Wayne Piekarski - Projects

wayne piekarski

Projects
Table of Contents

Here is a list of the many projects that I have worked on during my career

Georeferenced Titanic debris field map (2023)
This project is an attempt to collect various online maps and scans of the Titanic wreck site and georeference them against known locations with exact lat-long coordinates. The project is open source and maintained in QGIS and the underlying maps and markers can be edited.

X-Plane plugins and applications
Add-on plugins and applications for X-Plane to support flight simulation in a home cockpit. This page describes XPlaneCDU, XTextureExtractor, XPlane748EFB, and XPlaneMonitor, which I developed to add more realism for home cockpits, and allows you to use extra monitors, extra computers, and Android tablets.

IoT water meter monitoring (2017)
How I implemented my own water meter monitoring at home. There are differences between the various kinds of water meters, and it is important to understand this to accurately measure water usage.

Computer vision-based IoT monitoring (2017)
Many gas, electricity, and water meters do not integrate with modern IoT monitoring. I explore how to use computer vision with OpenCV to read the dials from a gas meter, measuring the level of a fish pond, and the challenges associated with it

GoPro Dog Backpack (2013)
How to construct your own GoPro backpack for your dog, using a few simple parts, and how to make it stable while the dog is running around.

Tinmith Outdoor Augmented Reality System (1998-2007)
The Tinmith mobile outdoor augmented reality system is a hardware and software research platform designed at the University of South Australia. It is capable of doing real-time 3D modelling with the users hands, and can be used anywhere outdoors. It implements the registration of virtual 3D rendering registered with the physical world. The hardware was custom designed, and contains the best sensors and graphics hardware available at the time.

Lecturing at University of South Australia (2000-2007)
I was formerly the course coordinator and lecturer for Operating Systems / Computer Systems Architecture 2004-2007, Computer Graphics 2004-2006, and Computer and Internet Technology 2000-2001 at the University of South Australia. I also coordinated and lectured Data Modelling and Database Design, as well as Object Oriented Data Modelling at Hong Kong Baptist University from 2001-2006.

Hand of God (HOG3D)
The HOG3D project is designed to allow users indoors to teleport 3D objects and hand gestures to outdoor Tinmith users. User's can use what we term "god-like techniques" to communicate with people outdoors.

ARQuake (2000-2006)
Using the Tinmith augmented reality system, and a plastic toy gun, users can walk around an outdoor environment playing Quake. The system was originally developed in 2000, and we have a number of videos and pictures showing the system in action.

SE Network Access Pty Ltd, Adelaide, Australia (1996-2001)
I was previously research and development manager at SE Network Access in the late 1990s, where I led the design of software and database systems. Some major projects include SE Net’s advanced User Manager v4 system, as well as software for SA Central Mk2, Goat Tracks, and many others. I also created the original SE Net globe logo using POV-Ray. At one point we were the biggest ISP in Adelaide. Unfortunately the original SE Net no longer exists since it was absorbed into OzEmail/WorldCom, which then got absorbed into iiNet.

qtGrader - Accelerated grading of paper-based student submissions (2012-2013)
This is an open-source GPLv3 tool that I wrote to improve the time it takes to grade a whole bunch of student exams. While multiple choice and simple answer exams are easy to grade by a computer, they do not really test the student, and do not allow the student to draw diagrams or explain things more thoroughly. The best exams still need to be graded by a real human. The tool helps to streamline the process of dealing with a large amount of paperwork, allowing the human to focus their time on the grading, and reducing the number of mistakes. I’ve seen an order of magnitude in speed improvements with test subjects who used this tool. You simply scan in all your exams, and then let the tool assist you with the process.

Academic Conferences
I was the general co-chair for the International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR 2006) which was held in Santa Barbara, California in October 2006. This is the leading research conference in augmented reality. I was also the program co-chair for the Australasian User Interface Conference in both 2007 and 2006. I have also served for many years on the program committee for the IEEE Virtual Reality Conference (VR), the IEEE International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC), and the IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR).