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Ralph Martin

Professor Ralph Martin

Emeritus Professor of Geometric Computing

School of Computer Science and Informatics

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Overview

I am a retired Emeritus Professor at the School of Computer Science and Informatics.

I have a distinguished track record of research in a range of visual computing areas. I held a Chair and was head of the Visual Computing research group. I was also a Guest Professor at Tsinghua and two other Universities in China.

My publications include about 300 papers and 15 books covering such topics as solid and surface modelling, reverse engineering, computer vision and image processing, and geometric reasoning.

I was associate editor-in-chief of 'Computational Visual Media', and on the editorial boards of 'Computer Aided Design', 'Computer Aided Geometric Design', 'Geometric Models', 'Computers and Graphics', and other journals.

In 2014 I was awarded a Friendship Award by the Chinese Government, their highest award for foreigners.

See my personal home page.

Research

I was head of the School's Visual Computing group.

My research interests lay broadly in the area of visual computing. This encompassed geometric modelling and processing of curves, surfaces, solids, and meshes, with applications to areas such as CAD/CAM; reverse engineering and sketch input of solid models have been special interests.

I was also interested in various topics in computer graphics, computer vision, image processing, and video processing, particularly where geometry was involved.

My work on reverse engineering was regarded as having significant impact by the 2014 REF.

Teaching

I retired in 2017 and am no longer available for PhD supervision.

Biography

Education and qualifications

  • 1968-1975: King Edward's School, Birmingham. Foundation Scholar
  • 1976-1979: Pembroke College, Cambridge. Entrance Scholar, Foundation Scholar. BA Hons, 1st Class, Physics and Theoretical Physics
  • 1979-1982: Pembroke College, Cambridge. PhD: Principal Patches for Computational Geometry, Cambridge University Engineering Department

Career overview

  • 2017: Retired
  • 2000: Appointed Professor
  • 1999: Promoted to Reader
  • 1995: Promoted to Senior Lecturer
  • 1982: Lecturer, Department of Computing Mathematics (now Computer Science & Informatics), University College, Cardiff (now Cardiff University)
  • 1975-1976: Research Programmer, Wolfson Research Institute, Queen Elizabeth Medical Centre,Birmingham

Honours and awards

  • Friendship Award, China, 2014
  • Solid Modeling Pioneer Award, Solid Modeling Association, USA, 2016

Professional memberships

  • 2011: Elected Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales.
  • 2011: Elected Fellow of The British Computer Society.
  • 1991: Gained Chartered Mathematician Status through the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications.
  • 1990: Gained Chartered Engineer Status through the British Computer Society.
  • 1989: Elected Fellow of The Institute of Mathematics and its Applications.
  • 1987: Elected Member of the British Computer Society.
  • 1984: Elected Associate Fellow of The Institute of Mathematics and its Applications.

Academic positions

  • 2000: Appointed Professor.
  • 1999: Promoted to Reader.
  • 1995: Promoted to Senior Lecturer.
  • 1982: Lecturer, Department of Computing Mathematics (now Computer Science & Informatics), University College, Cardiff (now Cardiff University).
  • 1975-1976: Research Programmer, Wolfson Research Institute, Queen Elizabeth Medical Centre,Birmingham.

Committees and reviewing

  • 2014-: Member Academic Information Resources Advisory Forum
  • 2007-13: Member SCOLAR Forum (Library Special Collections)
  • 2006-7: Member University Trevithick Library Refurbishment Project Team; Design won a SCONUL Library Design Award.

and many earlier positions.

External profiles