Welcome to Aaron Albin's Temporary Homepage

Code borrowed from within MDST pages and Dynamic Drive.

My Interests

I am a fifth year Electrical Engineering and Media Studies Major. I intend to pursue graduate studies in the hopes of becoming a professor. I would like to research areas of signal processing, including audio and image. I am currently interested in the applications to interactive media. I would also like to learn about medical image processing, face detection, image enhancement, tracking, and other types of image analysis. I'm very interested in learning about how the work that engineers do will affect society in the long run. The media studies degree helps me to think further along about the effects of applied science.

Resume

Current GPA: 3.857
Current Majors : 1. Electrical Engineering 2. Media Studies
GRE: 670 Verbal, 790 Quantitative, 4 Analytical Writing
Current Course Work
Click here for a list of current coursework

UNIVERSITY ACTIVITIES AND AWARDS AND WORK EXPERIENCE:

First Semester:
Activities:
a. Member of LMNTAL –hip hop organization whose purpose is to promote the understanding and appreciation of hip hop culture.
b. Member of Student Arts Committee – a division of the Student Council designed to promote participation in the arts. We initiated an independent student arts project fund in which students from all areas of the university are given the opportunity to present proposals for funding. These projects are inteded to be pursued outside the academic curriculum.

Second Semester:
Awards
a. Joined the Rodman Scholars program, the honors program for the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science

Summer after Second Semester:
Work Experience :
a. Worked at the VLSI lab at Old Dominion University. Learned basic image processing using MATLAB to enhance low-quality images.

Third Semester :
Activities
a. Member of the Wing Chun Kung Fu club at UVA.
Awards b. Member of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars.

Fourth Semester:
Activities
a. Started a band with Kaveh Ardalan called Doubting Thomas. We performed at venues such as the Mellow Mushroom and the NorVa’s Backstage Cafe in Norfolk, VA.
Awards
b. Invited to the Media Studies Major program.
c. Awarded the A. Thomas Young Memorial Scholarship.

Summer: 2005:
Activities
a. Worked at the Computer Vision Lab at Old Dominion University under Dr. Vijayan Asari. Please see the end of the resume for a description.
b. Student member of the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers.

Fifth Semester:
Activities
a. Service Project: I created music album of my own compositions; the total profits of this album are to be donated to the Habitat for Humanity, to be used at their discretion and also for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Currently being handled by Hemlock Records .
Awards
b. Member of Golden Key International Honour Society.
c. Received recognition of Intermediate Honors at UVA.
d. Inducted into Tau Beta Pi, engineering honors society.

Sixth Semester:
Activities
a. Vice Chair of Student Branch of the IEEE at UVA
Awards.
b. Awarded a Harrison Undergraduate Research Grant
c. Awarded a Virginia Space Grant Consortium Undergraduate Research Grant

Summer 2006:
Activities
a. Continued work on Harrison and VSGC research
b. Visited L3 Communications for more information about how decoder design works.

Seventh Semester:
Activities
a. Worked with Curtis Myzie and Thomas Woo in developing our own Virtual Conductor. – Please See more Information

Eighth Semester:
Activities
a. Expanded the Virtual Conductor into the Interactive Media Application.

Ninth Semester:
Activities
a. Organized a group of 5 CS and CPE students to continue development of the Interactive Media Application
b. Joined the first incarnation of the UVA Interactive Media Research Group, headed by Professor Matthew Burtner. My Interactive Media Application will be featured as one of the many tools available for our current research project involving a multi-tiered audience partipation performance.
c. Currently building a high speed cache in my Introduction to VLSI course. Using AMI06 technology, cadence ICFB, we’re desiging an 8 kilobyte cache, including schematic, simulation, and layout.

First Work Experience:
In the summer of 2005, I worked in Dr. Vijayan Asari’s Computational Intelligence and Machine Vision Laboratory at Old Dominion University. Even though my interests at the time were in audio signal processing, I did not want to limit my scope to just that specific area. The main goals of the laboratory were to develop innovative algorithms for real-time applications. This included projects in areas of image processing, computer vision, pattern recognition, and artificial neural networks. Please see http://www.eng.odu.edu/visionlab/ for more details of the research being done by this group. During my time there, I focused on the CORDIC algorithm and worked to implement it at the gate level. The CORDIC algorithm is an iterative method for calculating trigonometric and hyperbolic functions. These functions are essential in signal processing applications. Out of my experience at the laboratory, I gained some familiarity with MATLAB as well as Quartus II Web Edition Software.

