JOHNS HOPKINS ENGINEERING
 CENTERS AND AFFILIATES

Center for Geometric Computing

With major support from the Army Research Office, the Center for Geometric Computing (CGC) is a coordinated effort of Johns Hopkins, Brown and Duke universities.

In fall 1996, CGC hosted the first in a series of fall workshops on computational geometry. The two-day event attracted researchers from academe, industry, and the Army to stimulate collaboration on problems of common interest in geometric computing. Topics included algorithmic methods in geometry; applications of computational geometry, highlighting robustness and implementation issues; computer graphics; animation of geometric algorithms; computer-aided design, solid modeling, and mesh generation; geographic information systems; and robotics and machine vision.

Since its establishment in 1995, CGC has welcomed the Army Research Laboratory, the University of Pennsylvania's General Robots and Active Sensory Perception Project, and the Stanford University Robotics Laboratory as affiliates.

One example of a major research project underway is GeomNet, a

The Center for Geometric Computing is a collaborative effort among three universities to apply the ancient theorems and proofs that define geometry in modern ways.
system for performing distributed geometric computing over the Internet. The system features an "Internet computing" framework in which a family of servers executes a variety of geometric algorithms on behalf of remote clients. GeomNet provides an environment where users need not learn any new file formats, calling sequences, or class hierarchies. Developers include Professor Michael Goodrich, Dr. Gill Barequet, and Christian Duncan of CGC and Professor Roberto Tamassia and Stina Bridgeman from the CGC's Brown University branch.