CSSE News

Mohammed, Robyn & Ajmal - most downloaded paper!

Congratulations to CSSE Head of School, A/Professor Mohammed Bennamoun, Professor Robyn Owens and Dr Ajmal Mian for having their paper, 'A Novel Representation and Feature Matching Algorithm for Automatic Pairwise Registration of Range Images' listed as one of the most downloaded research papers from 2005/2006 for the International Journal of Computer Vision (IJCV) which has been rated as having the highest impact factor for Computer Science!

1st Year Comp Science Student Keys UWA Quinella!

Following the ‘Interzone Nullarbor’ in April, an annual Australasian Game Development competition, some of the best entries were hand picked to compete in the ‘Interzone Nullarbor Deconstructor’ competition at the end of May 2007, which allowed for a very in depth look at all the entries submitted by a diverse panel of expert judges comprising representatives from Interzone, ECU, Murdoch & UWA.

In a thrilling battle for the top spot, Wembley Downs resident, Scott Kerr, a 1^st year student from the School of Computer Science and Software Engineering, UWA took out the honours with ‘Last Dawn’, beating out entries from as far afield as New Zealand, holding off ‘Zyberflux’ the flashy creation of UWA computer science students Jason Wong, James Strauss, Minh Tran & Anthony Prior. This made it a triumphant quinella for UWA outpacing others including entries such as ‘Dust’, ‘Adreneline’, ‘Dave’s Challenge’ & ‘Return to Zero’.

Last Dawn Screenshot	Scott Kerr

Scott’s ‘Last Dawn’ which can be downloaded in its entirety (see below) is a game about surviving in a zombie infested world, scavenging for supplies and trying to defend your base from zombies until you are rescued. The game was built on an engine made from scratch over a period of months. Working alone, he faced many challenges and spent many hours perfecting his game which won praise for its innovative gameplay and stylized graphics.

At the Deconstructor Competition, due to the depth to which the games were examined, it gave the judges and all entrants a great sense of the quality of all the entries as well as to the difficulties and challenges faced, as part of the judging involved the creators answering questions from the floor. It looked at the tools & technology used and examined motivation and creative inspiration as well.

Zyberflux is set in another universe and your 'ships' flies on a flux/rail while navigating a myriad of obstacles and surviving by destroying , and shooting down enemies in order to reach the end of the level where 'The Big Kahuna' awaits.

School Manager, Jay Jay Jegathesan said “These results come at an opportune time, as the School of Computer Science and Software Engineering, UWA have just launched new majors in the flagship Bachelor of Computer Science Degree programme. These include majors in Entertainment Technology & Web Technologies and units such as Game Design & Multimedia”

Last Dawn can be downloaded in its entirety from the ‘Awesome Animations’ website of the School of Computer Science and Software Engineering. A preview of Zyberflux is also available from the same site.

http://www.csse.uwa.edu.au/awesome/

CheXmate! Archer shoots down Underdog!

In 1996, the `Deep Blue' computer system became the first machine to win a chess game against a reigning world champion (Gary Kasparov). This sparked worldwide recognition and interest in artificial intelligence.

The 1st of June 2007 saw the annual CheX World Cup Final being held at the School of Computer Science and Software Engineering where the `Alphabeater' computer agent created by Ryan Archer defeated `Underdog' (Oren Nachmann). Both had come through intense preliminary finals where raging favourite and top seed, `Miguel' (David Nidorf) was shocked by Underdog, with Alphabeater accounting for the `George Bush' agent created by Norwegian exchange student Marius Olsen, marking the first time that a European entry failed to make the final in 3 years.

All these students take the Algorithms for Artificial Intelligence unit taught by Dr Cara MacNish at the School of Computer Science and Software Engineering, UWA.

Each year the Algorithms for Artificial Intelligence students build `intelligent' software agents that compete against each other in a Chess-like game. The game, called CheX, is intentionally a little different to Chess, so that publicly available algorithms cannot be used. It also adds a little local flavour with, for example, a Winthrop Hall piece (shaped after UWA's famed clock tower) taking a similar role to the Rook (Castle) in Chess.

Chess-like games are difficult to solve due the high branching factor and enormous size of the search space. Although a student's program may typically examine over a million board configurations in its allotted time for each move, this only scratches the surface. The development of good functions for evaluating the "quality" of board positions is therefore critically important.

