1. Research Presentation
by David Whittinghill

2. My Background Professional software engineer since 1997.
Predominantly in research-oriented companies.
Domains:
Biotechnology
Image processing
Simulation and modeling
More…
Master’s of Science, CIT 2004.
Thesis: Enterprise Application Development
Ph.D. in Computer Graphics Technology, Spring 2009.
Thesis: Physically Based Rendering

3. My Doctoral Research Predictive Rendering experiment.
Validate global illumination algorithms.
Create a virtual scene modeled on a real world scene.
Measure the ambient irradiance levels present in both scenes and store as light maps.
Compare the light maps for likeness.
A significant match means the algorithms are applicable to scene modeling as well as image production.

4. Initial Horticulture Experiment
Frantz (2003), a horticulture researcher, conducted plant growth chamber experiments.
Broader goals: better Advanced Life Support Systems in space missions, cave-grown crops.
Placed light sensors in a plant growth chamber.
Measured irradiance intensity levels at fixed intervals.
Measurements stored as a table; to be converted to a three-dimensional light map.

5. Light Map
A map of the intensities of electromagnetic energy present in a three-dimensional volume.
Only interested in wavelengths (λ) between 380 and 750 nanometers.

6. Virtual Growth Chamber
I create a virtual growth chamber modeled after Frantz’ physical one.
Measure the virtual light intensities within the volume.
Create a map describing the energy distribution in the virtual chamber.

7. Assembling the Virtual Chamber

8. Comparison

9. Comparison

10. Comparison
Δ = 34.10

11. Comparison
Δ = 34.10
Δ = 8.53

12. Comparison
Δ = 34.10
Δ = 8.53
Δ = 27.46

13. Comparison Δ = Difference between virtual and physical sensors
Δ = 34.10
Δ = 8.53
Δ = 27.46

14. Comparison Δ = Difference between virtual and physical sensors Actual
Δ = 34.10
Δ = 8.53
Δ = 27.46

15. Comparison
Δ = Difference between virtual and physical sensors
Actual
Virtual
Δ = 34.10
Δ = 8.53
Δ = 27.46
The smaller the difference between measurements, the better.
A smaller delta means the illumination algorithm creates an electromagnetic radiation environment more similar to reality.

16. Problem
Δ = Difference between virtual and physical sensors
Actual
Virtual
Δ = 34.10
Δ = 8.53
Δ = 27.46
Problem: The plants in the virtual and the actual are not identical.
Exact duplication is practically impossible!
Therefore: observed error between virtual and actual sensors will have high variance.

17. Solution!
Create randomly generated plants that are similar to the actual plant.
Take irradiance measurements from each sensor and save. These should now vary.
Repeat thousands of times.
Collect a range of virtual irradiance observations.
Compare the actual observations to the range of virtual observations.
Ideally, the actual observations should fall within one or two standard deviations from the mean.

18. Comparison – Random Plants
Net result: a distribution of observations for each sensor
Sensor A
Sensor B
Sensor C
Sensor N

19. Analysis For each sensor:
Do the actual observations fall within one or two standard deviations of the mean of the virtual observations?
Physical Observation
Range of Virtual Observations

20. Implementation Note Used PBRT renderer as base. Very modified.
Hand coded in C++:
Full spectrum lighting (no RGB)
Custom BDF’s
SPD and BDF interpolators
PBRT Scene generator
Plant growth implementation
Virtual sensors
A LOT of coding!

21. Scientific Significance
Grand Challenges for Engineering
National Academy of Engineering
Enhance Virtual Reality; improving virtual models of the world.

22. Scientific Significance
Computer Graphics
Physically-based rendering algorithms presently used to make convincing/correct images.
Will provide evidence that they can be used for virtual spaces as well.
A framework for validating algorithms against spaces that are highly shape-variant.
A technique for analyzing error between light maps.
Applying statistical techniques to analyze global illumination algorithms.

23. Scientific Significance
Horticultural and Climate Science
Uniformity studies – can validate uniformity in growth chambers.
Plant growth – current design uses fixed BDF, expand this to include dynamic, biologically-derived BDF’s.
Predictive growth studies – test if algorithms can predict plant growth patterns in given chamber configurations.
3D Plant volume estimations – currently everything is 2D.
Can these findings generalize to underground cave and similar quarantined crops?
Model can be expanded to macro levels for climate-level analysis.
Currently working with Dr.’s Mitchell and Massa in Horticulture to expand this work even further.

