Sample Projects
Windbreak Design is an example of the use of a simple computational fluid dynamics code to solve a landscaping problem. It shows how intelligent use of a simple simulation can suggest an approach to windbreak design that is practical, low-maintenance and esthetically pleasing. This is a nice example of how computational physics has useful applications in the most unlikely places.
Integration of ODEs with Adaptive Step Size using Perl is an example of the use of Perl in numerical analysis. It is based on the Math::ODE module developed by John Leto, which I've modified to include a simple-minded step-size adapter to handle some problems I'm working on that have singularities close to the motion. I've included some comments on the relation between deterministic and Monte Carlo simulation, and the strengths and weaknesses of each. I've recently written a C++ version of this integrator that will be posted here soon.
Other projects coming soon:
Code generation from XML About five years ago I wrote a code generator that took a document specification in the form of an XML DTD and generated C++ classes that could serialize themselves to XML that would parse against the DTD. I sold that system to iGO Technologies, where it is still used. Having learned a bit from the first time, and even more from an extensive re-write that was done by one of my colleagues at iGO, I've recently written a new code generator that uses a simple XML mark-up language for the specification.
Pseudo-correlation This is a fast image registration algorithm I developed in the early '90's for online portal imaging applications. It is based on Monte Carlo evaluation of a cross-correlation integral, with a few curves thrown in. The original code was written in C, and I've recently re-written it in C++ as part of a 2D/3D registration problem (fluoro/CT registration). That code is owned by the client who paid for it, but a less specialized version of the software may be forthcoming soon, as there is some academic interest in it from people at Queen's.