Vantari VR
www.vantarivr.com
Founder, Chief Technical Officer - July 2017 to Present
Vantari VR is a Medical Technology startup applying Virtual Reality to medical imaging. My previous expertise in
Virtual Reality, computer graphics and software development management have been leveraged to ensure a smooth
start to the technical side of this business. I have been instrumental in producing technical demonstrators
and establishing the technical vision for the business.
Performance does Matter
www.performancedoesmatter.com.au
Founder, Director and Software Developer - July 2016 to Present
I started Performance does Matter to focus on performance and scalability. The idea underpinning the business is not necessarily to build high performance, highly scalable systems from the outset;
rather, I'm interested in promoting unobtrusive software design and development methodologies that facilitate optimisation and scaling if/when it is required. I have observed that
early design decisions are often at odds with long term performance and scalability requirements, resulting in systems that practically require a rewrite to
support business growth.
Current and past projects include (clients held in confidence):
- Seismic data processing - taking key algorithms from research (slow) to production (fast and scalable across a large compute cluster)
along with support and maintenance of existing algorithms.
- Online advertising broker - implement rule based advertisement selection where performance is paramount.
Future work will include predictive modelling to further reduce latency.
- Mining resource model data access - provide fast and scalable access to mining resource models (block models). A clever data indexing strategy
was developed to provide fast spatial range queries.
- Document image processing - for a FinTech customer, computer vision techniques were developed to automate parts of their KYC process. This included
computer vision components that ran client side (in a web browser) and server side.
- Architecture review - for a client in security/surveillance camera monitoring, I was engaged to provide a review on their existing architecture and assist with planning
for future development that will focus on software reliability, robustness, performance and scalability.
- Distributed system development - for a major mining company, undertake development of a system as part of mine automation that is required to be
robust against various failures and tolerant of network partitioning. The system extends from embedded systems mounted to vehicles on site through to
back-end server components to consolidate data and make it available to other internal systems.
- Medical Imaging Virtual Reality demonstrator - for Vantari VR noted above, I undertook development of proof-of-concept and demonstrator systems
to showcase medical imaging in VR. The technical challenges include supporting direct volume visualisation of detailed volumetric datasets at the
framerates required by VR.
Think Bottom Up
www.thinkbottomup.com.au
Founder, Director and Software Developer - March 2008 - July 2016
I founded Think Bottom Up with two other partners. The business was so named to draw attention to a point on software development methodology. We had
seen far too many systems designed in a top-heavy manner that were very difficult to change, whereas we believed that a bottom-up implementation strategy
led to systems that were far more malleable, reusable and robust. Our mantra was "scope top-down, implement bottom-up" and we successfully ran most
of our projects under our preferred methodology. I believe that we achieve excellent code reuse, high quality and very good value for our clients.
My role at Think Bottom Up covered all aspects of the business, including business development, customer relationship management, project management
and software development.
Key projects that I worked on at Think Bottom Up include (clients held in confidence):
- Seismic data processing with one of Perth's leading seismic data processing companies.
- Developed and optimised several key algorithms that occupy a significant amount of time on their production cluster.
- Achieved performance increases through fastidious low-level optimisation and scaling through careful job partitioning to achieve a good balance of IO and compute across the cluster.
- Utilised the Intel Phi to increase compute capability.
- Provided technical support to end users when required.
- Resource model query and visualisation with a major mining company.
- Utilised high performance database technology for storage of resource model data.
- Supported fast ad-hoc query through dynamically compiled OpenCL code.
- Utilised GPUs to accelerate queries.
- Developed desktop and web client applications for real-time query and 3D visualisation.
- My duties included system design, implementation and leading a team of developers.
- Job and workflow management for the Square Kilometre Array (ICRAR/UWA).
- Undertook a trial of Think Bottom Up's high performance database technology to determine
suitability for the Science Data Management part of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project.
- I was involved in the design of the trial system
and also in reviews of trial results. The SKA project poses one of the largest data management problems in the world.
- Voter registration system for developing countries.
- Embedded system development.
- Integrated several biometric capture and other peripheral devices.
- Designed the system to minimise the chance of data loss or corruption when in the field without connectivity.
- Integrated the system with Automatic Fingerprint Identification Systems (AFIS) to find duplicate enrolments by matching collected biometrics.
Runge (now Runge Pincock Minarco)
Software Architect - 2007 to 2008
Runge acquired Fractal Technologies in 2007 and I stayed on as the Software Architect for the Mining Dynamics group. Mining Dynamics
was an Enterprise solution for exploration and mining data. In this role I:
- Oversaw the integration of the Runge and Fractal Technologies development teams.
- Designed and implemented proof-of-concept systems and applications.
- Focused on high level design of the system to meet both technical and business requirements.
- Liaised with clients, end users and internal stakeholders.
Fractal Technologies / Fractal Graphics
Technical Director - 2006 to 2007
Development Lead - 2002 to 2006
Software Engineer/Senior Software Engineer - 1998 to 2002
I started with Fractal straight out of University and, over some 9 years, worked my way up from Software Developer into
senior management. I was responsible for the entire technical side of the business at the time that Fractal was acquired
by Runge.
Some of my accomplishments from my time with Fractal are noted below.
- Managed product development, including long-term vision and requirements analysis, liaised with Quality
Assurance, Support, Documentation, Sales/Marketing and Executive Management personnel, and managed
project schedules and defect tracking.
- Instituted software development methodologies and practices that fostered a culture of high productivity
without sacrifice on quality.
- Managed customisation, delivery and deployment of solutions for various Exportation and Mining clients
- Developed FracSIS Spatial Information System, a product that allowed integration and visualisation of disparate datasets
from mining, GIS, geophysical and other spatial applications. FracSIS was sold to over 500 mining and
exploration clients.
- Developed Spatial Data Server (SDS), an enterprise 3D spatial data management system with a web-based
front-end. Stability, scalability and customisability were key aspects of the development.
- Designed and developed frameworks for 3D visualisation, spatial query, coordinate system transformations
and file format translation, and developed numerous translators (including reverse-engineering various
file formats) and visualisation types.
- Developed a desktop-based immersive Virtual Environment for FracSIS that used haptic
(force feedback) interaction and stereo projection techniques for geological modelling. Gained experience
in virtual reality, force feedback devices, six degree-of-freedom input devices, 3D graphics, co-location
of visual and haptic models, and stereo projection.
- Developed a geophysical data processing package that produced a geophysical inversion from
measurements at the surface (a window into what structures under the earth may have generated the magnetic
or gravitational signal). The implementation was challenging due to the large datasets and performance requirements.
