From: Colin Godfrey <cgodfrey@cs.umb.edu>
Subject: MERL Colloquium Thursday, November 5 -- Bernd Hamann
Date: Tuesday, November 03, 1998 12:01 PM



forwarded announcement.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
MERL- A Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratory is pleased to invite you to
a Colloquium presentation by:

Prof. Bernd Hamann
Co-Director
Center for Image Processing and Integrated Computing (CIPIC)
University of California, Davis

                                                  Host: Hanspeter Pfister
Date:
        Thursday, November 5, 1998
        10:30 am to 12:00 pm (EST5EDT)
        Dr. Toshei Nitta Seminar Room
        MERL - A Mitsubishi Electric ResearchLlaboratory
        (Address below)

Title:  HIERARCHICAL APPROACHES FOR REPRESENTING AND
        VISUALIZATING MASSIVE SCIENTIFIC DATA SETS

Abstract:

One of the most challenging and important problems that the science and
engineering communities are facing today--and even more so in the
future--are representing, visualizing, and interpreting very large data
sets. Such data sets commonly result from computer simulations of complex
physical phenomena (e.g., computational physics, climate modeling, ocean
modeling) or from high-resolution imaging ( e.g., satellite imaging,
medical imaging). The technology currently being used to represent massive
data sets is inappropriate for interactive and efficient data analysis and
visualization. It is impossible for a user of a visualization system to
``navigate'' through a data set consisting of several million (or billion)
data points and analyze the data set entirely. In this talk, I will present
various ideas that seem to be promising in the context of overcoming some
of the problems associated with the visualization of very large data sets.
I will point out the necessity to bring together ideas from approximation
theory and geometric modeling (splines), computational geometry
(tesselations), optimization (simulated annealing), and other related
fields. I will point out avenues for representing massive data sets using
hierarchical approaches that facilitate visualization and analysis.


Bernd Hamann -- Biographical Sketch

Bernd Hamann is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and Co-Director
of the Center for Image Processing and Integrated Computing (CIPIC) at the
University of California, Davis. From 1991 to 1995 he was a faculty member
at the NSF Engineering Research Center for Computational Field Simulation,
Mississippi State University, where he contributed to the development of
computer-aided design (CAD), scientific visualization, and grid generation
systems. His primary research interests are visualization, computer-aided
geometric design (CAGD), and computer graphics. He is the author of over 50
refereed publications and has presented his research at leading conferences
in the U.S. and in Europe.

Hamann received a B.S. in computer science, a B.S. in mathematics, and an
M.S. in computer science from the Technical University of Braunschweig,
Germany. He received his Ph.D. in computer science from Arizona State
University in 1991 (advisor: Gregory M. Nielson).

Hamann received a 1992 Research Initiation Award and a 1996 CAREER Award,
both awarded by the National Science Foundation. In 1995, he received a
Hearin-Hess Distinguished Professorship in Engineering while working at the
NSF Engineering Research Center for Computational Field Simulation.

Please, take note of this coming event, and pass
on the information to colleagues who may be interested.

We are looking forward to seeing you at MERL.



 Edith Ackermann     |  MERL - A Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratory
 617-621-7505 direct |                   201 Broadway
 617-621-7500 main   |                Cambridge, MA 02139
 617-621-7550 fax    |                http://www.merl.com