Carlos D. Correa

Computer Scientist

Research Interests

I am broadly interested in computer graphics, data visualization and user interaction, in particular in:

• The design and implementation of a new generation of algorithms, rendering and interaction techniques towards efficient and scalable data retrieval, processing and visualization.
• GPU-based algorithms, Multi-core and Multi-GPU computing.

Education

• Postdoctoral Scholar. Department of Computer Science. University of California at Davis. Sept. 2007 -
• Ph.D. , Electrical and Computer Engineering. Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey, May 2007, GPA 4.0/4.0
  Dissertation Topic: "Illustrative Deformation of Volumetric Objects".
• Master of Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering. Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey, January 2003, GPA 4.0/4.0
• Bachelor of Science, Computer Science. EAFIT University, Medellin, Colombia, Dec. 1998, Recipient of the Academic Excellence Award
• Other. UC Entrepreneurship Academy, Graduate School of Management, UC Davis, Sept. 2009.

Research Experience

• Postdoctoral Researcher, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Center for Applied Scientific Computing. May 2010 - present
  
• Postdoctoral Researcher, Visualization and Interface Design Innovation Lab and The Institute for Ultrascale Visualization, Department of Computer Science. University of California, Davis. Sept. 2008 - May 2010
  
  • Develop new algorithms and systems for expressive visualization of complex and extreme-scale datasets.
  • Develop new mathematical models and algorithms to represent data transformations for Visual Analytics.
  • Coordinate and assist research projects of undergraduate and graduate students.
  Research Assistant, Center for Advanced Information Processing, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ.
  Visualization Lab. Jan. 2005 - May 2007:
  • Created novel rendering techniques for the exploration and deformation of volumetric datasets, using GPU programming on commodity graphics hardware to achieve interactive performance.
  • Developed and optimize a volume animation software pipeline for the manipulation of large 3D models, using innovative computer graphics algorithms and exploiting GPU capabilities.
  • Authored and co-authored several papers in the area of visualization and computer graphics.
  Collaboration Group. Jan. 2001 - Dec. 2004:
  • Integrated software components for Parallel Worlds, a multi-modal collaborative system that combines augmented reality and virtual environments.
  • Created novel algorithms, user interaction tools and middleware components for distributed graphics, in a variety of platforms
• Research Assistant and Consultant, Virtual Reality Laboratory and Conexiones Project
  EAFIT University, Medellin, Colombia, 1997-2000
  
  • Designed and programmed computer graphics software for a multi-user immersive application called: "Collaborative Virtual Environments applied to Higher Education".
  • Helped create and develop the virtual reality lab at EAFIT University.
  • Led the creation of a start-up company to provide solutions based in virtual environments and interactive computer graphics.
  • Developed software/graphics and networking components for educational multimedia software.

Teaching Experience

• Teaching Assistant. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, Sept. 2004 - Jan. 2005, Sept. 2006 - present:
  • Virtual Reality, Spring 2007. Professor Grigore Burdea.
  • Concepts in Digital Signal Processing Design, Fall 2006. Professor Richard Mammone.
  • Concepts in Robotics and Computer Vision, Fall 2004, Fall 2006. Professor Kristin Dana.
  • Lectures in Programming Methodologies and Computer Graphics, Spring, Fall 2006. Professor Deborah Silver.
• Lecturer, Computer Science Department, EAFIT University, Colombia
  • Concepts in Programming Languages, Fall 1999, Fall 2000
  • Concepts in Compiler Design, Fall 2000

