Welcome
I am passionate about helping companies of any size create valuable, sustainable and defendable intellectual property.
I specialise in software research and development, particularly in real-time systems, artificial intelligence, behavior simulation and automatic content generation.
Have a look at some of my recent projects, and read about what I can do for you.
Recent Projects
Mini Bio
My PhD research was in computer science and complexity science, although I also published in web-technologies (and even paleontology!) I have founded, run and sold a high-tech business based on my research and written two technical text-books published by Elsevier.
News, Hints and Events
Roy-Floyd-Warshall
January 6, 2010
In real-time pathfinding A* is the only game in town, and is provably optimal under certain conditions. Any sensible implementation uses some variant (usually ending in a * to show their family resemblance).
There are alternatives, however, and some are more efficient at runtime. As in all these algorithms there are trade-offs. I've just released a short paper describing the Roy-Floyd-Warshall (WFI) algorithm well known in other circles, but not in real-time applications. Its worth looking at if the tradeoff stacks in favour of your application.
The paper is available here.
Splines and Matrices »
November 17, 2009
I've released a more complete version of my crib-sheet of the mathematics associated with polynomial curves (often called splines). This version has a whole load of explanation around the core matrices and many more diagrams than before.
It is available as a PDF file, you can grab it here.
And a Third
February 20, 2009
AI for Games is hitting its third print run. I've been working with a co-author to produce a second edition of the book, with resources for educational use, because the book has done well on Game development courses.
But in the mean-time hitting a third printing can't be bad. My physics book is still on its first run...
Celtic Knots »
November 18, 2008
In developing a system to automatically generate "hand-drawn" maps from GIS data, I decided the final map might look good with some Celtic Knotwork surrounding it.
I live in Wales, and Celtic Knots are mostly associated with Ireland, but there are a few around this neck of the woods too.
Unfortunately, the knot work doesn't look great in context, so it won't make the cut, but it is quite an interesting problem.
Random Number Generators »
September 10, 2008
A little hobby project completed this week: creating a set of playing cards that packed in as many random-number-generating devices for board games as is humanly possible.
I think we're on twenty seven different elements, everything from Zener Cards, through Dreidels to British Navy Gambling Games. And a full set of polyhedral gaming dice too.
The final result is quite pleasant, I think, but the only bit of real AI in there is the packing algorithm.
