Michael B. Gousie
Chair, Associate Professor of Computer Science
Office: Science Center 102
Phone: (508) 286-3969
Fax: (508) 285-8278
Email: mgousie@wheatonma.edu
Personal web page
Degrees
Ph.D., Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
M.S., University of New Hampshire
B.A., Providence College
Research Interests
Geographic Information Systems
Visualization
Computer Graphics
Computational Geometry
My main research area is in working with digital maps, in the form of Digital Elevation Models (DEMs). Current work focuses on three-dimensional visualization of errors in such maps. I also do work in creating DEMs from two-dimensional sources. This work is interdisciplinary with the earth-sciences community.
In addition, I am currently working on visualization techniques for social stratification, working with John Grady of the Sociology Department.
Teaching Interests
Bringing new tools and techniques into the classroom, such as LEGO robots, especially to enhance students' algorithm design skills. In many courses, I try to show the interdisciplinary nature of computer science by bringing in problems from areas outside traditional topics.
Other Interests
Basketball, skiing the steep and the deep, telemarking, backpacking to lesser-known areas, traveling to the mountains or Europe (or both), and piano.
Student Projects
Sarah Milewski '07 helped to implement a DEM error visualization system. She worked on the graphical user interface (GUI) as well as some of the visualization code. The work resulted in a paper that was presented at the International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium in Barcelona in the summer of '07. The paper was published in the conference proceedings (see below).
Chris Stuetzle '07 completed an Honor's Thesis entitled Computer Modeling and Visualization of Luminescent Crystals: The Role of Energy Transfer and Upconversion. He also presented a poster on the work at the Spring Meeting of the New England Section of the American Physical Society, Orono, ME, April 2007. John Collins of the Physics Department was co-advisor for this work.
A student created a web-based visualization tool for analyzing census data. This work was presented at the 2004 International Visual Sociology Association conference in San Francisco by my collaborator, John Grady of Wheaton's Sociology Department.
A group of my students presented a poster at the 2002 annual conference of the Consortium for Computing in Small Colleges (CCSC) entitled A Surface Reconstruction Research Environment. This system allows researchers in the area of surface reconstruction to test new interpolation or approximation methods easily. This work was later published in the journal Computers & Geosciences (see below).
Selected Publications, Creative Work or Performances
Gousie, M. B. and Milewski, S. A System for 3D Error Visualization and Assessment of Digital Elevation Models. In Proceedings of the 2007 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (Barcelona, 2007).
Gousie, M. B. A Robust Web Programming and Graphics Course for Non-Majors. In Proceedings of the 37th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (Houston, 2006), pp. 72-76.
Gousie, M. B. Digital Elevation Model Error Detection and Visualization. In The 4th Workshop on Dynamic & Multi-dimensional GIS (Pontypridd, Wales, UK, 2005), C. Gold, Ed, ISPRS, pp. 42-46.
Gousie, M. Math for Non-Mathers: Using Math in Everyday Life. Wheaton Quarterly (Summer, 2005), pp. 28-31.
Gousie, M. B. and Franklin, W. R. Augmenting Grid-Based Contours to Improve Thin Plate DEM Generation. Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing 71,1 (2005), pp. 69-79.
Gousie, M. B. and Franklin, W. R. Constructing a DEM from Grid-Based Data by Computing Intermediate Contours. In GIS 2003: Proceedings of the Eleventh ACM International Symposium on Advances in Geographic Information Systems (New Orleans, 2003), E. Hoel and P. Rigaux, Eds., pp. 71-77.
Gousie, M. B., Williams, G., Agnitti, T., and Doolittle, N. CompSurf: An Environment for Exploring Surface Reconstruction Methods on a Grid. Computers & Geosciences 29, 9 (2003), pp. 1165-1173.
Gousie, M. B. Teaching Computer Graphics in a Small Department. Journal of Computing in Small Colleges, Proceedings of the Fifth Annual CCSC Northeastern Conference (2000), pp. 194-202. Winner of Best Paper award.
Franklin, W. R. and Gousie, M. B. "Terrain Elevation Data Structure Operations." In Proceedings of the International Cartographic Association (Ottawa, 1999).
Gousie M. and Franklin R. "Converting Elevation Contours to a Grid." Proceedings of the 8th International Symposium on Spatial Data Handling (1998), Poiker and Chrisman, Eds, pp. 647-656.