The competition has been held every year since 2001, using software developed locally by the unit co-ordinator, Dr MacNish. The software is designed so that students' agents can be `plugged in' either on the same machine or through the internet.

CheX winner Ryan said that his experience in playing chess helped him quite a bit as some of the thought processes were similar.

"This is the first time I have used the Java programming language to write an algorithm such as this. I had a lot of fun, and winning this is a bonus!".

left to right: Oren, David, Ryan (winner) and Marius

To see how a CheX match unfolds, visit the `Awesome Animations' website of the School of Computer Science and Software Engineering http://www.csse.uwa.edu.au/awesome

Who says art and science don’t mix?

An enterprising group of 3rd year university students from the School of Computer Science and Software Engineering (CSSE), UWA are aiming to answer that very question once and for all as part of their ongoing ‘Professional Computing’ unit.

This unique unit taught by Associate Professor Mark Reynolds requires groups of approximately 7 students to work on a ‘real world’ problem, and gain valuable skills associated with project management, computer science, programming, teamwork, marketing, design, etc.

This group chose to take up the challenge of creating the ‘Zuks Gallery’ interactive website, which will result in website of the works of renowned WA artist Len Zuks. The website is intended to be interactive where art lovers will be able to view Len’s many sculptures and paintings in all their 3-Dimensional glory, as well as 2-D images of the art, located at the University of Western Australia. Other members of the group include Michael Huynh, Michael Goold, Mark Dzieciol, Ashley Same, Jose Ascencio and Phuong Nguyen.

The physical ‘Zuks Gallery’ was set up in April 2006 at the Computer Science building by the artist himself and CSSE School Manager Jay Jay Jegathesan, who have both described the birth of the gallery as the fruit of a moment of serendipity.

Jay Jay said, ‘This product is very exciting and interesting. Len is a remarkable person with very unique viewpoints on life. The students are creating a section where Len’s thoughts and philosophies on life which he writes out in beautiful script are scanned and loaded onto the site’.

The breathtaking mix of 30 paintings & sculptures including ‘The Entertainer’ which guards the entrance of the Computer Science building and the 3 meter long ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone’ (Oil, Acrylic, Plaster & Varnish on Canvas) have allowed the group to harness greatest use of their creativity, as compared to anything they have completed at University.

Here skills learnt via study are applied to create a work of art. The project allows for an extension of the students skills to the real world as it will be used by real, everyday people.

Through this project, the students we have been able to learn the necessary real life process of working together to create a product. They have had to meet, plan, record progress, assign tasks and provide documentation and deliverables. They can see their inputs combining to create a complete product.

In the interim, Len’s art can be viewed at http://www.csse.uwa.edu.au/zuks

Zyberfluxing to the Top

A group of current & former PhD students of the School of Computer Science and Software Engineering (CSSE), UWA, namely Anthony Prior, James Strauss, Minh Tran and Jason Wong (who formed 'OneTwenty', a social group for gamers, developers & researchers) together with Adam Matera & the musical genius of Poya Manoucherhi created a game called 'Zyberflux' which took out the 2nd prize at 'Interzone Nullarbor', which an annual Australian Game Development Competition. This national competition was held from the 30th of March - 1st of April in conjunction with the internationally renowned GO3 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Perth. On top of that, 1st year CSSE student, Scott Kerr, working alone, won 5th place for his game, 'Last Dawn' which was set in a world of zombies.

This is the first time such an Expo has been held in Australia, and this augurs well for the game development industry in the country and especially for Western Australia. Some of the superstars of the game development world from the US & Japan (including developers of 'Gears of War', 'Destroy all Humans', 'Metal Gear Solid', 'Killer 7', 'Rez') were on hand giving seminars on their experiences & inspirations in their illustrious game development careers.

Zyberflux is set in another universe and your 'ships' flies on a flux/rail while navigating a myriad of obstacles and surviving by destroying , and shooting down enemies in order to reach the end of the level where 'The Big Kahuna' awaits. Although simple in concept, they did everything from scratch, taking weeks to complete and an incredible amount of teamwork for this busy group, many of whom set aside precious time from their ongoing PhD projects to work on this interesting project.

Flying on the Flux

While CSSE has no specific degree programs or Majors with the words 'Games' in the title, the flagship degree programs of the School including the Bachelor of Computer Science & Bachelor of Engineering (Software Engineering) contain units such as Visualisation, Algorithms for Artificial Intelligence and Computer Graphics, among others, which to an extent provides a foundation for anyone who actually does want to venture into the games programming. Of course a lot of hard work and self study would be required as well, as this is a constantly changing field, and one in which the oft quoted ?lifelong learning? phrase is extremely relevant!

The Big Kahuna

When asked about the experience, Jason Wong related that "It was definitely worth all the effort we put it. It was really fun working together as a team, towards a common goal. I think the journey was more meaningful than the destination. It really was a great feeling to give it your all to create something from nothing. Not only that, but I feel that the skills we have pick up along the way will be very useful in securing a place in my future career."

Associate Professor Amitava Datta who is the PhD supervisor for many on the team said, "I am very proud of them, they are hardworking and industrious, and aside from their success at this competition, their PhD projects which are close to completion look to be of very high quality and brings a new dimension to the field."

Scott's 'Last Dawn' is a game about surviving in a zombie infested world, scavenging for supplies and trying to defend your base from zombies until you are rescued. The game was built on an engine made from scratch over a period of months. We expect big things from Scott in the future.

Last Dawn

For the interested, previews of both games are now on the Awesome Animations website of CSSE, a site dedicated to displaying the breadth of research going on at the School, outreach work and generating a love for the sciences among school children.

Lectopia Continues UWA WAITTA Streak

At a glittering awards ceremony on the 23rd of March 2007 in the Grand Ballroom of the Burswood Resort Hotel, UWA's Lectopia team walked away as deserving winners in the 'Product' category of the 16th WA Information Technology & Telecommunications Awards (WAITTA 2006-2007). The award, recognising excellence in an IT&T product developed by a Western Australian organisation, was received by Project Director Michael Fardon on behalf of the team. There was strong competition from a diverse field in this category, with a total of four shortlisted products.

The Lectopia team's win makes it the 6th time in a row that UWA have won a WAITTA, with UWA's School of Computer Science & Software Engineering winning the 'Student' Category every year since 2002.

The WAITTA Awards have been conducted annually since 1991 by the WA Branch of the Australian Computer Society Inc. The purpose of the WAITTA is to recognise outstanding performance and contributions by members of the IT&T community in Western Australia.

UWA's winning streak looked in danger of ending, when Daniel Deluca-Cardillo, Quenten Thomas & the 3rd Year PC 3200 team of Sam Chang, Roy Chen, Jun Hagiwara, Dean Herbert, Dean Scarff & Evgeni Sergeev of the School of Computer Science and Software Engineering were all given Finalist awards in the 'Student' category, but the School's 'Big Brother' in the form of the Lectopia team who in fact comprise two graduates from the School of Computer Science and Software Engineering (Shaun Procter, Shay Telfer and Damyon Wiese), preserved UWA's proud record by scooping the final award of the night!

Lectopia is a leading lecture capture and delivery solution developed by UWA's Arts Multimedia Centre. The intention of Lectopia is to support and enhance the traditional lecture method, and provide students with easy and convenient access to their learning materials. Since development commenced in 1999, Lectopia is now used by almost 40% of Australian universities, including UWA. International interest in the system, particularly from the US and UK markets, has been overwhelming. Newcastle University has just become the first UK university to license the Lectopia, and the system has been in usage at Duke University in the US since 2005.

Daniel, was shortlisted for his '3D Pose Recovery of the Human Arm' which was an honours project using filtering techniques to recover the 3D pose of a human arm from a single video sequence. Quenten's 'Vessel Classification from Periscope Data' was an honours project commissioned by Raytheon Australia that helped identify ships from submarine periscope data. Daniel & Quenten were supervised by Dr Du Huynh & Dr Cara MacNish respectively.

'DockTalk' was UWA's other finalist and this was the first time ever that a 3rd Year Student project was successful in being shortlisted as a Finalist for WAITTA. This was developed for Thales Australia and is a 'Jabber Instant Messaging Messenger Client' which operates on handheld devices allowing bi-directional conversations to talk place over wireless networks. A/Professor Richard Thomas deserves special mention for guiding a Year 3 team to a finalist spot. Something that we have never achieved in the past.

