Department of Ocean Engineering

Resume of Stephen L. Abrams

Research Engineer
Department of Ocean Engineering, Design Laboratory
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room 5-426A
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
(617) 253-7959 · Fax: (617) 253-8125
sabrams@mit.edu


Current Research Projects

Member of the research staff responsible for coordinating the development, maintenance, and documentation of Praxiteles, an interactive executive system for modeling and interrogating the geometric and differential properties of free-form curves and surfaces, stored internally in the canonical form of NURBS. Conversion of the terminal-based version of Praxiteles to the 4Sight (NeWS-based) windowing system and then to the X Window System, using the OSF/Motif toolkit. Integration of stand-alone capabilities such as blending surfaces, localization and feature extraction, B-spline subdivision and joining, and robust minimum distance calculation. Added support for trimmed patches, Delaunay triangulation, advanced interrogation techniques, adjacent patch continuity testing, and a scripting capability. Author of User's Manual and extensive technical reference documentation. Praxiteles is used by the U.S. Navy and its subcontractors in the design and fabrication of the Seawolf and NAS nuclear attack submarines.

Participant at the 2nd European Conference on Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries, Heraklion, Crete, Greece, September 19-23, 1998. Attended full-day tutorials on Multimedia Information Retrieval and Metadata. Creation of the position statement for one of the panel members.

Development and administration of an NSF-funded Invitational Workshop on Distributed Information, Computation, and Process Management for Scientific and Engineering Environments, May 15-16, 1998, Hyatt Dulles, Herndon, VA, including co-authoring the funding proposal and the final report, production of the Workshop web site, budgeting, and arranging for hotel facilities.

Responsible for administering the C4GVC digital library, a respository for documents in the fields of CAD/CAM/CAE/CAGD, Graphics, and Visualization, based on a modified version of the DIENST server.

For a NOAA-sponsored project investigating the ship squatting problem, development of a general-purpose volume visualization package, using the marching cubes algorithm. The program was first implemented in C under Unix using X/Motif and OpenGL, but then substantially rewritten in the form of a WWW-based information server comprised of several Perl scripts, dynamically generated HTML pages, and custom graphics utilities for producing and manipulating PostScript, GIF, and VRML.

For a project on developing a Littoral Ocean Observing and Predictive System (LOOPS), development of a CORBA-based executive system for creating, validating, and executing workflows constructed from distributed oceanographic data and software resources. The system will be deployed on Java-enabled web browsers. Usage of the Wide-Wide Web Consortium's Libwww API to construct utilities to POST Form-based requests to appropriate oceanographic servers. Additionally, background investigation of the use of relational and object-oriented database systems for storage of scalar and multi-valued measurement data defined over a volumetric domain, VRML for distributed visualization, and DIS and HLA for distributed simulation.

Member of team teaching 13.016, Introduction to Geometric Modeling and Computation, covering material on computer graphics and OpenGL programming. Lecture on appropriate topics and provide course notes, demonstration and example code, and contribute to definition of problem sets, quizzes, and final project. Other teaching includes a guest lecture for 13.472J, Computational Geometry, on the principles of user interface design.

Reviewer for the International Journal of Offshore and Polar Engineering (IJOPE). Additionally, development of a LaTeX style class to be evaluated by IJOPE for use in facilitating electronic submission.

As manager of the Ocean Engineering Design Laboratory, responsible for the hiring of a computer systems manager and supervision of his activities. These include system management of a cluster of nine SGI workstations, running IRIX, and four PC's, running Windows95 and NT. All machines have Internet access and run a variety of networking software, including email, ftp, NFS, NIS, telnet, and web browsers. Maintaining a web site and server (HTTPd). Administration of user accounts, file system backup and recovery, software installation and upgrades. Prior to the hiring of the full-time manager, directly responsible for all of these administrative tasks.

