James Connan's Project Ideas Page
Your Brilliant Idea
Supervisor: J. Connan ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Prerequisites: Motivation, enthusiasm, strong programming skills.
Project Description: If you have something that you would really like to do, feel free to speak to me and we can see if we can develop it into an honours project for you.
Components: Programming: x% Research: y%
Available: Yes
Panoramic Video
Supervisor: J. Connan ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Prerequisites: Motivation, enthusiasm, strong programming skills.
Project Description: The aim of this project is to develop a system for recording and replaying panoramic video sequences. Video will be recorded from a series of cameras and spliced together to form a panoramic video sequence. This video should then be played back in an interactive fashion.
Components: Programming: 75% Research: 25%
Available: Yes
Eye Tracker
Supervisor: J. Connan ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Prerequisites: Motivation, enthusiasm, strong programming skills.
Project Description: This project looks to develop an eye tracker using inexpensive hardware. The eye tracker could be used to replace a mouse, but it can also be used to track a user's gaze for evaluating for example user interfaces.
Components: Programming: 75% Research: 25%
Available: Yes
Wiimote
Supervisor: J. Connan ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Prerequisites: Motivation, enthusiasm, strong programming skills.
Project Description: This project looks at using a Wiimote to perform novel human computer interaction. This project will look to exploit the many features of the Wiimote to do task such as:
Multiple object tracking.
Create a 3D interactive game/demo.
Components: Programming: 75% Research: 25%
Available: Yes
Multi-Touch Applications
Supervisor: J. Connan ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Prerequisites: Motivation, enthusiasm, strong programming skills.
Project Description: This project involves developing applications, such as a picture management/editing suit to illustrate the abilities of the multi-touch system developed at UWC (can be multiple people).
Components: Programming: 75% Research: 25%
Available: Yes
Auto-Align projector utility
Supervisor: J. Connan ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Prerequisites: Motivation, enthusiasm, strong programming skills.
Project Description: The placement of portable projectors can sometimes make it hard to achieve a squarely projected image. The project would involve using a webcam to provide feedback to a computer so that the necessary adjustments can be made either to the keystone settings on the projector, or the video output of the computer in order to produce a square display.
Components: Programming: 75% Research: 25%
Available: Yes
Robocup
Supervisor: J. Connan ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Prerequisites: Motivation, enthusiasm, strong programming skills.
Project Description: Train a team of software robots to play soccer. The student doing this project will use AI to train a team a soccer team. For more informations see www.robocup.org.
Components: Programming: 75% Research: 25%
Available: Yes
Shark Detection System
Supervisor: J. Connan ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Prerequisites: Motivation, enthusiasm, strong programming skills.
Project Description: After recent shark attacks in the Western Cape, a system of shark spotters have been put in place to try and prevent further attacks. The objective of this project is to design and implement a protoype automated system that observes the ocean and detects the presence of sharks near bathing areas in order to warn bathers.
Components: Programming: 75% Research: 25%
Available: Yes
Security Tracker
Supervisor: J. Connan ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Prerequisites: Motivation, enthusiasm, strong programming skills.
Project Description: This project aim to provide a prototype system that will allow for the tracking of an individual across multiple security cameras. It is not required to recognize a particular individual, but once an individual has been identified, it must be able to track him/her across multiple cameras.
Components: Programming: 75% Research: 25%
Available: Yes
Audio Trackpad
Supervisor: J. Connan ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Prerequisites: Motivation, enthusiasm, strong programming skills.
Project Description: Using multiple microphones it is posible to track an object. The aim of this project is to design and implement a prototype system that can track an object on a flat plane, such as a piece of chalk on a board.
Components: Programming: 75% Research: 25%
Available: Yes
Hand Writing Recognition System
Supervisor: J. Connan ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Prerequisites: Motivation, enthusiasm, strong programming skills.
Project Description: Optical character recognition has been around for long time. This project requires a student to design and implement their own prototype handwriting recognition system.
Components: Programming: 75% Research: 25%
Available: Yes
Scan to Latex/OpenOffice
Supervisor: J. Connan ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Prerequisites: Motivation, enthusiasm, strong programming skills.
Project Description: Optical character recognition has been around for long time. This project requires a student to design and implement a prototype system that will allow documents to be scanned into either Latex or OpenOffice format. The system would be required to recognise features such as lists or multiple columns and generate the appropriate code to recreate the document. The project must allow for future studnets to build onto it.
Components: Programming: 75% Research: 25%
Available: Yes
Multiple Object Tracker
Supervisor: J. Connan ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Prerequisites: Motivation, enthusiasm, strong programming skills.
Project Description: The aim of this project is to design and implement a prototype system that can identify multiple objects within an image and track them across multiple frames of a video clip. This could for example be applied to tracking multiple people of cars within a video clip.
Components: Programming: 75% Research: 25%
Available: Yes
3D with two cameras
Supervisor: J. Connan ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Prerequisites: Motivation, enthusiasm, strong programming skills.
Project Description: Using two images of the same scene in which a parallax shift has occurred, this project must allow the user to obtain some rudimentary information about the scene, such as the position of objects relative to each other or the dimensions of an object.
Components: Programming: 70% Research: 30%
Available: Yes
3D with one camera
Supervisor: J. Connan ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Prerequisites: Motivation, enthusiasm, strong programming skills.
Project Description: This project uses two images of the same stationary scene to infer 3D information. However, instead of having two cameras, the idea is to use two alternating light sources placed either side of the camera.
