sabbatical project

[Thomas L. Scofield]

Hello.

I haven't contributed that much to Octave as of yet.  My main contribution was to alter imread from its state in octave-forge so that it would use the GraphicsMagick library, and to significantly re-write imwrite so that it would use that same library, and so it would become much more Matlab-like.

While these things were fun, and helped me understand the Octave culture and structure to some extent, I'm really more interested in implementing mathematical algorithms and/or developing packages to do state-of-the-art calculations for mathematical problems.  As a college professor with enough years of service, I am eligible for a sabbatical, approximately half of a school year (plus summers on either end of the year) to work on some project I propose and deemed worthy by my school.  I am seeking both advice and help.

When it comes to advice, I would appreciate help with choosing a package to work on.  I have done some work in imaging and am interested in doing more, and in that vein I have thought it would be interesting to work on packages of the following types: general image processing (contributions to the image package), a package for compressive sampling, a package for level set methods, and a wavelet package; I believe the latter three would be new starts in Octave.  Having identified these possible packages, I'm afraid the standard "work on what you are interested in" will not help me here.  What would help is knowing whether packages like these are getting some attention already, whether there would be much demand, and insight into the dependency structure (i.e., I do not yet know enough about level set methods to know if it would helpful to have a wavelet package already in place).

As for help, at my school a sabbatical proposal must be accompanied by "a letter of endorsement from a scholar outside the college (i.e., a non-Calvin scholar or colleague who knows the relevant field of scholarship, is familiar with the applicant's previous work, and is in a position to assess both the importance of the proposed project and the likelihood of its being brought to successful completion)."  I know a post at octave-forge would probably be better, since any work on a package I do is likely to end up there, but I think only people in the octave-maintainers list are going to be at all familiar with the scant work I've done.  Do any of you feel qualified to write such a letter?

I'm afraid I'm putting this together rather late.  I have to have all materials for the proposal submitted to college officials by Friday Sept. 20 (1 week from today).

Thomas L. Scofield

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Associate Professor

Department of Mathematics and Statistics

Calvin College

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