Category Archives: Education & Research

Computerwelten

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Mit Hilfe von 3D-Computeranimationen kombiniert mit Videoaufnahmen wird das Enterprise Lab der Hochschule Luzern – Technik & Architektur vorgestellt. Es entspricht in Grösse und Funktion einem modernen Rechenzentrum, wie es typisch in der Wirtschaft zum Einsatz kommt. Der Kurzfilm erklärt die Hardware Virtualisierung, eine der wichtigsten Funktionen des Enterprise Lab. Damit lassen sich die Ausbildung sowie angewandte Forschung und Entwicklung flexibel, effizient und parallel durchführen.

Ein MAS Digital Media Projekt

Open Street Map

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OpenStreetMap is a free editable map of the whole world. It is made by people like you. This main goal of this project is to provide an webbased interface to render (redraw) map data on demand. OpenStreetMap uses two different Render toolchains, osmarenderer and Mapnik. Osmarenderer uses XML-Transformation and generates SVG-Files, which will be converted to PNG-Tiles. This project deal with the Mapnik renderer. Mapnik is a fast, opensource C++ Maprenderer. Mapnik cannot read the OSM-XML-Files directly, as data source is PostgreSQL with PostGIS extensions used. The tool osm2pgsql converts the OSM-XML-Files and stores the data in the PostgreSQL Server. A problem using Mapnik is the transfer from the OpenStreetMap database to the PostGIS Server. The OpenStreetMap database is only exported on a weekly basis. The import takes several houres. And then rerendering the whole world can take some days too. So when a user make a change on the map, it can take several days until he can see the result. This project tries to use the OSM-API to get bleeding edge data for a requested, relatively small part of the world and imports this into the PostGIS database. The user can use the slippy map and select a tile which should be rerendered. A similar application exists for osmarenderer, but not yet for Mapnik.
The following picture of our Campus shows a Mapnik rendered map.

World Wide Education and Research Conference San Francisco 2008

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This years’ education and research conference was held again in my favorite city San Francisco. The lead story was “The Power of the Community”  Sun Microsystem World Wide Education and Research Conference 2008, San Francisco Prof. Hansjoerg Diethelm and me attended the WWERC 2008. And with great satisfaction I must say: I was a god event, with “on the edge discussions”, and some ideas about the way the community will lead us. Yes, the power lies by the consumer, the Creative amongst us showing new business models and the Web 3 as an instrument for use.

Hey, we met KATHRYN D. SULLIVAN (PH.D.), NASA Astronaut, did you ever met a an Astronaut in person? I was impressed by this woman who has conquered space. She spent 532 hours in space.

We listen to and we talked to great people. The People of Sun enabled connections which always ended with a very interesting and helpful chat.

World Wide Education and Research Conference San Francisco 2007

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Prof. Hansjoerg Diethelm, Head of Computer Science and Bruno Joho, Head of Enterprise Lab followed an invitation from Sun Microsystems to held a speach at the WWERC February 2007 in San Francisco. More than 400 attendees, most from University education and research around the globe, listen to Prof. Diethelm’s talk about the Bologna Reform which should bring the European higher education system closer together and flaten the hurdles between the countries. Mr. Joho gave a short introduction over the functionality of the new lab and its aim for the educational purpose.
In the following panel discussion lead by Rich Green, Executive Vice President, Software Sun Microsystems, Inc. the discussion focussed on Universities’ needs and the role Sun is playing.

Read Prof. Diethelms speech or have a look into his slides and my slides.