Keep Calm and Carry On

Received an email today from Forterra regarding its acquisition by SAIC, a large scientific software company. Coupled with Sun dropping its support of Wonderland, and this is looking a like a shake down of the industry.

A number of pundits in the virtual world industry have commented on this happening in 2010. In fact any industry, car, IT, airline et al. , has an early bloom of start ups, and then the cold hard processes of business kick in, reducing the population to those that have the resources and business models to survive. This is a given.

As for me, it is business as usual with my research. My group will be meeting this afternoon, and we will get on with developing our virtual world business process technology. We will exploit the new opportunities that will emerge in the future.

Ross

Paper: Measuring Visual Consistency in 3D Rendering Systems

My PhD student, Alfredo Nantes, has published and presented a paper at ACSW 2010 in Brisbane last week - Measuring Visual Consistency in 3D Rendering Systems

It covers his approach to using reverse projections of pixels in 3D computer graphics images in order to create a ground truth sample cloud that can be queried to confirm the geometric correctness of the objects in a 3D scene.

Nice work Alfredo!

Ross

Paper: APCCM 2010 Modelling in 3D Virtual Worlds

I have uploaded to QUT eprints the paper I presented at APCCM 2010 this week - Conceptual Modelling in 3D Virtual Worlds for Process Communication.

In this paper, I go into a little more detail about the 3D BPMN Editor I am developing in Open Simulator. I also discuss how to annotate a Virtual World with a Business Process Model (BPMN) in order to provide a place for a business analyst and a domain expert to combine their information to develop the conceptual process model for the business.

One comment from the audience was quite profound. In my approach, the Business Analyst brings the conceptual process model, and the domain expert brings the model of reality - buildings, layout and other artifacts representing the business. Together, these can be used to validate the correctness of the presented process model. Indeed this is done every time a consultant talks to a domain specialist and builds a model. However, when using the virtual world as a modelling space, the domain specialist provides (virtually) tangible information about the Enterprise.

Ross

CFP: 6th International Symposium on Visual Computing (ISVC10)

CALL FOR PAPERS and SPECIAL TRACKS

6th International Symposium on Visual Computing (ISVC10)

Monte Carlo Resort & Casino
Las Vegas, Nevada
Nov 29 - Dec 1, 2010
http://www.isvc.net

The purpose of the International Symposium on Visual Computing (ISVC) is to
provide a common forum for researchers, scientists, engineers and practitioners
throughout the world to present their latest research findings, ideas,
developments and applications in the broader area of visual computing. ISCV
seeks papers describing contributions to the state of the art and state of the
practice in the four central areas of visual computing: (1) computer vision,
(2) computer graphics, (3) virtual reality, and (4) visualization. For a list
of specific topics, please visit the ISVC website. ISVC10 will consist of
invited and contributed presentations dealing with all aspects of visual
computing. In addition to the main technical program, the symposium will
include several keynote speakers, posters sessions, and special tracks.


*** Keynote Speakers ***
Ioannis Kakadiaris, Univ of Houston, USA
Marc Pollefeys, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Steve Seitz, Univ of Washington, USA
John Stasko, Georgia Tech., USA
Tobias Hollerer, Univ of California at Santa Barbara, USA
Narendra Ahuja, Univ of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA (to be
confirmed)


(Area 1) Computer Vision Chairs
Ronald Chung, The Univ of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Riad Hammoud, DynaVox Systems, USA


(Area 2) Computer Graphics Chairs
Muhammad Hussain, KSU, Saudi Arabia
Kar-Han Tan, Hewlett Packard Labs, USA


(Area 3) Virtual Reality Chairs
Roger Crawfis, Ohio State University, USA
Daniel Thalman, EPFL, Switzerland


(Area 4) Visualization Chairs
David Kao, NASA Ames, USA
Lisa Avila, Kitware, USA


*** Important Dates ***

. Special track proposals: March 15, 2010
. Paper submissions July 12, 2010
. Notification of acceptance August 31, 2009
. Final camera ready paper September 15, 2010
. Advance Registration September 15, 2010
. ISVC10 Symposium Nov 29 - Dec 1, 2010


*** Submission Procedure ***

Papers submitted to ISVC10 must not have been previously published and must not
be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. A complete paper
should be submitted in camera-ready format. The length should match that
intended for final publication. The page limit is 12 pages. In submitting a
paper the author(s) agree that, upon acceptance, they will prepare the final
manuscript in time for inclusion into the proceedings and will present the
paper at the symposium.

