Happy Holidays to all of you from the Department of Computer Science!

We do apologize for the absence of The Monitor in the past few months. Circumstances around the department kept delaying its release, but production should be up to its usual bi-monthly release next semester. Thank you for being patient with us.

<<DEPARTMENT>>

<<NEWS>>

Paradigm Simulation has formally announced its support of our department with the Honors Research Scholarship. Two junior CS students each year will receive funding for their final two years at Trinity, and engage in research concerning simulation and graphics development. The Department heartily thanks Paradigm for their confidence in and support of the department of Computer Science.

Well, the MacQuarium started leaking, so we had to move Mega and Byte to a new residence until the problem was solved. Dr. Pitts' family generously donated an aquarium for a temporary home. However, the students liked the larger aquarium so much, they added plants, rocks, and three new goldfish: BugEyes, Alpha, and Beta. The MacQuarium has been repaired; unfortunately, we have no fish for it. Rumor has it that neon tetras will be the MacQuarium's new residents.

We'll keep you posted.

<<STUDENT>>

<<NEWS>>

Seven students submitted abstracts to the National Conference on Undergraduate Research: Diana Doner, Mark Lewis, Tyler Thompson, Cullen Jackson, Andrew Arana, Doug Conyers, and Michael Coleman. We're keeping our fingers crossed - we should receive acceptance notification within two months. The conference occurs in April 1996.

Congratulations to the following students whose work was accepted for publication at the SCS MultiConference, to be held in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Markus Haas and Doug Conyers "Construction of L-system and Plasma Cloud Algorithms for Placing plants in a Condition Dependent Virtual World"

Doug Conyers and Markus Haas "Virtual Time Machine: Real Time Growth of Graphical Flora"

Mark Lewis

"Applying Dynamic Loading to Hierarchical Meshes for Real-Time Viewing of Large Virtual Landscapes"

The 12th Annual ACM Programming Competition, sponsored by Microsoft Corp., took place at Baylor University, Waco, Texas during the weekend of November 4. Trinity students composed two out of the sixty-five teams participating in the competition. Here are the results:

Team A - Second Place!

Andrew Arana

Doug Conyers

Mark Lewis

Team B - Fourth Place!

Brian Duelm

Jason Pounds

William Randall

The Department is very proud of the achievement of both teams. Congratulations!

Doug Conyers, Markus Haas, and Mark Lewis attended the annual conference of the PEW Midstates Science and Mathematics Consortium at the University of Chicago this past November. These three students' presentations concerned the work they accomplished during the NSF/REU summer session, and should be congratulated on the results of their hard work.

Doug Conyers

"Virtual Time Machine Real-Time Growth of Graphical Flora"

Markus Haas

"Construction of L-system and Plasma Cloud Algorithms for Placing Plants in a Condition Dependent Virtual World"

Mark Lewis and Tyler Thompson

"Analysis of Algorithmic Real-Time Virtual Environment"

Senior Software: Analysis and Design presentations took place on December 7. According to those present, all the presentations were well-prepared and delivered professionally. The Department is pleased with the efforts of all the seniors:

Doug Conyers

"Intelligent Players"

Andrew Arana

"Project Beagle"

John Pair

"Integrated Trucking"

Cullen Jackson

"Rorschach Graphics Interface Development"

Wade Huber

"VR Cloner"

Diana Doner

"Distributed Processing"

Suzie Kerr

"The Stock Box"

Steve Sengele

"Algorithmic Character Modeling"

Jeff Wolan

"Project Gumby"

Michael Coleman

"CCTT Generation"

Ted Webster

"The Help Desk"

Jon Pope

"Capacity Analysis, Tracking System"

Thomas Rauschuber "C.A.N.D.Y"

Chad Fleming

"Geometry of Thrust/Fold Belt Generation"

Ryan Gullahorn

"3D Sounds for Virtual Worlds"

Daniel Martin

"Allergy Shot Program"

<<FACULTY>>

<<NEWS>>

In addition to his teaching duties, Dr. Howland has also been elected to the Promotion and Tenure Commission for Trinity University. You may recall that recently, Dr. Howland received a promotion from this same commission. Now he gets to be on the other side of the desk...

For the SCS Simulation MultiConference, Dr. Pitts & Dr. Howland have produced a paper entitled, "Virtual Reality: A Simulation/Training Utopia," concerning the application of Virtual Reality technology to management training. The conference takes place at UCSD in La Jolla, CA, January 14 through January 17. Dr. Howland will present the paper.

At the SCS MultiConference in New Orleans, during April 1996, Dr. Pitts will chair a session of Virtual Reality presentations. In addition, Dr. Pitts has prepared a paper with Tyler Thompson entitled, "Time: The Fourth Dimension in Virtual Modeling" for presentation and publication in the Conference Proceedings.

Dr. Eggen is the recipient of a Trinity University Faculty Development Research Grant for the summer of 1996. Trinity University will support Dr. Eggen's research into effective utilization of Parallel and Distributed Processing during a two month period in May and June this coming year.

A note from Barb:

I would like to express my gratitude to each and everyone of you for helping me get through last year. It's been a long, up-hill battle - and I couldn't have made it without your support.

I truly am blessed to have such wonderful friends.

Thank you.

And that's the news!!

"Four out of five dentists surveyed agreed that the fifth dentist was a jerk and no one liked him anyway."

Newsletter written and produced by Ashley Smith : )