Christopher Smith, Associate Professor

Gonzaga University
Computer Science Department
502 East Boone Ave.
Spokane, WA 99258
Office: Herak
Phone: 509-313-5704
Email: chsmith at <replace spaces and at> gonzaga.edu
 
About Me
Friends, family, and hobbies
 I was born and raised in a farming community in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, where my parents and sisters still live. My uncle, Dr. Franklin Smith, was a faculty member in Dentistry at the University of Michigan and was my inspiration to consider a career as a professor. I have worked at two other universities, including six years at a Tier 1 public research university. I now work at GU because students and education are valued and nurtured here. Rather than just being a number, GU students are viewed as members of an extended family. At GU, we care about educating the whole person, not simply generating credit hours.
I consider robotics and computer vision to be the most exciting field in Computer Science and Engineering (every faculty member believes this to be true of their particular discipline). These areas inspire people from all walks of life and at every age. They are also excellent applications to demonstrate the importance of skills in fields such as Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Mathematics, Psychology,...even Neuroscience.
Stop by my office and I'd be happy to talk to you about the field of Computer Science and the opportunities for a CS graduate to fundamentally change people's lives for the better.
Courses CPEN 230
PACCAR 107
MWF 1:10 - 2:00

CPSC 121
Herak 301
MWF 2:10 - 3:00

CPSC 491/499
Herak 301
MWF 3:10 - 4:00

Education

 B.S. Computer and Mathematical Sciences, Lake Superior State University, 1984
M.S. Computer Science and Engineering, University of Michigan, 1987
Ph.D. Computer Science, University of Minnesota, 1996
         Visually Guided Manipulation of Static and Moving Objects 

Projects


SNARL - Sensor Networks And Robotics Lab

Active Deformable Models:

This research has several active areas, including color snakes, mixture models for automatic initialization of dynamic statistical pressure snakes, reformulation of traditional internal snake forces, and a hierarchical architecture for anytime vision. An application of this work adapts the snake computation to a distributed robotic environment that can serve as a model for self-annealing sensor networks. We are also looking at applications of this technology to traditional manipulator robotics and to autonomous vehicle guidance.

Robotic Theater Prop:

In 1997, my area of research led to an interesting collaboration with the props department of the Denver Theater Company. The result was a remote controlled turtle for Tom Stoppard's Arcadia. I was simply a source of ideas, while Melinda Miles did the vast majority of the design and construction. Here are a couple of pictures of the turtle: If you are interested, there are some mpegs of my work in action.

  Visual Tracking

  Vision-guided Grasping

  High Performance Snake Tracking

  Snake-based Visual Tracking

  Snake-based Grasping

Journal
Publications
  1. H. Schaub and C. Smith "Statistical color models in active deformable models for dynamic lighting conditions," submitted to International Journal of Image and Graphics, 2009.
  2. W. Abd-Almageed, A. El-Osery, and C. Smith, "Estimating time-varying densities using a stochastic learning automaton," Soft Computing Journal, 10(11):1007-1020, September, 2006.
  3. W. Abd-Almageed, and C. Smith, "Active deformable models using density estimation," International Journal of Image and Graphics, 4(3):343-361, July 2004.
  4. N. Papanikolopoulos and C. Smith, "Issues and experimental results in vision-guided robotic grasping of static or moving objects," Industrial Robot, 25(2):134-140, 1998.
  5. C. Smith, S. Brandt, and N. Papanikolopoulos, "Eye-in-hand robotic tasks in uncalibrated environments," IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, 13(6):903-914, 1997.
  6. C. Smith and N. Papanikolopoulos, "Grasping of static and moving objects using a vision-based control approach," Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems: Theory and Applications, 19:237-270, 1997.
  7. C. Smith, C. Richards, S. Brandt, and N. Papanikolopoulos, "Visual tracking for intelligent vehicle-highway systems," IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, 46(4):732-743, 1996