Education

Master of Liberal Arts (Concentration in Fine Arts), expected in 1999
Harvard University, Extension School, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics, 1981
Boston University, College of Liberal Arts, Boston, Massachusetts
Honors Thesis: An Interactive Graphics Display System for Modeling a Family of Orbits of the Three-Dimensional Restricted Three-Body Problem

Research Interests

Professional Experience

Research Engineer, Department of Ocean Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, December 1990 to present
In addition to the work on current projects described above, recent work has included development of OceanVis, a geophysical volumetric visualization system written in C++ using the ViewKit application framework toolkit and the OpenInventor 3D graphics toolkit. The system uses spline fitting for data reduction, interval arithmetic for robust processing, and a modified marching cubes for fast viewing. Other tasks include being trained in the operation of a Kawasaki J6 welding robot, development of a serial I/O utility for an AdeptOne robot, conversion of a legacy sonar visualization system to OpenGL, and participation in planning a project in Solid Freeform Fabrication.

Other work has included working with a geostatistical modeling package to evaluate the quality of nautical charts for a project on ship transit risk; consulting with Massachusetts Heavy Industries regarding an appropriate hardware/software environment for a design office at the newly revitalized Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts; coarse-grained parallel processing, using PVM to implement concurrent processing by a heterogeneous network of workstations; preliminary development of a STEP (ISO 10303) Application Protocol for Marine Propulsors; maintenance of a C++ legacy system for three-dimensional medial axis transform; implementation of a family of C++ classes to support a topological data structure for boundary-representation modeling of complex n-dimensional structures; development of PostScript library based on the SGI Graphics Library; providing C, C++, graphics, and Unix consulting for students; participate in writing of funding proposals, progress reports, and journal articles; coordination of relations with end-users and funding agencies; and preparation of materials for, and presentations to sponsors and visitors.

Founding Partner, Plain Vanilla Software, Melrose, Massachusetts
January 1992 to February 1994
Conceptual and architectural design, prototyping, and implementation of The Big Picture, a Windows-based utility for efficient navigation about complex spreadsheets, published in September 1993. The Big Picture uses the Windows DDE facility to communicate with Excel and Lotus 1-2-3. Co-author of business plan and User's Manual. Strategic planning and presentations to prospective investors and publishers.

Supervisor of Graphics Development, Swanson Analysis Systems, Inc., Houston, Pennsylvania, November 1981 to June 1990
Supervisor of all development for the graphics and user interface components of ANSYS, an industry leading finite element analysis program. Member of the Technical Coordination committee. Development and documentation of the 2D and 3D graphics device driver specification and manager of initiative for 3rd-party driver development. Provided training and consultation to Customer Support, Distribution, and Quality Assurance Departments. Coordination of relationships with graphics hardware and software vendors and ANSYS distributors.

Programmer/Analyst, Strategic Development, Burlington, Massachusetts
January 1981 to August 1981
Development of an interactive report generator for a financial management system, based on the query-by-example paradigm.

Technical Skills

Professional Affiliations

Publications

Journal Articles

  1. ``Efficient and Reliable Methods for Rounded Interval Arithmetic'' by S. L. Abrams, W. Cho, C.-Y. Hu, T. Maekawa, N. M. Patrikalakis, E. C. Sherbrooke, and X. Ye. Computer Aided Design, 30(8): 657-665, 1998.

  2. ``The Geometric Modeling and Interrogation System Praxiteles'' by S. L. Abrams, L. Bardis, C. Chryssostomidis, N. M. Patrikalakis, S. T. Tuohy, F.-E. Wolter, and J. Zhou. Journal of Ship Production, 11(2):116-131, May 1995.

  3. ``Inspection and Feature Extraction of Marine Propellers'' by R. A. Jinkerson, S. L. Abrams, L. Bardis, C. Chryssostomidis, A. Clément, N. M. Patrikalakis, and F.-E. Wolter. Journal of Ship Production, 9(2):88-106, May 1993.

