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Vision
and Motion
UC Berkeley professor Jitendra Malik, associate chair of the computer
science division, has become an expert in the graceful human dynamics
of ballet. Malik, a researcher with the Center for Information Technology
Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS), is not a male ballerina
though, nor a particularly big fan of classical dance. He had to
study the subtleties of plies and releves and a host of other human
motions in order to teach a computer to identify what a person is
doing just by watching him or her. His novel approach for the computational
analysis of human movement has myriad applications, from ultra-realistic
videogames where the players control human actors on the screen
to surveillance.
Touching the Future of Virtual Reality
At an automobile manufacturing
facility in Japan, a large computer-generated model of a sedan floats
in space in front of a product manager's eyes. Holding a stylus
in her hand and pressing a button at her fingertip, she begins to
draw on the surface of the vehicle. As she traces the lines around
the wheel wells, she feels resistance against the stylus corresponding
to the curves of the steel. It's as if she's dragging a magic marker
along the body of a real car. Simultaneously in Los Angeles, a car
designer sees lines appearing on the same virtual vehicle...
The
Birth of Bioproduction at UC Berkeley
When Berkeley
professor Lee Schruben attended a conference celebrating the opening
of Berkeley's new Department of Bioengineering, he was duly impressed.
One after another, researchers highlighted new research on methods
to treat myriad diseases that could someday save "millions of lives."
But as much as Schruben, the chair of the Department of Industrial
Engineering and Operations Research (IEOR), was impressed by the
presentations, he was also concerned. A new drug to combat multiple
sclerosis, for example, is only a lifesaver if it gets to the patients
who need it at a cost they can afford.
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Robugs:
Smart Dust Has Legs
"For fourteen years, I've had this dream of making silicon
walk," says UC Berkeley professor Kristofer Pister of the
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. It's
a startling idea: Swarms of ant-size robots burrowing through
the rubble of a building after an earthquake searching for survivors
or crawling onto the hull of a spacecraft to repair damage in-flight.
But perhaps the most amazing thing about Pister's dream is that
it's not as far off as one might think.
1962: Graduation of David N. Kennedy, California's long-time "Water
Czar"
On
 the
go?
Introducing Lab Notes commuter version:
print the whole issue with one click.
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Lab Notes is published
online by the Public Affairs Office of the UC Berkeley College of Engineering.
The Lab Notes mission is to illuminate groundbreaking research underway
today at the College of Engineering that will dramatically change our
lives tomorrow.
Media contact: Teresa
Moore, Lab Notes editor, Director of Public Affairs
Writer, Researcher: David Pescovitz
Web Manager: Michele
Foley
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©
2003 UC Regents. Updated 8/29/03.
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