Computer Science Assistant

T. M. Murali

Computer Science

Department

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Stanford CA 94305-9010

650-***-**** (Work)

650-***-**** (Home)

650-***-**** (Fax)

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http://robotics.stanford.edu/~murali

Education

Ph.D.,,

Providence, Rhode Island, June 1998.

Sc.M.,,

Providence, Rhode Island, May 1993.

B.Tech. Computer

Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology,

Madras, India, August 1991.

Research Interests

Computational geometry and applications, computer graphics, robotics,

geographic information systems, external memory algorithms.

Research Projects

Model building I have developed algorithms for incrementally constructing

three-dimensional models of urban environments using sensors

mounted on multiple, coordinated robots. These algorithms

minimise the total time needed to complete the

reconstruction. They do not need any a priori knowledge

of the environment and take sensor limitations, sensor errors,

and errors in estimating sensor positions into account.

Binary space partitions The binary space partition is a geometric data structure that

represents a hierarchical decomposition of a set of

objects. It is used in various applications such as

visualisation, solid modelling, and surface simplification. I

have developed algorithms that construct binary space

partitions of provably near-linear size and logarithmic depth

for architectural models, urban landscapes, and terrain-like

data sets. In practice, the algorithm for architectural

models constructs a smaller binary space partition than most

known algorithms. I also developed the first

provably-efficient algorithm for maintaining a binary space

partition for a set of moving segments in the plane.

Hidden-surface removal I developed the object complexity model for

hidden-surface removal. I am currently implementing a new

algorithm for hidden-surface removal in walkthrough

applications that renders complex environments efficiently by

maintaining a small superset of the set of visible objects.

Geometric data repair Many geometric data sets contain geometric and topological

errors. I developed and implemented a novel approach based on

spatial partitions for generating topologically-consistent

solid models from arbitrary polygonal data.

Contour-line extraction An important problem in geographic information systems is

computing the contour of a terrain at a given height. Since

terrain data sets often do not fit in main memory, algorithms

operating on them should minimise the number of disk accesses

they perform. I developed the first algorithm for contour

extraction that uses an optimal number of disk accesses.

Algebraic decision trees Constructing algebraic decision trees is a fundamental

machine learning problem. I designed algorithms that construct

trees of near-optimal size for points in two and three

dimensions.

Experience

October 1998-present Post-doctoral researcher with Profs. Leonidas

J. Guibas and Jean-Claude

Latombe in the Computer

Science Department at .

1993-1998 Research Assistant for Prof. Jeffrey

S. Vitter at Department

of Computer Science, Duke

University.

Summer 1996 Internship with Prof. Thomas

A. Funkhouser in the Multimedia Lab,,, Murray

Hill, New Jersey.

Summer 1995 Internship in the Performer

group, Advanced Systems Division,,

Mountain View, California.

Spring 1993 Teaching Assistant for Discrete Mathematics in the

Department of Computer

Science at Brown

University.

1991-1992 Research Assistant for Prof. Franco

Preparata in the Department of

Computer Science at Brown

University.

Publications

Please visit a separate page containing all .

Work in Progress

``Interactive occlusion culling and kinetic ray shooting,'',,, and .

``Near-optimal algebraic classification trees,'',,, and .

Presentations

``Cylindrical static and kinetic binary space partitions,''

13th Annual Symposium on Computational Geometry, Nice, France,

June 1997.

``Practical techniques for constructing binary space partitions

for orthogonal rectangles,'' poster at the 13th Annual Symposium

on Computational Geometry, Nice, France, June 1997.

``Consistent solid and boundary representations from

arbitrary polygonal data,'' 1997 Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics,

Providence, Rhode Island, April 1997.

``Binary space partitions for orthogonal rectangles,'' invited

talk, McGill University, Montreal, Canada, April 1997.

``Binary space partitions for fat rectangles,'' 37th Annual

Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, Burlington, Vermont,

October 1996.

Honours and Awards

1986-1991 Scholarship from the National Council for Education, Research, and

Training, India.

1989 Rajalakshmi

Krishnamurthy English Prize, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras,

India.

1987 The first Indian participant in

NASA's International Summer Students

Program.

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February 15, 1999

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