Dr Pierre Boulanger
Collaborative Virtual Environments
Dr Pierre Boulanger receives an iCORE Industrial Chair ($250K). He
also receives funding from TRLabs ($250K), PRECARN ($13K) and SGI
($575K).
Research Program Overview
High-performance computing and networks are enabling innovative
multi-media communication applications for collaborative training,
medicine, education and concurrent engineering. However, to realize
these applications there remains significant technical challenges in
developing advanced collaboration visualization systems.
Dr Pierre Boulanger’s research program conducts research and
development on the scientific and technical challenges remaining in the
implementation of collaborative visualization technologies.
Dr Boulanger’s research focuses on expanding the boundaries of computer
vision, low-latency networking, real-time tracking, stereo display,
haptics (touch-based interfaces) and real-time rendering technologies.
Current research focuses on five key projects:
- Combining
multiple types of devices and technologies into novel interfaces for
collaborative visualization in the medical and engineering fields
- Development of a real-time environment for the collaborative
visualization and steering of complex physical simulation, which will
allow collaborative systems that enable rendering to occur
independently of the data production process
- Development of a next generation virtual videoconferencing system based on tele-immersion
- Development of a surgical trainer using Hapto-Audio-Visual
Environments with advanced multipoint 3D video and interface
technologies, which will enable surgeons to be trained by remote
experts and deliver improved patient care
- Development of networks capable of dealing with the demands of
real-time collaborative visualization applications, which aims to
address constraints (such as latency) that adversely affect real-time
networking for multimedia application
Biographical Information
Dr Boulanger graduated and received his Masters from Laval University
in Engineering Physics. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering
from the University of Montreal. He worked for 18 years at the National
Research Council of Canada as a senior research officer. Since 2001, he
has been working as a professor at the Department of Computing Science
at the University of Alberta. He is an adjunct scientist and principal
investigator for new media at TRLabs and at the Banff Centre. In 2004,
Dr Boulanger was awarded an iCORE industrial chair in Collaborative
Virtual Environment. He is the founder of the Canadian Virtualized
Reality Systems Working Group and the Director of the Advanced Man
Machine Interface Laboratory. On the commercial side, Dr Boulanger is
the president of PROTEUS Consulting Inc., an Alberta-based consulting
firm specialized in Virtual Reality Applications.
Related Links:
Dr Pierre Boulanger’s Homepage
Dr Pierre Boulanger at the U of A
March 15, 2005
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