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David Callele

David Callele - Assistant Professor (Term)
email:callele@cs.usask.ca
www :www.cs.usask.ca/faculty/callele/
office : 225.5 Thorvaldson
voice:(306)966 2569
fax: (306)966 4884

Current Classes

CMPT 320

Introduction to Digital System Design

Past Classes

CMPT 116	Computing 1
CMPT 214	Programming Principles and Practices
CMPT 215	Introduction to Computer Organization and Architecture
CMPT 220	Introduction to Digital System Design
CMPT 260	Mathematical Logic and Computing
CMPT 321	Computer Design and Architecture
CMPT 424	Computer Network Technologies and Analysis

Please refer to the main Computer Science class page for further details about each class.

Life Skillz Seminars

I occasionally give a seminar or two on topics such as "How to Survive Computer Science" and "Communication Basics". Here are the slides in various layouts in PDF format.

How to Survive Computer Science	1 slide per page	2 slides per page	4 slides per page
Communication Basics	1 slide per page	2 slides per page	4 slides per page
Getting a Job in the Video Game Industry	1 slide per page	Powerpoint 1 slide per page

My Students

I do a lot of work with undergraduate students. In particular, I supervise numerous CMPT 400 and CMPT 405 projects each year. You can see samples of their work by following this link.

Research Interests

My areas of academic research interest are:

Software Engineering in the Creative Domain

My dissertation is titled “From Vision to Virtual Reality: Managing the Creative Process”, a detailed analysis of the best (and worst) practices in video game development – from conception to market delivery.

I model the game development process as the union of two efforts:

visualization whose output is a game design document
implementation wherein the game design document is translated into a formal specification and a more traditional software development process begins, resulting in the game artifact.
My analysis shows that many, if not most, of the problems occur in the visualization phase and in the transition to the implementation phase. Therefore, I ask:

What are the lessons learned in the implementation domain, and from user feedback (including the marketplace), that can be beneficially transferred to the visualization domain?
Can these lessons and feedback be incorporated into an organization in a manner that all stakeholders (but particularly the visionary) can accept and embrace?
What are the risk factors associated with modifying an organization, and it’s processes, with this proposed knowledge transfer?

Note the emphasis on beneficial transfer and risk assessment - it is easy to propose or promote a process change but a thorough analysis of real or potential repercussions should always be undertaken.

Real-Time Graphics

Non-photorealistic rendering (particularly cel-shading and other strongly abstracted representations) for real-time environments such as computer games is another area of interest - particularly when using programmable graphics hardware.

Immersive Environments and Data Visualization

I really enjoy wandering around in virtual worlds. I am interested in using technologies developed for the video game industry for data visualization.

Parallel Computation

I am fascinated by the computational models made possible by programmable graphics hardware (vertex shaders and pixel shaders). I am currently investigating the (non-traditional) use of programmable graphics processors as SIMD linear algebra coprocessors for scientific computation. One project addresses sorting on a GPU. In general, I am interested in both tightly-coupled and distributed architectures for parallel computation.

Processor and System Architectures

I am interested in the analysis and design of processor and system architectures, particularly when the architectures are tweaked to perform non-traditional (unexpected) operations.

Binary N-Cube Switching Topologies

Binary N-cube (hypercube) connection networks for performing fast packet switching and routing have to be one of the neatest things out there.

Publications

Please follow this link.

Research and Other Affiliations

ACM SIGGRAPH: Member
APEGS: Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Saskatchewan

Last updated Friday May 3, 2002. Please report problems to webmaster@cs.usask.ca

visualization	whose output is a game design document
implementation	wherein the game design document is translated into a formal specification and a more traditional software development process begins, resulting in the game artifact.