The Lectopia team (l-r): Shaun Procter, Damyon Wiese, Shay Telfer, Mike Fardon, Jocasta Williams, Kate Goodwin

School of Computer Science & Software Engineering Finalists : Standing (l-r): Quenten Thomas, Daniel Deluca-Cardillo Sitting (l-r): Evgeni Sergeev, Roy Chen, Dean Herbert

Honours Student paper accepted at ACM

Congratulations to Christian Brown (completed Honours degree with CSSE in Nov 2006) whose paper "Visualizing Berkeley Socket Calls in Students' Programs" has been accepted for the 2007 ACM Annual Conference on Innovation in Computer Science Education (June 2007, Dundee Scotland)

UWA's Google Angel!

Jessica Manea an undergraduate student at the School of Computer Science and Software Engineering, UWA, was one of only 2 high achieving West Australian women to be on the 2006 Google Australia Anita Borg Scholarship Shortlist!

The Google Australia Anita Borg Scholarship was set up in 2006 in memory of Anita Borg, the founding director of the Institute for Women and Technology. A true visionary, she was appointed by US President Bill Clinton to the Presidential Commission on the Advancement of Women and Minorities in Science, Engineering, and Technology. Anita dedicated a significant portion of her life encouraging women to pursue careers in the computing and IT disciplines and to promoting the advancement of women in these fields.

The award process itself was extremely rigorous, and involved the writing up of answers to 3 essay questions, the submission of a proposal for an IT project, and of course a detailed resume, which was followed by 2 telephone interviews. So impressed was Google with Jessica that she was flown to Sydney for a special retreat along with others on the short-list and spent a day at the newly opened Google Sydney office, apart from also being awarded with a $1,000 prize.

She said, “This was very tough, however the topics are so engaging that it was an extremely worthwhile experience. It was great to meet and get to know other bright young women who have similar interests, goals and aspirations as I do. I’d encourage all young women in computer science and related faculties to apply for this wonderful scholarship opportunity.”

Jay Jay Jegathesan, School Manager for the School of Computer Science and Software Engineering said, “We are very happy for Jessica. This gives impetus to the focus we have had on women in IT through our Awesome Animations and Animatronics Outreach Programme. Our outreach programme included activities that have similar goals including participation in the “Go Girl Go for IT“ event, the “Forensics Day”, “Women in Engineering” events and visits to various girls schools throughout WA.

Dr Ajmal Mian wins the CORE Award

Dr Ajmal Mian, has done Computer Science and Software Engineering and The University of Western Australia proud, by winning the CORE Distinguished Doctoral Award for 2006!

In doing so, he becomes the first Western Australian PhD graduate to receive this award.
For further information, visit the Core Website. A list of Past Winners is also available.

Congratulations also to his supervisors Associate Professor Mohammed Bennamoun & Professor Robyn Owens in guiding Ajmal to his award winning submission!

UWA roars into WAITTA contention!

The School of Computer Science & Software Engineering (CSSE), UWA have always produced strong candidates for the Western Australian Information Technology and Telecommunications Awards (WAITTA), and the quadruple defending champions did not dissapoint, with 3 of the 4 finalists for the 2006 award being from CSSE.

Honours student, Daniel Deluca-Cardillo's '3D Pose Recovery of the Human Arm' was one of the selected finalists. His work entailed the digital recording of the movements of a human subject. Some of the implications for future research coming from this work include its potential in security surveillance, rehabilitation analysis, the study of animal behavious and movement and even hand gesture & sign
language recognition.

Quenten Thomas (Honours) was also shortlisted for his 'Vessel Classification from Periscope Data' work. The long-term aim of the project is to develop a system capable of identifying ships in a digital periscope image. The system needed to be be capable of identifying ships from only small glimpses, run in real time, and still work in all sorts of harsh maritime conditions, and this was achieved through the creation of an automatic ship model generator for testing.

An added bonus is that this is the first time a Year 3 'Professional Computing' project team has been selected. Sam Chang, Roy Chen, Jun Hagiwara, Dean Herbert, Dean Scarff & Evgeni Sergeev are the darkhorses for the award with their 'DocTalk' submission!

Congratulations also goes out to their supervisors, Dr Cara MacNish, Dr Chris McDonald, Dr Du Huynh & Dr Richard Thomas.

Fingers crossed, and best of luck to all, as the winners will be announced on the 23rd of March this year!

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