The O&CS Research Group provides the best place in Australia to undertake an
Honours, Masters or PhD in IT in optimisation and constraint solving and one of the best places in the world.
We offer
Excellent Supervision & Research Environment
Monash is one of two Australian Universities to have won the prestigious best Australian PhD dissertation in computer
science more than once. The O&CS research group prides itself on the quality of research student supervision and
the research environment including a regular lunchtime research
seminar series
. There are regular national and international visitors to the group. At the same time we have numerous
international collaborations
with research groups around the world.
International reputation
Members of the research group
are world leaders in their fields. Research at the Faculty is highly regarded internationally as well as
within Australia.
Financial Support
Generous financial assistance and
scholarships
are available. All postgraduate research students have access to the latest computing equipment, travel funds,
and wide variety of scholarships.
Apart from this you get the opportunity to live in vibrant & cosmopolitan
Melbourne
, Australia, which has been voted one of the world's most livable cities.
For examples of current and previous student research please visit our
student project pages
.
Possible projects in constraint-based graphics
Diagram layout
Constrained optimization provides a general framework for modelling both dynamic and static layout of diagrams.
Geometric constraints capture the structure of the diagram and an objective function measures the aesthetic
desirability of a particular layout. Typically, however, the resulting constrained optimisation problems are
impractical to solve using standard generic techniques and we must usually devise algorithms that are specialised
for a particular kind of diagram and drawing convention.
Most research into specialised algorithms for diagram layout has been for graphs and this has largely focussed on the
static layout of idealized mathematical graphs (including the important sub-case of trees) composed of nodes and edges.
Surprisingly little work has gone into layout of other types of diagrammatic notations.
We have PhD and Masters projects in
* Layout of diagrams which are not simple graphs such as UML notations and those used in biochemistry and molecular biology,
* Dynamic layout to support interactive exploration of graphs and other notations such as state charts in which the
diagram is hierarchically organized and sub-parts can be collapsed or expanded to show internal structure.
* Efficient, incremental layout of large graphs with thousands of nodes with the aim of finding better data
visualisation techniques
Associating semantics with diagrams
The ability to access the information contained in diagrams in a structured way is important for at least three reasons.
The first is semantics based retrieval. The second is that if the semantic representation is linked with the visual
representation, we can use this to adapt the diagram so as to tailor it to the user's needs. The third reason is that
associating a semantic representation with a diagram facilitates access to the information in the diagram by blind users
and users with audio-only views.
We have PhD and Masters projects to investigate semantics-based retrieval and search of diagrams and semantics-based
adaptation for blind users.
We also have projects in cognitive psychology to investigate how humans comprehend and use diagrams and other
two-dimensional notations such as mathematics.
Layout of textual documents
Automatic layout of textual documents, especially for on-line documents, is still quite primitive. It does not readily
support interactive hierarchical exploration, animation, adaptation of content to suit the user, optimal use of screen
space and layout of compound multimedia documents.
We have PhD and Masters projects to investigate constraint-based document layout, optimal placement of floating figures,
and layout for presentation documents such as posters, brochures and PowerPoint-like slides.
If you are interested in any of the above projects contact Kim Marriott or Bernd Meyer.
Caution
Privacy
Click to print
