In August my PhD thesis was submitted for external review, while this is processing I am employed on a casual basis as a Research Assistant at RMIT providing software engineering and research support to two RMIT research projects. Both projects are written in C++, involve extensive use of Qt4 (4.5.3) and Delta3D in the areas of OpenSceneGraph and the Open Dynamics Engine.

Here are details of the projects that I am involved with:

80% Virtual Engineering platform for the RMIT School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering. This work involves architecting and building a complete parametric distributed design environment to facilitate research into virtual product design and engineering. Results published:

An adaptable virtual engineering platform for distributed design based on open source game technology. McIntosh P et al. Advances in Engineering Software, Volume 43, Issue 1, January (2012), Pages 71–86 doi:10.1016/j.advengsoft.2011.08.002 (Here )

20% Cycle Simulator for the RMIT Virtual Reality Centre. This work involves updating Delta3D to provide a number of features to support the research simulation requirements.

• Direction oriented Bezier path following (implemented by setting the object orientation as the derivative of the Bezier cubic function)
• Ground clamping functionality for Bezier control objects in the STAGE (Simulation, Training, and Game Editor) Qt editor
• Collision mapping functionality for all objects in the STAGE Qt editor
• Force feedback for collisions to simulate kerbs, grates and small potholes