Selected Publications

• Carlos D. Correa and Kwan-Liu Ma. Dynamic Video Narratives. To Appear : ACM Transactions on Graphics 29(3) (SIGGRAPH 2010).
• Carlos D. Correa, Deborah Silver and Min Chen. Constrained Illustrative Volume Deformation To appear: Computers and Graphics, Vol. 34.
• Anna Tikhonova, Carlos D. Correa and Kwan-Liu Ma. An Exploratory Technique for Coherent Visualization of Time-Varying Volume Data. Computer Graphics Forum. (also Proceedings of EuroVis 2010). Volume 29, Number 3, June, 2010
• Carlos D. Correa and Kwan-Liu Ma. Visibility Histograms and Visibility-Driven Transfer Functions. To Appear: IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2010.
• Carlos D. Correa, Robert Hero and Kwan-Liu Ma. A Comparison of Gradient Estimation Methods for Volume Rendering on Unstructured Meshes. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2010.
• Anna Tikhonova, Carlos D. Correa and Kwan-Liu Ma. Explorable Images for Visualizing Volume Data. IEEE VGTC Pacific Visualization Symposium 2010, Taipei, Taiwan, 2010.
• Carlos D. Correa and Kwan-Liu Ma. The Occlusion Spectrum for Volume Visualization and Classification. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, vol. 15, Nov/Dec, 2009 (Proc. IEEE Visualization 2009).
• Ove Daae Lampe, Carlos Correa, Kwan-Liu Ma and Helwig Hauser. Curve-Centric Volume Reformation for Comparative Visualization. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, vol. 15, Nov/Dec, 2009 (Proc. IEEE Visualization 2009).
• Tarik Crnovrsanin, Christopher Muelder, Carlos Correa and Kwan-Liu Ma. Proximity-based Visualization of Movement Trace Data. IEEE VAST 2009 Symposium , 2009
• Carlos D. Correa, Yu-Hsuan Chan and Kwan-Liu Ma. A Framework for Uncertainty-Aware Visual Analytics. IEEE VAST 2009 Symposium , 2009
• Nelson Max, Carlos Correa, Chris Muelder, Shi Yan, Cheng-Kai Chen and Kwan-Liu Ma. Flow visualization in science and mathematics. Journal of Physics: Conference Series (SciDAC 2009 Conference) 180 012087, 2009
• Tarik Crnovrsanin, Carlos D. Correa and Kwan-Liu Ma. Social Network Discovery based on Sensitivity Analysis. ASONAM 2009, Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining. Athens, Greece, 2009.
• Carlos D. Correa and Kwan-Liu Ma. Visibility-driven Transfer Functions. IEEE Pacific Visualization Symposium 2009. pp. 177-184.
• Carlos D. Correa and Kwan-Liu Ma. Size-based Transfer Functions: A New Volume Exploration Technique. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics , vol.14, no.6, pp.1380-1387, Nov.-Dec. 2008.
• M. Chen, C. Correa, S. Islam, M. W. Jones, P.-Y. Shen, D. Silver, S. J. Walton and P. J. Willis. Manipulating, Deforming and Animating Sampled Object Representations. Computer Graphics Forum 26 (4), 824--852, 2007.
• Carlos D. Correa, Deborah Silver and Min Chen. Illustrative Deformation for Data Exploration. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (Proceedings Visualization / Information Visualization 2006), vol.13, no.6, pp.1320--1327, Nov.-Dec. 2007.
• Carlos D. Correa, Deborah Silver and Min Chen. Feature Aligned Volume Manipulation for Illustration and Visualization. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (Proceedings Visualization / Information Visualization 2006), vol. 12, no. 5, Sept.-Oct. 2006, pp. 1069--1076.
• Carlos D. Correa and Deborah Silver. Programmable Shaders for Deformation Rendering. ACM SIGGRAPH/Eurographics conference on Graphics Hardware, 2007 pp. 89 - 96
• Carlos D. Correa, Deborah Silver and Min Chen. Volume Deformation via Scattered Data Interpolation. Eurographics/IEEE VGTC Workshop on Volume Graphics, 2007.
• Carlos D. Correa and Deborah Silver. Visualizing Collision Effects Between Penetrating and Non-Penetrating Objects. SIGGRAPH 2007 Sketch
• Carlos D. Correa, Deborah Silver and Min Chen. Discontinuous Displacement Mapping for Volume Graphics. Eurographics/IEEE VGTC Workshop on Volume Graphics 2006. Boston, MA, 30-31 July, 2006, pp. 9-16
• Carlos D. Correa and Deborah Silver. Dataset Traversal with Motion-Controlled Transfer Functions. Proceedings of IEEE Visualization 2005. Minneapolis, Min. 23-28 Oct. 2005, pp. 359-366.