Conference
Publications
  1. C. Smith, "Segmentation and tracking of natural patterns using fractal snakes," submitted to IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2010.
  2. C. Smith and H. Schaub, "Efficient polygonal intersection determination with applications to robotics and vision," Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2005.
  3. W. Abd-Almageed, A. El-Osery and C. E. Smith, "A fuzzy-statistical contour model for MRI segmentation and target tracking," Proceedings of SPIE, July 2004
  4. W. Abd-Almageed, A. El-Osery and C. E. Smith, "A hybrid fuzzy-statistical contour model," SPIE Defense and Security Symposium, April, 2004.
  5. H. Schaub and C. Smith, "Color snakes for dynamic lighting conditions on mobile manipulation platforms," Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2003.
  6. W. Abd-Almageed, A. El-Osery, and C. Smith, "Non-parametric expectation maximization: a learning automata approach," Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, 2003.
  7. W. Abd-Almageed, C. Smith, and S. Ramadan, "Kernel snakes: non-parametric active deformable models," Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, 2003.
  8. S. Ramadan, W. Abd-Almageed, and C. Smith, "Eye tracking using active deformable models," Proceedings of the III Indian Conference on Computer Vision, Graphics and Image Processing, India, 2002.
  9. W. Abd-Almageed and C. Smith, "Contour migration: solving object ambiguity with shape-space visual guidance," Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2002.
  10. W. Abd-Almageed and C. Smith, "Mixture models for dynamic statistical pressure snakes," Proceedings of the International Conference on Pattern Recognition, 2002.
  11. W. Abd-Almageed and C. Smith, "Hidden Markov models for silhouette classification," Proceedings of the World Automation Congress 2002, 2002.
  12. D. Perrin and C. Smith. "Rethinking classical internal forces for active contour models," Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, 2001.
  13. J. Dukesherer and C. Smith. "A hybrid Hough-Hausdorff method for recognizing bicycles in natural scenes," The IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, 2001.
  14. J. Wetherbie III and C. Smith. "Large-scale feature identification for indoor topological mapping," The IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, 2001.
  15. C. Smith and D. Perrin, "HOLDeR: a layered system for vision-guided robotics," Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, 2000.
  16. D. Perrin, C. Smith, and N. Papanikolopoulos, "Depth extraction for contours by monocular eye-in-hand systems", Proceedings of the 8th IEEE Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation, 2000.
  17. D. Perrin, O. Masoud, C. Smith, and N. Papanikolopoulos, "Using Fast Statistical Dynamic Contours for Grasping Occluding Contours", Proceedings of the 8th IEEE Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation, 2000.
  18. D. Perrin, C. Smith, O. Masoud, and N. Papanikolopoulos, "Unknown object grasping using statistical pressure models," Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2000.
  19. D. Perrin, O. Masoud, C. Smith, and N. Papanikolopoulos, "Snakes for robotic grasping," Proceedings of the 1999 European Control Conference," 1999.
  20. C. Smith and N. Papanikolopoulos, "Using computer vision to guide robotic grasping," Proceedings of the 1997 International Robots and Vision Conference, 18:13-18:27, 1997.
  21. C. Smith and N. Papanikolopoulos, "Vision-guided robotic grasping: issues and experiments," Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 3203-3208, 1996.
  22. C. Smith and N. Papanikolopoulos, "Theory and experiments in vision-based grasping," Proceedings of the 34th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, 4053-4058, 1995.
  23. C. Smith and N. Papanikolopoulos, "Using vision-based control techniques for grasping objects," Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, 4434-4439, 1995.
  24. C. Richards, C. Smith, and N. Papanikolopoulos, "Vision-based intelligent control of transportation systems," Proceedings of the 10th IEEE International Symposium on Intelligent Control, 519-524, 1995.
  25. M. Sullivan, C. Richards, C. Smith, O. Masoud, and N. Papanikolopoulos, "Pedestrian tracking from a stationary camera using active deformable models," Proceedings of the IEEE/IES International Symposium on Intelligent Vehicles, 90-95, 1995.
  26. C. Smith and N. Papanikolopoulos, "Grasping of static and moving objects using a vision-based control approach," Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 329-334, 1995.
  27. N. Papanikolopoulos and C. Smith, "Computer vision issues during eye-in-hand robotic tasks," Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2989-2994, 1995.
  28. C. Richards, C. Smith, and N. Papanikolopoulos, "Detection and tracking of traffic objects in IVHS vision sensing modalities," ITS America Fifth Annual Meeting, 1995.
  29. C. Smith, S. Brandt, and N. Papanikolopoulos, "Robotic exploration under the controlled active vision framework," Proceedings of the 33rd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, 3796-3801, 1994.
  30. C. Smith, N. Papanikolopoulos, and S. Brandt, "Application of the controlled active vision framework to robotic and transportation problems," Proceedings of the Second IEEE Workshop on Applications of Computer Vision, 213-220, 1994.
  31. C. Smith, N. Papanikolopoulos, S. Brandt, and C. Richards, "Visual tracking strategies for intelligent vehicle/highway systems," SPIE Photonics East - Intelligent Vehicle Highway Systems, 2344:234-245, 1994.
  32. C. Smith, S. Brandt, and N. Papanikolopoulos, "Vision sensing for intelligent vehicles and highways systems," Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Multi-sensor Fusion and Integration, 784-791, 1994.
  33. S. Brandt, C. Smith, and N. Papanikolopoulos, "The Minnesota Robotic Visual Tracker: a flexible testbed for vision-guided robotic research," Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, 1363-1368, 1994.
  34. C. Smith, S. Brandt, and N. Papanikolopoulos, "Controlled active exploration of uncalibrated environments," Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, 792-795, 1994.
  35. C. Smith and N. Papanikolopoulos, "Computation of shape through controlled active exploration," Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2516-2521, 1994.
  36. C. Smith and N. Papanikolopoulos, "Derivation of depth maps through controlled active exploration," Proceedings of the 14th Annual Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing, 1029-1038, 1993.

Video Proceedings
  1. C. Smith and N. Papanikolopoulos, "Grasping using a vision-based control approach," Video Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 1996.