hardware.
The problem of fitting unstructured data has led Dr. Lewis to investigate the alternative technique of kriging, a statistical interpolation scheme that has met with great success in geophysics, but has not been applied much in graphics or visualization. Kriging offers the advantage over MBSs of not requiring a reconstruction grid, and therefore is resolution-independent and extremely compressible. Statistically-based interpolation may offer substantial improvements over the usual (spline-based) interpolation used in those areas.
Dr. Lewis’s background in physics and astronomy has led him to the field of scientific visualization. So far, he has worked in three visualization application areas: radiology, molecular dynamics (MD), and non-neutral plasmas.
In radiology, his work in constructing the edenbrowse program for visualization of electron energy deposition, is supported by a Department of Energy grant.
In molecular dynamics, he is working with a doctoral student and in consultation with researchers at Battelle Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to construct a new kind of MD visualizer for previously unvisualized simulation quantities such as uncertainty, (artificial) shadows, velocities, and accelerations.
In non-neutral plasmas, Dr. Lewis and a co-researcher at PNNL are working to convert a prototype low ion count system into an efficient simulator with a built-in visualizer to examine such plasmas as they occur in NMR spectroscopy.
Contact Information
Robert R. Lewis, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Washington State University Tri-Cities
2710 University Drive
Richland, WA 99354-1671
Telephone: 509-372-7178
E-Mail: bobl@wsu.edu
Physical and Computational Sciences
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Dr. Robert R. Lewis received his master’s degrees in astronomy from the University of California, Berkeley, and in computer science and engineering from the Oregon Graduate Institute, and a Ph. D. in Computer Science from the University of British Columbia. Prior to receiving his doctorate, he worked in the software industry for twelve years. Dr. Lewis has been published in numerous journals and conference proceedings, many of them refereed. He served as a consultant on projects to the U.S. Department of Energy and to the United States Air Force. Dr. Lewis has chaired three regional conferences and has been on the program committee of a major international conference. He has also served his profession by providing reviews of numerous books, journals, and conference submissions. |
