Welcome to the home page of Richard Cartwright and the Definitive Site.  Here you will find a large amount of information devoted to Empirical Modelling and its use through definitive programming - the topic of my PhD research.  In particular, find out about Empirical Worlds, the JaM Machine API, my research interests and my favourite Internet links.

Contact information:
 

Name:	Dr. Richard Ian Cartwright
Address:	84b Newlands Park, Sydenham, LONDON SE26 5NB, UK
E-mail:	R.Cartwright@cwcom.net
Phone:	+44 (0)7974 750967
FAX:	+44 (0)1737 8xxxxx

Empirical Worlds is a proof of concept application demonstrating virtual environments containing 3D shapes that are dependent on one another, in the manner of cells in a spreadsheet.  The application is concieved to support multi-agent, distributed modelling and experiece of shape in Internet VRML browsers controlled through the VRML External Authoring Interface for Java.  Empirical Worlds has the potential to support:

• CAD/CAM - solid modelling with an extensible range of shape primitives and operators;
• Collaborative concurrent modelling over the Internet with low network bandwidth;
• Simulation and animation of multimedia models in many different dimensions.

Imagine a spreadsheet where the cells can contain any type of data that you choose, including pictures, VRML models, visualisations etc., delivering the productivity of spreadsheets to any application area of your choice.  Consider the benefits of using a spreadsheet where you can select a range of cells that contain recent updates and ask for updates to occur efficiently in parallel.  Throw in the ability to define new and efficiently executing data types and operators on-the-fly and you have the three concepts lying behaing the Java Maintainer Machine API.

Spreadsheets are the key application on the modern computing desktop that supports user-end programming, without users realising that that is what they are doing - no compilation or sequential ordering of tasks is required.  The current version of the JaM Machine API (v1.0) is at a proof of concept stage with limited documentation.  Version 2 is under development and this site will contain the latest status of this work, downloads, documentation and libraries of pre-built data types.  (The JaM Machine API is licensed under the GNU Public License.)

I am employed by the Research and Devlopment department of the BBC as a R&D engineer.  I am invloved with the development of DigitalText services for Digital Teresteriol Television, Satellite and Cable platforms.  My main research interests extrnal to the BBC are Empirical Modelling, Implicit Surface Modelling and Object-oriented Software Engineering.
 

Web sites	- The Empirical Modelling Web Site - The Implicit Site and F-rep Home Page
Conferences	- Implicit Surfaces Workshop 1999
Publications	- PhD Thesis - HyperFun and Java paper

Here are some of my favourite Internet links:

• BBC News and BBC Weather
• UK train times from Railtrack and The Trainline
• Orange communications - how to use a mobile phone!
• The UKs sunsite at Imperial College - http and ftp
• SUN's Java home page and the Java Developers Connection
• All things reliable (Linux, Redhat, GNU, Cygnus) and nothing unreliable (Microsoft)