Beginning of the End of the World (BEW BEW)

Hi, I'm currently studying Dynamic Graph Layout and Visualisation and have created this blog for you to follow and track my progress, beginning to end. The official start for my research course was 1st September 2010, so im already several days behind (blog-wise) so for now, I will add the additional days to this post.

Firstly, a little about me and my work, I am a research student at the University of Greenwich, Maritime Greenwich Campus, in London and have just finished a Bachelors in Computer Science with a 2.1 grade (not great as I was expecting a 1st but we cant all be winners). I'm a video game enthusiast, have an obsession for cats (like most of us internet-dwellers) and I like penny-sweets.

My work is to research into graph layout algorithms, starting with Chris Walshaw's "A Multilevel Algorithm for Force-Directed Graph-Drawing" and Todd L. Veldhuizen's "Dynamic Multilevel Graph Visualization".

Now for my previous entries;

[01/09/2010] - Day Zero
First day as a Research Student took me to Greenwich to meet with my supervisors Dr Chris Walshaw and Dr Alan Soper. I was also introduced to some of the members of staff I may or will be working with, and was able to complete my registration for the course. My new email address and user account was also created (though this needs to be checked), the Research Students and Supervisors handbook printed and the Research Student Log and Professional Development Portfolio also printed. I was also given permission to work from home due to my term-time accommodation not being ready.

Work-wise, I was directed to read through several existing research papers and begin modelling the algorithms for graph drawing (starting with the multilevel force directed approach).

[06/09/2010] - Week Zero
Third day of work, and the start of my first full week in research. Home workstation and software set-up and configured and all research papers required, printed for easy reading. Both Walshaw and Veldhuizen papers have been read (over and over) and physical work has begun.

Following my normal approach to work, I have decided to start at the bottom and work my way to the top, my first attempt being an application to draw a 3D cube frame where each vertex is represented by a sphere and edges, by a cylinder. There is no algorithm in use for now but the aim for this program is to refresh my JOGL programming skills. This should take less than a day.

[07/09/2010] - Project BlogBook.. I mean LogBlog... I mean...
This is literally to identify that this is the day I have started my blog/log book. Articles will/should be submited every few days (maximum 5 working days). Paper articles may also be written and will be attached to the next digital article.

Thats all folks, see you next blog post.