Projects

Current - Active

• Masters Project - "GPU based Acceleration of Radio Interferometry Processing"
  
  Brief Description:
  This project aims to expedite the processing of Astronomical Radio Interferometry UV data to produce multi-frequency data and images useful to Astronomy researchers with the use of GPU cards. A GPGPU implementation of Direct Fourier Transform method of Image Synthesis will be developed, optimized, and tested against standard Fast Fourier Transform and multi-core implementations. Auto-tuning will be implemented if deemed necessary.
  



Current - Not Active

Previous

• Labyrinth
  Some work I did with Julian Kenwood for Prof. Tony Fairall from the Astronomy Department at UCT. Originally an honours project for the Astronomy Department by Carl Hultquist and Sameshan Perumal in 2004. The program reads in a database of galaxy co-ordinates, groups them to form clusters of higher density areas and displays them in an intuitive manner (basically creating solid blobs around Large Scale Structures). It had proven a very useful program for the Astronomy Department and needed an upgrade. Hence myself and Julian, we did a whole lot of developing and added a whole host of new features including:
  - Increased control of program variables (more menus and controls)
  - Orthogonal viewing, reference grids, loadable labels
  - High-resolution screen-shot rendering (up to and over 15000x15000)
  - Debugging
  - Optimisation
  - Refactoring
  
  TODO: put some links and stuff to it. In the meantime email me if you have any questions about it.
  


• JOGL (Java Open GL bindings) Game API
  I made this for the 2nd year Game Design Course practicals (2008). Basically allows one to create games easily without having to get bogged down in technical details. And it's in Java! ... which is a good and bad thing depending on who you are. Programmed to be easy to use and hard to break. It's still in development but it's pretty much done.
  TODO: put some links and stuff to it. In the meantime email me if you have any questions about it.
  


• Maze of DOOM
  3rd-Year Games Project. FPS where you fly around and shoot these dumb green alien things (we didn't choose the models). Has 4 weapon, Homing Missle, Machine Gun, Shotgun and grenade and a basic (broken) physics and collision detection engine. Also was able to try my hand at programmable shaders in the game. Put a hell of a lot of effort into it but it eventually degenerated into a bit of a hack after trying to put AI in it. I implemented a neural network and on the weekend beore the hand-in after 6 (yes 'six') restarts from scratch I got it right. The enemies can learn how to turn to face you and chase after you, no emergent NN behaviour though... pretty good for a first time I think. Don't ask me how to use the AI though, it's too complicated and embarisingly hacky. The whole thing was a good experience for a first time try at programming a game engine. Dear goodness help us if we were asked to hack anything else onto it!
  Source and project writeup
  


• RayCASE T
  A volumetric data visualisation tool my partner (Wesley King) and I made for our 2nd year Computer Science project.
  Source and project writeup
  


• Alone
  A fairly crappy game made with Gamemaker for my Game Design Course. It got a good mark but I wouldn't really spend too much time playing it :p .
  Alone (Windows)




Previous - Game Jam

• Global Game Jam 2011:
  Cellphone AR-esq game Spider Kaleida
  


• Global Game Jam 2010:
  Turn-based construction realtime destruction battle game Module
  


• Global Game Jam 2009:
  Deadly Synergy - Game where 2 playes have to work together in order to win, but get too close and you both die Deadly Synergy
  



Previous - Honours

• GVE wiimote headtracking game environment
  Details to follow when I'm not lazy...
  


• Webots walking simulation with the naofawkes framework:
  Details to follow when I'm not lazy...
  


• Genetic Algorithms to find 2D 'walking' robots done in honours:
  Details to follow when I'm not lazy...
  



One day I'll do these...

• Genetic Algorithm with Neural Networks
  Using GA's to make a creature but then uses NN to work out the most efficient walking pattern
  
  


• Scripting Real-time Strategy game
  
  
  


• Image Retargetting program
  I've made a hacked together prototype that only shrinks in the horizontal (which has more leaks and holes in it then a busted up pirate ship... and goes about as fast as one - but I made it!), maybe I'll put in the effort to make a real program someday
  

Also...