Master's Thesis

I am proud to announce that I have completed my Master's thesis on relighting real-world scenes using high dynamic range photographs! The thesis and high-resolution images are available at www.fusionindustries.com/default.asp?page=thesis

Update March 28, 2007:
My experience (as illustrated by PhD Comics).

Reading Technical Papers

When it comes time to select a new project or to do some new research, it's important to find out as much as possible about the subject area. Often times lots of research has already been done and written up as a journal or conference paper ("technical paper").

I discuss the expectations and value of technical papers and how they are used to compliment new or extended work.

Continued...

HDR Time

I'm currently writing my Master's thesis, which comes after spending the last six months studying and writing programs that leverage high dynamic range images.

I feel that a PhD is within my reach but I'm ready to move on into industry. Perhaps later on in life I'll have a topic and desire to devote an additional two (or more) years on research, implementation, and writing up a dissertation. Right now I'm excited about working in industry and becoming a truly professional software engineer.

Hello, Cg!

Want to start using Cg or HLSL to write shaders? nVidia has just posted a paper I wrote on getting started with Cg.

Check it out at developer.nvidia.com/object/hello_cg_tutorial.html

High Dynamic Range images for OpenGL

8-bit color channels holding you back?

Want colors values greater than 1.0?

Want a floating-point buffer even though the hardware doesn't exist yet?

Want control over exposure and gamma?

Fusion Industries is proud to release "HDR for OpenGL", a class which allows floating-point high dynamic range images to be used in OpenGL! Works on all video cards (TNT/GeForce/Radeon) and no extensions are required.

The future is now! Get HDR for OpenGL.

FI Cg/HLSL Shading Language FAQ

I've created a Cg and HLSL FAQ for those who are learning or working with the shading languages Cg and HLSL. It covers topics such as profiles, semantics, vertex and fragment shaders, and interfacing the languages with C/C++.

Any comments, questions, additions or corrections are encouraged and welcomed.

Read the FAQ.

FI in the News

Fusion Industries has been quoted (verbatim) about the ATI Radeon 9700/SDK on ATI developer's website at www.ati.com/developer/quotes "Mojo training day really shows that ATI cares about its developers and the community by providing us with technology, training and the tools needed to create next-generation graphics for games and visualization applications." "In addition, the release of RenderMonkey has been an essential tool in our shader development process. Mojo day showed me how to take advantage of the advanced DirectX 9 HLSL technology quickly and easily with stunning results." -Alex, Graphics Engineer, Fusion Industries.

Little Fluffy Clouds

I've recently been working on cloud lighting and rendering, based on the dissertation by Mark Harris at UNC.

We consider a cloud to be a collection of points which collect light from the sun and scatter it back to the viewer. I represent the cloud as a particle system with cloud particle billboards and light it using equations based on Harris' paper.

Images (work in progress):

Front	Back

On a related note, I've probably spent more time (four days) really making a good, flexible design than the actual coding (refer to the software design article). After all, coding is about thinking, not typing.

Supply and Demand

Not even two days had passed when the phone rang.

I answered and on the other end was Microsoft.

"I have some good news for you. Both groups want you!" my recruiter said.

 I've decided to work with the Windows Tablet PC group for the summer. I'm really excited and I can't wait to go. I'll be working with the latest technologies and creating things that will be used by many people.

I feel an incredible amount of temptation to move into industry, but I'll definitely finish grad school first.

Jet Set Alex Future

For a brief moment, I was part of the jet set.

Microsoft flew me up to Redmond on Monday and flew me back home on Tuesday so I could interview for a summer internship. This was called by Slashdot.org, "The Internship That Students Drool Over" (along with a link to an article and great discussion about it).

I spent the entire day interviewing separately with four developers in two groups. Each person gave me one or two programming or logic problems, which I solved with relative ease. (Examples include: given a set of numbers, remove the duplicates, optimize the sqrt out of a circle-drawing routine, minimize comparisons, and real-life work problems that my NDA probably won't let me discuss).

Everyone I talked with (from developers to recruiters to the shuttle drivers) was very approachable, friendly, energetic, and sincerely passionate about their job. Even better, I could talk with them at a comfortable technical and personal level too.

I'll find out at some point next week if I get an internship from one (or both) groups and when I do, I'll post it right away.

For more information on internships at Microsoft, visit www.microsoft.com/college.

Software Design

Have you ever wondered about how software was written? In my latest article, I describe the planning and design process I go through when I'm writing software, and encourage other programmers to plan before programming.

Check out the Software Design article in the updated Lore section!