Nanoenvironment Interactions based on virtual reality including force feedback

After reading the title of this post, you might be thinking that you are not in the website of Cesar Mendoza. "eh, he works in video games, what is this nano.. stuff about ?"

In fact, in the past I did some research in nano technology. Under the support of two research teams, the  ICA-ACROE lab of the Grenoble Institute of Technology (INPG) and the PicoGroup of the LEPES lab of the  Néel Institute of the CNRS I proposed a research project for making investigations in the nanoworld.

These two groups are leading teams in mechanics, robotics and moreover in nano physics.

The idea of the project was to develop nanogrippers (say, a gripper tool but incredibly small) that we could use to execute 3D tasks, for example, assembly manipulations. Imagine manipulating atoms with your own hands.

The design of these nanogrippers included virtual reality to enable the user to "actually see" the nano manipulations and force feedback to provide the sensation of  "feeling" the manipulated objects, i.e. "touching the atoms".  This design was strongly based on the Atomic Force Microscope (AFM). Just to mention, at the time I wrote this document, it was possible to use Atomic Force Microscope as a tool tip to touch nano objects.

The project was really ambitious and exciting and we submitted to the CNRS,  Unfortunately, the project was rejected and of course, I was not assigned to follow this project.

Just as a anecdote, when I presented this project in Paris, at 9:30 am, in 2006, one person of the jury was sleeping (I couldn't believe it !) and the other spent his time watching at his PC without taking care about what I said. I wish I could know the name of the guy who was sleeping...  Under these circumstances, I was not really in the mood to show the great potential of the project.. the project, as I said, was rejected.

Anyway, the thing is that I still believe in the future of this and if you have a AFM, I can send you all the details of the project (in French). For now,  you can get the English summary here.

Use it !

Siggraph 2010 mug

Being a reviewer for the last Siggraph 2010 has been a pleasure. If you work in the Academia being a reviewer is a normal part of your daily activities, since although you are not paid, the payment is implicitly included in your Academia salary besides giving you a plus in your CV for further scientific evaluations.

However, if you are working in the industry, it has a different meaning. You don't get paid either, it is not really worthy for your work since in your CV does not mean much for recruiters, your wife is upset for loosing time in something without any payment. From my point of view, it is done by the pleasure of reading and reviewing highly technical works. It gives you some sort of self-confidence.

I don't thing my boss cares if I am a SIGGRAPH reviewer or not, unlike the boss of  normal academia researchers. But, still, you get a free and pretty mug as shown in the picture.

The book: Game Physics Pearls

I have written a chapter on this book about how to set-up soft bodies in games. Within the chapter you will find sample code on how to implement the most difficult features of the model. It has been tested in one prototype using the Alone in the Dark framework for PC.

Within the book there are other very interesting topics related to physics in games. All of them give incredible hints in how to optimize the algorithms for games.

So, it would be a good idea if you buy the book. You can get it from Amazon. 

VRIPHYS : Virtual Reality Interactions and Physical Simulations : http://www.vriphys.org

 You might be surprised that the website of the VRIPHYS workshop has disappeared. At the moment, this link:  http://www.vriphys.org does not work any more.

The main reason of this is because it has been decided to change to a different host provider for the website. Hence, the previous Italian provider (aruba) does not host the vriphys website and has therefore removed the information.

Vriphys will be now hosted and managed by INRIA, France. Find the latest 2010 vriphys (the 7th) workshop in this link.

As a partner event of Eurographics, you can find the papers and scientific committees of the previous workshops in the Eurographics Digital Library. HERE

Note that papers of the years 2004 and 2005 are not available in the Eurographics website since, although partnership with EG was obtained in 2005, it was until 2006 that they started to store the papers and related information.

In any case, if you need the vriphys papers or other information related to 2004 and 2005,  feel free to contact me.

Paris Master Class

Next June 23th, 2010 I have been invited to give a "master class" in Paris. The training is a one-day set of lectures, all related to video games. In fact, it is a review of several math fundamentals for game programming. The course is accompanied with user-cases and sample code.

The lectures focuses game professionals who want to develop and improve their skills in a concrete way. Although it is designed for intermediate level, I will be starting at some basic levels but I will also touch some interesting and practical advance topics.

I am posting this a bit late but you can still register in their website.


Voila mes amis !

Test drive unlimited 2

The studio I am working in, EdenGames, is about to release the next edition of the well-known game test drive.

It is a car's game with a lot of "social and on-line" stuff. So, if you want me to keep my job, buy this game.

You can see some trailers of the game on its  website. Click here 

If interested, you can also check more details on Nour's interview. Here is that interview:

Fast update

Yes, I have not been very ofter writting posts here... well, I will try to arrange that.  I have been very busy lately, extremely.. for those becoming dads will know the short nights. Anyway, some bits of updates

• I finished my reviews for SIGGRAPH 2010. In fact, you don't get paid for do it but it is always good the review high quality papers (mostly) and it is also good for your self esteem. Here is the link for the SIGGRAPH of this year.
• I have just finished a book chapter which will be published this year. The editor is Gino Van den Bergen and the publisher is AK Peters. That took me much time of my nights. I will give you more details as soon as I know.
• I have been fixing my GJK + EPA collision detection algorithm. In fact, I have wrote a post on that, but much tuning is required to make it work fine. I will give details on this in a different post.
• I have started working with Kd-trees for occlusion, visibility and other related problems. I will let you know more about this in other post as well.