Courses and Invited Talks

• Carlos Correa. Global Strategies for Visualization. Invited talk at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, December, 2009.
• Carlos Correa. Making Movies and Presentation Graphics. Invited talk at the CsCADS Summer Workshop on Scientific Data Analysis and Visualization for Petascale Computing. Tahoe City, 2009.
• Carlos D. Correa. Visualizing influence and uncertainty in social networks. Invited short talk at the ARO Trustworthy Social Computing workshop. University of California, Davis, July, 2009.
• Bill Andrews, Stefan Bruckner, Wei Chen, Carlos D. Correa, David S. Ebert, Mario Costa Sousa and Ivan Viola. Interactive Tools for Scientific and Medical Illustration Composition. Eurographics Tutorials, 2008.
• Illustrative Deformations of Volume Objects. In Tutorial 7: Illustrative Display and Interaction in Visualization, IEEE Visualization 2007, with Ivan Viola, Stefan Bruckner, Mario Costa Sousa and David S. Ebert, October, 2007.
• Visualizing Complex Datasets via Illustrative Deformation. Biological Sciences Seminar, University of California, Davis, September 2007
• Illustrative Deformation for the Visualization of Complex Structures. Computer Science Seminar, Brown University, April 2007
• "Hands-in" Visualization: An Active Approach for Interactive Manipulation of Volumetric Objects. IBM Graphics and Visualization Student Symposium. December, 2005.

Awards

• Received VAST Challenge Award for Intuitive Social Network Graphs, 2008.
• Co-PI of the project ''Visual Analytics Tools for Enterprise Information Management'', recognized with a 2008 Innovation Research Award from HP Labs.
• Young Researcher program beneficiary from the Colombian National Sciences Institute, January, 2000
• Finalist of Stockholm Challenge Award in Education, 2000, as part of the research group "Proyecto Conexiones".
• Received honors in graduation from Computer Science, EAFIT University, December, 1998.
• Full scholarship for B.S. studies for high academic achievement, EAFIT University, 1994.

Skills

• Computer Graphics, Vision and Visualization: OpenGL, GPU Programming (Cg, GLSL, GPGPU), VTK, OpenInventor, Matlab, Java3D, OpenCV, Illustrative Techniques, Hardware accelerated Volume Graphics, Real-time Rendering, Performance Tuning and Optimization, Computer Vision, Image Processing.
• Data and Information Retrieval: Video and image retrieval and processing, scalable data structures, image abstraction.
• Networking: TCP/IP, Distributed and parallel computing, Network and Web programming, Mobile computing.
• Programming: Object oriented programming, C/C++, Java, GPU programming, GUI programming (MFC, Qt, Java), UML, Design patterns, Extreme programming, User interface design, Web programming (AJAX/HTML/CSS). Code analysis and optimization for performance, memory usage and scalability.
• Operating Systems: Linux, Windows, Unix, Mac OS X.

Activities

Reviewer for:

• Eurographics/IEEE-VGTC Symposium on Visualization, Eurovis 2009.
• Eurographics 2009
• SIGGRAPH Asia 2008
• IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2005-2008
• Computer Graphics Forum, 2008
• IEEE Pacific Visualization Symposium, 2008
• Eurographics/IEEE-VGTC Symposium on Visualization, Eurovis 2008.
• IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 2007,2008
• IEEE Visualization Conference, 2006-2008
• IEEE Workshop on Wearable Computers 2006
• Workshop on Visualization for Computer Security, VizSec , 2005
• IEEE Transactions in Computer Graphics and Visualization, Special Issue in Haptics, Virtual and Augmented Reality, 2005.
• ACM CHI 2006, ACM CHI 2005 (Late Breaking Results)
• ACM Group 2003, 2005

Student Volunteer at:

• IEEE Visualization 2005 - 2006.
• Eurographics/IEEE TVCG Workshop on Volume Graphics, 2006.
• 5th International Workshop in Virtual Rehabilitation, New York, 2006
• 2nd International Workshop in Virtual Rehabilitation, Rutgers University, September 2003
• CHI 2003 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2003.