Conference Papers

  1. ``Towards Robust Solid Modeling: 1995 Progress Report'' by N. M. Patrikalakis, S. L. Abrams, W. Cho, C.-Y. Hu, T. Maekawa, E. C. Sherbrooke, X. Ye, and J. Zhou. Proceedings of the 1996 NSF Design and Manufacturing Grantees Conference. University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, January 1996. Dearborn: Society of Manufacturing Engineers, 1996, pp. 155-156.

  2. ``Visualization and Information Modeling of Propeller Surface Roughness'' by M. A. Mosaad, X. Ye, S. L. Abrams, and N. M. Patrikalakis. Proceedings of IMAM '95, The VII Congress of the International Maritime Association of the Mediterranean, V. Androcec and J. Lovric (eds.), Dubrovnik, Croatia, April 23-27, 1995. Zagreb, Croatia: Brodarski Institute, Marine Research and Special Technologies, pp. 673-684.

  3. Marine Propulsor UoF of AP 226--Scope and Usage Scenarios by X. Ye, M. A. Mosaad, S. L. Abrams, F. Fernandez-Gonzalez, and N. M. Patrikalakis. ISO SC4/TC 184/WG3 N335, ISO/IPO Meeting, Greenville, South Carolina, October 16-21, 1994.

Selected Technical Reports

  1. Ontology and Metadata for the Poseidon Distributed Coastal Zone Management System by P. C. H.. Wariyapola, N. M. Patrikalakis, S. L. Abrams, P. Elisseeff, and A. R. Robinson, H. Schmidt, K. Streitlien, Cambridge: MIT, Department of Ocean Engineering, Design Laboratory Memorandum 98-8, December 1998 (in preparation).

  2. N. M. Patrikalakis, P. J. Fortier, Y. Ioannidis, C. N. Nikolaou, A. R. Robinson, J. R. Rossignac, A. Vinacua, and S. L. Abrams, Distributed Information and Computation in Scientific and Engineering Environments Cambridge, MA: MIT, Department of Ocean Engineering, Design Laboratory Memorandum 98-7, December 1998 (submitted for publication).

  3. Formulation of a Model for Ship Transit Risk: Final Project Report by H. L. Kite-Powell, N. M. Patrikalakis, D. Jin, S. L. Abrams, J. Jebsen, V. Papakonstantinou, and S. Lin. Cambridge: MIT, Sea Grant Report No. 98-7, 1998.

  4. Approximation of Curves and Surfaces with Non-Open Knot Vectors by S. L. Abrams and N. M. Patrikalakis, Cambridge: MIT, Department of Ocean Engineering, Design Laboratory Memorandum 97-13, July 1997 (in preparation).

  5. Praxiteles User's Manual, Version 10.0 by S. L. Abrams and N. M. Patrikalakis. Cambridge: MIT, Department of Ocean Engineering, Design Laboratory Memorandum 97-15, October 1997. Previous editions, 1991-1997.

  6. Computer-Aided Inspection of Sculptured Objects by M. O. Jastram, S. L. Abrams, T. Maekawa, N. M. Patrikalakis, and A. Clement. Cambridge: MIT, Department of Ocean Engineering, Design Laboratory Memorandum 97-6, May 1997.

  7. Design Laboratory Geometric Modeling Libraries Reference Manual -- Volume 6: insp, Inspection Library by S. L. Abrams, M. O. Jastram, T. Maekawa, and N. M. Patrikalakis. Cambridge: MIT, Department of Ocean Engineering, Design Laboratory Memorandum 96-12, September 1996.

  8. Design Laboratory Geometric Modeling Libraries Reference Manual -- Volume 9: simp and lex, Simultaneous Polynomial Intersection Library and Lexical Library by E. C. Sherbrooke, T. Maekawa, C.-Y. Hu, W. Cho, J. Zhou, S. L. Abrams, and N. M. Patrikalakis. Cambridge: MIT, Department of Ocean Engineering, Design Laboratory Memorandum 95-24, September 1995.