24. Scientific Significance
High Performance Computing (HPC)
Each simulation takes several hours to run.
Use of HPC resources required to compute several thousand simultaneous simulations.
Currently being configured for Condor cluster at PU.
Currently consulting with Thomas Hacker in CIT to explore publishing possibilities.

25. Funding Potential NASA Fundamental Space Biology USDA, NIH
The project was originally funded by NASA but was cut due to a shift in political priorities.
The Life Sciences portion of NASA’s funding has been restored by President Obama.
Highly likely funding for these kinds of projects will be restored as part of those funds.
Dr. Mitchell was just passed over on a grant. The reason: not enough predictive validity of light distribution!
USDA, NIH
This work has strong correlates to crop production.
Genetically modified crops can be grown underground, this work could help model those growth environments.

26. Funding Potential NSF Visual Analytics Cyberinfrastructure Biology
Curriculum Development Grants (CCLI, STEM Education)

27. Other Research Interests
Visualization (volume rendering, information visualization, flow visualization)
Global illumination
Gaming
GPGPU
Distributed Computing (Enterprise Application Development, Web Apps)
High Performance Computing
Virtual Reality
Mobile Computing
Bioinformatics
Machine Vision/Robotics

28. Immediate Research Objectives
Light Type, Placement and Automation as Factors Important For Crop Uniformity and Energy Conservation of Controlled Environment Production,
Co-author: Massa, Whittinghill, Bourget, Morrow, Mitchell.
Conference: International Symposium on High Technology for Greenhouse System.

29. Immediate Research Objectives
Associating Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms with Binary Traits, 2009.
Co-author: Lipka, Whittinghill. I am co-developing the algorithms and providing programming implementation.
Target Publication: Genetics.
Comparison of Irradiance Distributions Using Isosurface Volume Rendering, 2009.
Author. By-product of dissertation work.
Target Publications: ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Lighting Research & Technology.

30. Immediate Research Objectives
A Framework for Validating Physically Based Rendering, 2009.
Author. Directly based off my dissertation’s main thesis.
Target Publications: SIGGRAPH, Eurographics.
Illumination Map Comparison of Intracanopy Crop Lighting with Simulated Environment
Target Publication: HortScience, Eurographics Workshop on Natural Phenomena.

31. Three Year Outline Year One Two horticulture papers/conferences.
Two engineering/CG papers.
One bioinformatics paper.
Begin mobile graphics book.
Visit Harmonix, Zenimax Online.
Re-submit NASA Fundamental Space Biology grant with Mitchell lab.
Submit Software Engineering grant with US Navy.
Aggressively recruit graduate students.
Set up gaming institute, gaming internship program.
Partner with Microsoft Games for Learning Institute.
Serious Games Center with Bill Watson
Seek NSF/NIH/USDA funding for light chamber research.
Begin constructing course on Enterprise Application Frameworks (Spring, etc.)

32. Three Year Outline Year Two
CG paper (extending algorithmically-based (ABM) reflection models).
Three horticulture papers (uniformity, ABM, optimized light placement).
SIGGRAPH paper (optimized light placement).
Two gaming papers (recruiting, RAD).
HPC paper.
Finish mobile graphics book.
Begin global illumination/PBRT book.
Begin enterprise application development book.
Continue outreach to gaming companies for student funding.
Aggressively recruit graduate students.
Expand gaming lab. Focus on applying RAD to gaming.
Seek NSF/NIH/USDA funding for light chamber research.

33. Three Year Outline Year Three
One horticulture paper (improved plant’s effect on light).
CG paper (optimized light placement).
Finish global illumination/PBRT book.
Continue enterprise application development book.
Paper on Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) gaming.
Aggressively recruit graduate students.
Expand gaming lab into online gaming.
Seek NSF/NIH/USDA funding for light chamber research.

34. Departmental Mission …Applied Research…
12 years experience in Research and Development.
…educates professional practitioners…
I am a professional practitioner!
A well-reviewed, effective educator.
…develops innovations in the application of emerging technology…
Have created and adapted novel implementations that have succeeded in the marketplace.

35. My Mission
To build a meaningful academic career of great achievement and great contribution that is intellectually challenging, spiritually fulfilling, fun, and in service to the pursuit and creation of Knowledge, and the betterment of humanity.