Peter Chambers

Interactive curves and surfaces

The emergence of visual programming and processing environments and the raw power of computers now makes it possible to present technical subjects with interactive involvement of the student. We report on a development that is the analogy of a science laboratory for geometry. The result is an electronic book which contains text navigation facilities, supplementary menu driven modes, and in particular, embedded interactive demonstrations and animation. The electronic book was a prototype for a class in geometric design. The class is representative of many science and engineering courses that rely heavily on developing connections between algebra and geometry.

Visualization of solid reaction-diffusion systems

In 1952, mathematician Alan Turing introduced reaction diffusion. This mechanism permits large-scale features to emerge in the concentrations of chemicals that react and diffuse within an array of reaction sites, or cells. Recently, we used a cellular automaton-based reaction-diffusion system to generate textures for computer graphics applications. We extended the original binary nature of cellular automata to encompass multiple scalar variables, increasing the range and variety of patterns generated. >