  9. Marching Simplices: Interrogation of Implicit Surfaces in Irregular Domains by J. Zhou, S. L. Abrams, C.-Y. Hu, S. T. Tuohy, and N. M. Patrikalakis. Cambridge: MIT, Department of Ocean Engineering, Design Laboratory Memorandum 95-7, June 1995.

  10. Towards the Development of a STEP Application Protocol for Marine Propulsors by X. Ye, M. A. Mosaad, S. L. Abrams, F. Fernandez-Gonzalez, and N. M. Patrikalakis. Cambridge: MIT, Department of Ocean Engineering, Design Laboratory Memorandum 94-9, revised edition, March 1995.

  11. Design Laboratory Geometric Modeling Libraries Reference Manual -- Volume 6: iges, IGES Input/Output Library by S. L. Abrams. Cambridge: MIT, Department of Ocean Engineering, Design Laboratory Memorandum 94-10.6, January 1995.

  12. Design Laboratory Geometric Modeling Libraries Reference Manual -- Introduction and Index by S. L. Abrams, S. T. Tuohy, and N. M. Patrikalakis. Cambridge: MIT, Department of Ocean Engineering, Design Laboratory Memorandum 94-10, November 1994.

  13. Design Laboratory Geometric Modeling Libraries Reference Manual -- Volume 4: gen, General Purpose Utility Library by S. L. Abrams. Cambridge: MIT, Department of Ocean Engineering, Design Laboratory Memorandum 94-10.4, November 1994.

  14. Design Laboratory Geometric Modeling Libraries Reference Manual -- Volume 5: glps, PostScript Compatibility Library by S. L. Abrams. Cambridge: MIT, Department of Ocean Engineering, Design Laboratory Memorandum 94-10.5, November 1994.

  15. The Big Picture User's Manual by S. L. Abrams and T. G. Chiginsky. Needham: Intex Solutions, September 1993.

  16. Numerical Experiments in Surface Approximation with Degree Reduction by N. M. Patrikalakis, S. L. Abrams, L. Bardis, S. T. Tuohy, and F.-E. Wolter. Cambridge: MIT, Department of Ocean Engineering, Design Laboratory Memorandum 93-5, November 1993.

  17. The MIT Ocean Engineering Geometric Modeling Libraries by S. L. Abrams and N. M. Patrikalakis. Cambridge: MIT, Department of Ocean Engineering, Design Laboratory Memorandum 92-10, September 1992.

  18. Cell-Tuple Geometric Manifold Engineering System by C.-Y. Hu, S. L. Abrams, L. Bardis, and N. M. Patrikalakis. Cambridge: MIT, Department of Ocean Engineering, Design Laboratory Memorandum 92-7, February 1992.

  19. Geometric Modeling Research Overview at the MIT Ocean Engineering Design Lab by S. L. Abrams, F.-E. Wolter, and N. M. Patrikalakis. Cambridge: MIT, Department of Ocean Engineering, Design Laboratory Memorandum 91-23, October 1991. Video tape, VHS, 45 minutes.

  20. Unconstrained Localization Program User's Manual, Version 1 by R. A. Jinkerson, S. L. Abrams, F.-E. Wolter, and N. M. Patrikalakis. Cambridge: MIT, Department of Ocean Engineering, Design Laboratory Memorandum, 91-8a, April 1991.

  21. ANSYS 4.4A Device Driver Specification by S. L. Abrams. Houston, Pennsylvania: Swanson Analysis Systems, Inc., 1990. Previous editions, 1988 and 1989.

  22. ANSYS 4.4A Graphics Supplement by S. L. Abrams. Houston, Pennsylvania: Swanson Analysis Systems, Inc., 1990. Previous editions, 1986-1989.

Stephen L. Abrams
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of Ocean Engineering
77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room 5-426A
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
(617) 253-7959 · Fax: (617) 253-8125
sabrams@mit.edu

URL: http://deslab.mit.edu/DesignLab/people/Abrams.html
Last modified: September 30, 1998