James E. Murphy - Research projects (.mov)

Grammatical Evolution for Gait Optimisation
This video is a compilation of various applications of Grammatical Evolution (GE) to physics-based quadruped-model gait-optimisation problems, investigated as part of my doctoral research.

The experiments in this video correspond to some of the papers listed in the Publications page. The component videos are presented separately here.

Kinematic Gait Transition System
This video demonstrates a kinematic animation system in which a horse moves with a gait appropriate to its velocity and transitions between gaits when necessary.

The system incorporates evolved motion controllers which dynamically adjust the motion based on velocity, as specified by the user through a MIDI controller.

Plant Spread Simulator
This is an ongoing collaboration with Mark Fennell, a UCD botany doctoral student.

The Plant Spread Simulator (PSS) is used to predict the spread of invasive plants (specifically Gunnera tinctoria). It can also be used for designing and testing complex plant management protocols and simulating the influence of environmental factors such as climate change. The video shows simulated spread from a single source over a century; the results closely match real-world data.

DrumBalls
DrumBalls was my winning project in the UCD NCRA GEVA Week 2009.

When a red or white 'sounder' ball strikes a coloured 'drum' ball, a drum sound is played. GE was used to evolve ball motion patterns to generate some input rhythm. The motion of the balls is determined by a simplistic 2D physics engine implemented in Java.

Hamster Run
Hamster Run was my project in the UCD NCRA GEVA Week 2008 (runner-up).

GE was used to evolve a controller for a Hamster Ball by applying forces to the ball to steer its path through a maze of falling blocks. The number, order, size and direction of the forces to apply were evolved using GE; the Open Dynamics Engine controls the physical simulation and OpenGL handles the graphics.

Efficient Terrain Rendering from DEMs
This was my final year project for my B.Sc. in Computer Science.

The project investigated efficient terrain rendering techniques for digital elevation models (DEMs). As efficiency is a very important aspect for the interactive visualisation of large-scale digital elevation models, this project demonstrated some efficient terrain rendering techniques in the form of a simple flight simulator.

The video demonstrates a technique for controlling the level of triangle mesh simplification as the viewer flies over a model of mainland Europe.