*** Paper Publication ***

This is a fully refereed symposium. Papers will be reviewed with an emphasis on
potential to contribute to the state of the art in the field. Each paper will
receive two-three blind reviews and should not contain names or other
information revealing authors' identity. Selection criteria include accuracy
and originality of ideas, clarity and significance of results, and presentation
quality. All papers accepted will appear in the symposium proceedings which
will be published by Springer-Verlag in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science
(LNCS) series (pending approval).

*** Special Tracks ***

Proposals are invited for special tracks on any topic relevant to the
symposium. Special tracks are intended to stimulate in-depth discussions in
special areas relevant to the symposium theme. A special track may span
multiple sessions, depending on the quantity and quality of the papers
submitted. All papers accepted in a special track will be published in the
symposium proceedings. If you are interested in organizing a special track,
please email a special track proposal to admin@isvc.net by March 15, 2010. Each
special track proposal should include the following information:

1.Title
2. Scope and Topics
3. Names of organizers and contact information
4. Initial special track committee
5. Anticipated number of papers

BPM Redux Predictions 2010

BPM Evangelist/Critique Theo Priestley has fired up a website called BPM Redux. He has a strong interest in my research regarding the use of Virtual Environments for BPM, and has mentioned my work in previous blog entries. His latest article is an interesting set of predictions for 2010. Well worth a read, and I sincerely hope his predictions for the uptake of 3D Virtual Worlds for BPM comes to pass. Though I have to laugh at his statement about AR for BPM as "We're still ironing out the kinks on this one…..," as I hope to run an Honours project on AR for BPM this year. Should get some kinks out real soon. :-)

I'll keep you all posted on the results as usual.

Ross

BPM Book: Modern Business Process Automation

My colleagues in the YAWL project at QUT have released a new book entitled, "Modern Business Process Automation: YAWL and its Support Environment" via Springer Verlag. YAWL is the workflow tool I have been using in my research in Open Simulator. The book web site information now follows.

This book provides a comprehensive treatment of the field of Business Process Management (BPM) with a focus on Business Process Automation. It achieves this by covering a wide range of topics, both introductory and advanced, illustrated through and grounded in the YAWL (Yet Another Workflow Language) language and corresponding open-source support environment. In doing so it provides the reader with a deep, timeless, and vendor-independent understanding of the essential ingredients of business process automation.

The BPM field is in a continual state of flux and is subject to both the ongoing proposal of new standards and the introduction of new tools and technology. Its fundamentals however are relatively stable and this book aims to equip the reader with both a thorough understanding of them and the ability to apply them to better understand, assess and utilize new developments in the BPM field.

As a consequence of its topic-based format and the inclusion of a broad range of exercises, the book is eminently suitable for use in tertiary education, both at the undergraduate and the postgraduate level, for students of computer science and information systems. BPM researchers and practitioners will also find it a valuable resource. The book serves as a unique reference to a varied and comprehensive collection of topics that are relevant to the business process life-cycle.

Ross

Think Balm Immersive Software Analysis

Interesting article at ThinkBalm on some predictions for Immersive Software in 2010.

It is a worthwhile read with some good insights. However, the article seems to focus in on the collaboration and meeting capabilities of such spaces. While this is a rational argument, due to the quick return on investment, and the ability to easily use the spaces for communication work, I can't help thinking that there needs to be more exploitation of the design and prototyping capabilities of such immersive environments.

The same modelling capabilities that give you rooms, avatars and other devices in world, can give you very powerful tools for actual prototyping of products, both at the artifact and service level. My research seeks to leverage such environments for process modelling, in order to aid the process of validating the "prototype processes" with clients, via as-is and to-be model visualisation. Again, the tools will have to approach high levels of maturity in order to be useful to analysts, and to give a good return on investment.

My prediction is that such collaborative environments will be more and more used for product development, by geographically distant teams. Maybe not this year, but I expect that the ability to remotely develop artifacts collaboratively, in addition to remote conferencing, will be very useful to companies wanting to cut down on travel expenses, and to effectively utilise distributed expertise in their businesses.

Ross