Components: Programming: 70% Research: 30%
Available: Yes
Bookmark Manager and Classifier
Supervisor: J. Connan ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Prerequisites: Motivation, enthusiasm, strong programming skills.
Project Description: The aim of this project is to design a system that will use all bookmarks from all browsers found on a system to compile a single list of bookmarks. Furthermore, the system should allow for the automatic classification of new bookmarks. A consolidated list of bookmarks should then be presented to the user, irrespective of the browser used.
Components: Programming: 70% Research: 30%
Available: Yes
Face recognition system
Supervisor: J. Connan ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Prerequisites: Motivation, enthusiasm, strong programming skills.
Project Description: Face recognition is a fairly well research field. The aim of this project is to implement a face recognition system that can accurately determine the identity of a person and decide whether or not to grant them access to a facility.
Components: Programming: 80% Research: 20%
Available: Yes
Autonomous vehicle
Supervisor: J. Connan ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Prerequisites: Motivation, enthusiasm, strong programming skills.
Project Description: Two projects. a) Provide image processing for autonomous vehicle. b) Provide navigation system for autonomous vehicle. Details to follow.
Components: Programming: 70% Research: 30%
Available: Yes
Image Database
Supervisor: J. Connan ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Prerequisites: Motivation, enthusiasm, strong programming skills.
Project Description: More and more people are moving away from film and using digital cameras. As with traditional photo albums, it is not always a trivial task to find a desired image. The aim is to design and implement a digital image database that allows the user to easily retrieve desired images.
Components: Programming: 70% Research: 30%
Available: Yes
Chest-sound Visualization and Classification
Supervisor: J. Connan ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Prerequisites: Motivation, enthusiasm, strong programming skills. This project is best suited for a student who will attend at least some of the neural networks courses.
Project Description: The stethoscope is a very common tool used by medical practitioners to diagnose illness and monitor treatment. The temporal nature of sound makes the classification of chest-sounds very subjective. The aim of this project is multifold. The student will develop a system that will allow the user to visualize recorded and/or dynamic chest-sounds. Furthermore, the system will classify the sounds. This will allow students to train using the system's classifications as a benchmark. The system could also be used for diagnosis.
Components: Programming: 70% Research: 30%
Available: Yes
Image Merging and Manipulation
Supervisor: J. Connan ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Prerequisites: Motivation, enthusiasm, strong programming skills.
Project Description: Digital cameras are growing in popularity. One feature of analog cameras that digital cameras are still struggling to emulate is the so-called panoramic shot. This is a shot that does not have the the same aspect ratio as a standard photo. While the height of the photo remains constant, the width of the photo is about 50% more. Digital cameras try and emulate this feature by allowing the user to take adjacent photos with some overlap and then merging them. In this way the user can build up a panoramic scene. This project aims to automate this process. The user will present the system with two images. The system must then match the photos (scale, resize, adjust colour), find matching points and perform the merge. This process should be scaleable to larger numbers of pictures. This project can build on the work already done by Nadeen Southgate.
Components: Programming: 70% Research: 30%
Available: Yes
Number Plate Detection System
Supervisor: J. Connan ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Prerequisites: Motivation, enthusiasm, strong programming skills.
Project Description: The aim of this project is to design and implement a system that will detect and exteract number plates from video material and perform the necessary preprocessing to enable it to be fed to a numberplate recognition system.
Components: Programming: 75% Research: 25%
Available: Yes
Numberplate Recognition
Supervisor: J. Connan ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Prerequisites: Motivation, enthusiasm, strong programming skills. This project is best suited for a student who will attend at least some of the neural networks courses.
Project Description: Cameras are increasing in popularity for traffic law enforcement. The student will design a system that will find the number plate and identify the number. Furthermore the system must identify the colour and manufacturer of the car.
Components: Programming: 70% Research: 30%
Available: Yes
Road Traffic Optimization
Supervisor: J. Connan ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Prerequisites: Motivation, enthusiasm, strong programming skills. This project is best suited for a student who will attend at least some of the neural networks and networking courses.
Project Description: Building and maintaining roads is very expensive. One way to deal with increasing traffic volumes is to optimize the use of current roads. The aim of this project is to see if methods used to optimize data networks can be applied to road networks. In order to do this the student will need to build a road traffic simulator. The traffic lights in the simulator will then be used to manage the road traffic.
Components: Programming: 70% Research: 30%
Available: Yes
Distributed Point of Sale System
Supervisor: J. Connan ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Prerequisites: Motivation, enthusiasm, strong programming skills. This project is best suited for a student with a B.Comm background.
Project Description: The student is required to build a system that will serve as a point of sale system as well as a stock management system. The system will consists of a central database server and both administrative and front-end clients. Users on the front end clients must be able to perform fast and efficient transactions. Administrative users must be able take advantage of the stock management system as well as using reports generated by the system to make business decisions. Strong emphasis must be placed on building a system that is robust, stable and secure.
Components: Programming: 80% Research: 20%
Available: Yes
Personal Finance Manager
Supervisor: J. Connan ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Prerequisites: Motivation, enthusiasm, strong programming skills. This project is best suited for a student with a B.Comm background.
Project Description: The student is required to build a system that can be used to manage the finances of an individual, household or small business. The system must be able to report on the financial status of the entity as well as helping the entity to deal with matters such as personal income tax. Strong emphasis must be placed on building a system that is robust, stable and secure.
Components: Programming: 70% Research: 30%
Available: Yes