Harrison Award and VSGC Grant Work

In the fall of 2005, I applied for both a Harrison Undergraduate Research Grant as well as a Virginia Space Grant Consortium Undergraduate Research Grant. The project focused on the implementation of a Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) decoder in a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) device. The project was headed by Dr. Stephen Wilson. This work was also used for my undergraduate thesis. Abstract This project concerned the design of a Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) code decoder in a Field Programmable Gate Array (FGPA). LDPC codes are a well-known type of coding technique being used in a variety of high performance communication applications. Specifically, the goal of this project was to create a decoder simulator to test the effectiveness of any particular type of LDPC code one would choose to construct. This hardware decoder will be used to simulate different types of parity check matrices in a significantly smaller amount of time than it would take in software. The parity check matrix of LDPC codes are structured in a way so that can make good use of parallel processing, thereby dramatically increasing the throughput of the decoder. The full design was supposed to have been completed in System Generator, but that software platform proved to be insufficient for this project. Therefore, a program was written to generate the text of the hardware description language code, VHDL, necessary to implement any size code corresponding to any matrix desired. As these designs were being tested in software simulation, the focus of this project shifted more towards understanding input and output constraints. The remaining work for this project includes assignment of appropriate input and output constraints, random number generator input design, possibly a redesign of the variable and check nodes without the use of System Generator, and simulation and debugging in hardware. These remaining tasks should be completed during the summer of 2007. Additionally, while the code is fully tested on a small board, a larger FGPA within a development board will be purchased so that larger sized codes can be tested.

click here to download thesis report

Interactive Media Application

First term
The original inception of the IMA was a Virtual Conductor. The purpose was to develop a tool that could be useful for music students who are learning to conduct. If they could listen to their own favorite tunes, say for example in an mp3, the song would speed up or slow down according to their motion. First we experimented making our own simple effects like echoes. Later we began to work on implementing a real time phase vocoder effect that speeds up or slows down a song without changing the pitch. In addition to this, we implemented a basic motion tracker that detects motion based upon the centroid of a moving object. We made a basic link between the audio and video, which could speed up or slow down the song based upon the position of the centroid relative to the edge of the camera window. Beat detection was researched but not implemented.

Second term:
With the introduction of the Wii Remote into the gaming market, it seemed an ideal choice to be a baton for a conductor. We added functionality to our program to accept the Wii as an input device. The focus of the application shifted away from being solely a Virtual Conductor and more towards an IMA. Our basic audio-visual link became more complex. The audio player became a multi-track interface capable of basic real time mixing. The webcam or the Wiimote could be used as an input device to change effect parameters. We experimented with real time-convolution in attempt to create reverb effects by convolving the input signal with the impulse response of a room. Only about 1 second of reverb was possible in this method. However, using the same implementation we could easily make a variable low pass filter, since it does not need nearly as many coefficients as a realistic reverb would.

Third term:
I organized a group of 5 CS and CPE students to continue development of IMA. We are currently shifting our focus so that our application can be more plug-in based. We are adding more functionality to the program so that it can continue to be a tool for music students. For example, the virtual conductor is now a top priority plugin. Therefore, beat detection is currently under research. The application can also be a useful learning tool for teaching students about basic concepts in signal and image processing. There will be two modes: Practice Mode and Conductor Mode. In Practice Mode, the user will beat out a pattern using the Wiimote and his performance will be compared to the statistics gathered from the audio, scoring and evaluating. In Conductor Mode, the user becomes the control of the rate of playback. We need the ability to freeze time as well as find a way to ensure that beats occur only when the conductor wishes. Additionally, the audio must respond to the will of the Conductor, not the other way around. In our webcam plug-in, we are doing basic image processing, using structuring elements to create filters such as erosion, dilation, and their combinations. Edge detection will soon follow from this. We have also implemented a real-time skin detection algorithm that we believe might be useful in improving tracking. Our multi-track audio mixer plug-in will eventually include some stock effects. For example, a basic parameterizable reverb is under development that uses a combination of comb and all-pass filters. While we had the ability to input data from the Wiimote’s IR sensors and accelerometers in the second semester, we are developing a Wiimote Plugin to interpret this data. Currently, we are using the data from the IR sensor for simple palm pilot-like gesture/character recognition. Eventually the acceleration data will be used to trigger sound events using finite difference, jerk, calculations. Finally our newest idea involves simple games using music. Once beat detection is finished, events can be triggered to occur on the beat of music, to which the user must respond.

Youtube Software Demonstration
DSP Project Report on Phase Vocoder
DIP Project on Centroid Tracking
Design Project: Interactive Media Application Report
Third Semester Software Demonstration
This is a large file. So if you'd prefer to just see highlights, see below
Opening Presntation. A reenactment of the youtube clip.
Freezing and Reverb, worked on and demonstrated by Dave Willett.
Gesture Recognition and Wiimote BPM, worked on and demonstrated by Ryan Mahony
Image Processing Effects, worked on and demonstrated by Jisoon Kim
Final Demonstration, showing the live mixing and playback capabilities.
Our Powerpoint Presentation, in case you can't really see it

Music

Click here to see some of my past work as well as collaborative work

Click here to preview my album!
Or visit hemlock records to buy it.
Read a review by smother magazine.

Hereis a music idea for composition and conducting, a modification to Hyperscore. A blank canvas.
Here it is filled in with notes, sortof. I just filled in stuff randomly, but imagine a moving radius that plays the samples or colored boxes. Could be neat... who knows...

Here is a puzzle. Works in IE...but maybe not other browsers.

Click here for the Electrical Engineering Website and here for the Media Studies Website

Here's my contact info.....sortof...... ata5y at virginia.edu

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