Journal of Undergraduate Research

Adam Wayment and Dr. Robert P. Burton, Computer Science Raytracing is a technique used by artists and scientists to generate computer imagery with a high degree of realism. Mathematicians have long established the ease and elegance of generating mathematical objects that exist in four or more dimensions. Because raytracing is an elegant abstraction of the […]

Mike D. Smith and Dr. Thomas W. Sederberg, Computer Science In conventional two-dimensional or flat animation, an artist called a character animator will draw key poses for a cartoon that specify movement and expression. Generally, one or more additional artists will take these key frames of animation and draw more images to insert between them. […]

Nancy Owens and Professor Todd Peterson, Computer Science Robotic controllers often fail to perform well when transferred from a simulated environment to a real-world situation. Such failures are caused by discrepancies between a simulator and the real-world system which it is intended to model. Traditional approaches to this problem attempt to reduce the number and severity […]

Michael P. Holmes and Dr. Bryan Morse, Computer Science Imagine going through your late father’s belongings and finding that he had recorded many of his thoughts, ideas, and experiences in a special computer program. As you begin to use the program, recording the thoughts of your mind, the program brings to your attention various insights […]

Troy Walker and Dr. David Embley, Computer Science Data extraction is a rapidly growing area of computer science. It focuses on the extraction of pertinent data from large stores of knowledge such as databases or the internet. Data extraction allows us to use existing stores of data in new ways. One application for data extraction […]

Samuel Payne and Dr. Bryan Morse, Computer Science My ORCA research topic was 3D shape representation. I proposed research to develop a new method for representing surfaces that combined two current methods. The oldest method (thinplate spline model) was developed by Turk and O’Brien in 1998. The second method (compactly supported RBF) was developed by […]

Brandon Lloyd and Dr. Parris K Egbert, Computer Science In the 3D graphics lab at BYU we have developed a terrain visualization program called DVIEW capable of handling extremely large datasets. Our largest model is a piece of the Wasatch front nearly 100 miles long and 50 miles wide. The original vision for DVIEW was […]

Nancy Owens Fulda and Professor Todd Peterson, Computer Science Reinforcement learning is a sub-discipline of machine learning in which an autonomous program, called an agent, learns to behave appropriately in its environment. Appropriate behavior is described in terms of numerical reinforcements which the agent receives for appropriate or inappropriate actions. By storing a running average […]

Robert Franklin and Dr. Robert Burton, Computer Science The advent and subsequent widespread use of the Internet have facilitated and motivated hypermedia distance learning. Unfortunately, graphic images used in support of Internet-based distance learning usually are non-interactive and two-dimensional because computers have traditionally not been fast enough to perform the myriad of calculations needed to […]

G Thomas Finnigan and Dr. Thomas W Sederberg, Computer Science Motivation Image Compression is a way of decreasing the amount of space needed to store or transmit an image by removing redundant information. In many ways, compression it like folding clothing – the result takes up less space, but it not immediately usable. Compressing an […]