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Andries van Dam
Thomas J. Watson, Jr., University Professor of Technology and EducationContact Information
Box 1910Brown University
Providence, RI 02912
Email: avd at cs.brown.edu
Personal home page: http://www.cs.brown.edu/~avd/
Research Areas
| Computer Graphics |
| Educational Technology |
| Scientific Visualization and Modeling |
| User Interfaces and Virtual Reality |
Research Themes
| Applications to Education |
| Pen-Centric Computing |
Research Topics or Projects
Courses Taught
| CSCI0150 | Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming and Computer Science | |
| CSCI0240 | Visual Thinking/Visual Computing | |
| CSCI1230 | Introduction to Computer Graphics |
Research Interests
His computer graphics research interests have included the development and advocacy of graphics standards, such as the SIGGRAPH Core graphics library, PHIGS+, and others, that helped to bring together researchers from different manufacturers and research organizations. These standards facilitated the development of graphics tools that significantly advanced graphics research. Another outcome of his graphics research has been the co-authorship of two field-defining textbooks in Computer Graphics and over a hundred scientific articles.
His research group's post-WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointing-device) user interface research has included both IVR (Immersive Virtual Reality) interaction research on the one hand and gesture-based user interfaces for both desktop computers and the Tablet PC on the other. The IVR research uses the Cave facility (an 8' cube with three walls and floor that are stereo projection surfaces) and includes projects such as scientific visualization of Mars exploration and human artery blood flow. Gesture-based user interface research has included Sketch, a two-handed gestural constraint-based sketching system for the desktop and more recently, work with the Tablet PC that has culminated in the March 20th founding of the Microsoft Center for PenCentric Computing.
His pioneering work in hypertext and text processing, dating back to HES in 1967, helped created the field through hypermedia systems such as HES, FRESS, EDS, and IRIS Intermedia, all of which pre-date, foreshadow, and functionally provide features still unavailable on the Web. In 1990 he was a co-founder and chief scientist of Electronic Book Technologies, the first company to use the then still new SGML (the precursor of XML) to build hypertext-based electronic books, primarily for technical documentation.
The hypertext research stimulated his interests in systems development so that in parallel with the ongoing work on FRESS, EDS, and Intermedia, he and his team conducted research in software systems, compilers, microprogramming, and distributed computing. As part of the efforts in distributed programming in 1976 and 1977 he co-founded the distributed computing workshops at Brown that later evolved to become the IEEE ICDCS conferences, which celebrated their 25th anniversary last year.
Undergirding all the computer graphics, hypermedia, systems, and user interface research has been a lifelong interest in the use of software for education, starting with the use of FRESS to teach courses in environment science and poetry and continuing with Intermedia used for courses in Biology and Literature.
In more recent years he and his team have continued to develop educational software tools that combine interaction within hypermedia information structures, starting with Exploratories, which are Java applets designed to teach concepts in computer graphics either as stand-alone units or embedded within hypermedia frameworks.
Their most recent education research includes GTT (Graphics Teaching Tool), a Java-based interactive application; Tablet PC-based projects such as MathPad, a mathematical sketching application for mathematical problem solving, and ChemPad, an organic chemistry 3D molecule visualization tool; and Immune Attack, a educational software biology simulation game being deployed in the Spring of 2006;
Looking towards the next generation of educational software, he is developing a theoretical framework called Clip Models, which are simulation-based families of components that represent multiple levels of explanatory power and simulation fidelity designed to interoperate and to be assembled into systems. Unlike clip art, clip models emphasize behavior, interaction and exploration, and interoperability.
Selected Publications
Sanders, K. E., and van Dam, A. Object-Oriented Programming in Java: A Graphical Approach. Addison-Wesley, 2005.
van Dam, A., Becker, S., and Simpson, R. M. Next-Generation Educational Software: Why We Need It and a Research Agenda for Getting It. Educause Review 40, 2 (2005), 26-43.
van Dam, A. Visualization Research Problems in Next-Generation Educational Software. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 25, 5 (2005), 88-92.
van Dam, A., Laidlaw, D. H., and Simpson, R. M. Experiments in Immersive Virtual Reality for Scientific Visualization. Computers and Graphics 26, 4 (Aug 2002), 535-555. [ pdf ]
Earnshaw, R., Guedj, R., van Dam, A., and Vince, J., Eds. Frontiers of Human-Centered Computing, OnLine Communities and Virtual Environments. Springer Verlag, 2001.
van Dam, A., Forsberg, A. S., Laidlaw, D. H., Jr., J. J. L., and Simpson, R. M. Immersive VR for Scientific Visualization: A Progress Report. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 20, 6 (Nov 2000), 26-52. [ pdf ]
DeRose, S. J., and van Dam, A. Document Structure and Markup in the FRESS Hypertext System. Markup Languages 1, 1 (1999), 7-32.
Bazik, J., Tamassia, R., Reiss, S. P., and van Dam, A. Software Visualization in Teaching at Brown University. In Software Visualization: Programming as a Multi-Media Experience, J. Stasko, J. Domingue, M. H. Brown, and B. A. Price, Eds. MIT Press, 1998, pp. 383-398.
Foley, J. D., van Dam, A., Feiner, S. K., and Hughes, J. F. Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice, Second Edition in C. Addison-Wesley, 1995.
Yankelovich, N., Meyrowitz, N. K., and van Dam, A. Reading and Writing the Electronic Book. IEEE Computer 18, 10 (Oct 1985), 15-30.
All publications by Andries van Dam
| Page Owner: Andries van Dam | Last Modified: Mon Aug 20 14:30:39 2007 |