I started studying computer science, eg. computational visualistics, in 1996 and finished it after a 10 month thesis research in Canada in November 2002. I finally defended my thesis in January 2003 and started around Mai/June, equipped with a scholarship from the Land of Saxony Anhalt, my PhD research at the University of Magdeburg. Below is some information about several projects and publications I was involved during my time of research and studying. Here, I am currently working in the Computational Visualistics / Software Engineering Lab on new and future ideas for games, user interfaces, storytelling, graphics, sound, and more. Our focus here is on graphical and interactive methods for computer games. The main emphasis is on human computer interaction (HCI), non-photorealistic rendering (NPR), audio-only computer games and the development of tools for non-professional users (eg. children). My main interests lie in the areas of virtual auditory environments and their sonification and interaction techniques, as well as in sound rendering and synthesis, especially by exploiting graphics techniques and hardware for this. 

My time as Diplom/Master student was probably very normal and similar to others. I was a professors assistant since the 3rd semester, which not only aided in my financial support, but also gave me many insights into science, research and ongoing projects. The two most exciting things were my internship with the Medical Imaging Research Group at UBC, and my thesis research and writing at the GrUVi Lab at SFU. Both Universities are located in Vancouver in Canada. Besides being in a nice city, the surrounding nature offered many possibilities for the outdoors. 

With a major in computer science and a minor in medicine, the degree of computational visualistics also includes courses like design, philosophy, education, politics, as well as the usual computer science courses, such as data bases, simulation, computer vision, graphics, scientific visualization and image processing. My Diplom/Master thesis was about the visualization of large volumetric data sets, and combined volume rendering techniques using graphics hardware with wavelets and an alternative lattice for efficiency and data compression. The research was conducted at SFU in Canada, as our University had no professor for scientific visualization and because I was alrady involved in other projects at the GrUVi Lab.

I started my PhD around May/June 2003 with the Computer Games Reasearch Group at the Department of Simulation and Graphics. One of the initial project ideas was concerned with audio-only computer games and its possibilities. Fascinated by this topic, I explored together with the help of several students many aspects of it and developed prototypic implementations for audio-based game engines, audiogames, as well as sound and acoustic simulations by exploiting computer graphics technology. A more detailed overview can be found on the projects and publications pages.