More on the thesis
The weekend before my thesis defence, Ellie and I went to Montreal and then to the country. We popped in on aeon_of_maat to wish him a belated happy birthday, and I took a side-trip to meet with a programming patron - possibly my last freelance gig for a while, but needed money and an interesting job. We then went out to the country and hit a friend's barbecue on a quaint little farm in the depths of the country.
Sunday we spent at my parents' place, I tweaked and pondered my presentation, Ellie worked on sewing, and we took some time to walk around the property.
I slept terribly before the thesis: partly because we were catching the bus to Montreal very early in the morning, partly nerves, I guess. Four of us - my parents, Ellie and me, caught the bus up and got coffee near the university. Ellie and I went ahead to pick up a projector and do some last minute prep while my folks checked out the art store at Concordia.
My thesis defense was about an hour, split between presenting and questions. My folks and Ellie, as well as one of my colleagues, were there in addition to the panel, and things went smoothly, if a tad long, in the presentation. The questions were substantial but not brutal, and prefaced with approval of the thesis and of my work with the research group. We didn't have to wait too long to find out that, with a few simple fixes, my thesis could proceed, approved, to binding and placement in the library.
My parents had to leave soon after to catch the bus back, so Ellie and I wandered off together to pick up her re-sized engagement ring (we'd tried to retrieve it from the Bay on Saturday, but with the giant crack scare we couldn't), and have some lunch at Santropol, where we were happily accosted by my cousins and given a "family eats free" lunch.
I'm still probably going to attend convocation, but I think the defence (along with actually writing the thesis) are the defining moments of doing a master's degree.
I figure that such a document has such a small circulation that to give the acknowledgements any weight, they may as well be published one Web search from all the people mentioned. So, without any further ado:
A Symmetry-group Semantics for Shape Grammars
Eric Hortop
Acknowledgements
This thesis would not have happened if it weren't for help, support and inspiration from many people.
I'd like to thank Dr. Fred Szabo, my supervisor, who kept me on track, helped focus my work and keep my plans realistic, and has lent support in myriad ways throughout my time at Concordia. He encouraged me to become a co-op student in 2001, vouched for me on many occasions, involved me as a teaching assistant in his courses, and listened to various worries, problems and hare-brained schemes of mine. His help, encouragement and gentle but firm insistence on regular milestones are probably the major factors in this document being ready in 2007 rather than early 2008.
Dr. Cheryl Dudek and Dr. Lydia Sharman started what was to become the Generative Design project back in 2002, and took a chance on hiring a young, undergraduate me to take some tentative steps into computerized grammars. The project provides a context for the work in this thesis, and has been a space for me to learn, teach and develop a lot, in addition to being work that has allowed me to pursue my studies. Thanks especially to Cheryl for co-ordinating the undertaking and for many good hours of working together on technological things, writing and the arts and infrastructure aspects of the project. Thanks also Dr. Sudhir Mudur and Dr. Thomas Fevens for bringing their expertise to the project and thus exposing me to a variety of perspectives on the challenges of working with shape grammars and images. I'd like to extend thanks to Drs. Szabo, Dudek and Mudur, as well as to committee chair Dr. Hal Proppe, for taking the time to evaluate this thesis and sit on my committee, and to Ann-Marie Agnew, the Mathematics and Statistics department's graduate secretary, for kindness, encouragement and guidance with the various administrative processes of graduate life.
Ramgopal Rajagopalan, with GUI help from Yojana Joshi and further significant refinements from Nasim Sedag, wrote the grammar interpreter and design system that allowed me to explore grammar creation and modification much faster than manual methods would permit. Dania El-Khechen helped think through some important issues while we worked on the paper that sparked this thesis. Ramgopal and Dania were also excellent comrades in arms when arguing out what symmetry group to assign to real-world artefacts, contributing greatly to my understanding of and confidence with them. Dr. Ivo Rosenberg at Université de Montréal introduced me to the lattice and order theory with which much of the heavy lifting in this thesis is done.
The open source community, in particular the contributors to Inskcape, GraphViz and LATEX (including the Mac front end TeXShop), have created powerful tools whose features have made writing, illustrating and organizing this thesis considerably easier and often more fun.
Of course, one of the most original parts of any single-author document is the collection of mistakes, omissions, hand-waving and other problems. These are my problem alone.
I would like to thank Ian Rennie, my principal for stretches of both elementary and high school, for sharing his enthusiasm for computing, geometry and mathematics with me and a gaggle of computer clubbers after hours at Ormstown Elementary School; Mary-Ellen O'Neil and Gregg Edwards for coaching the Intellectual Olympics team at Chateauguay Valley Regional and Rick Laverty and Hugh Maynard for guiding and trusting a bunch of geeky youth to undertake web design projects for SchoolNet, and giving us the opportunities to learn and solve problems for ourselves. All of these educators went out of their way to expose me, and many others, to exciting ideas and projects.
I would also like to thank Kevin Murphy, formerly of Statistics Canada, for patiently guiding me through writing my first thesis-sized document in 2002. When writing this thesis seemed impossible, the co-op term spent researching, hacking and documenting under his supervision was a happy counterexample.
My parents, John Hortop and Lynne Stockwell, have supported and encouraged me through my entire (somewhat circuitous) educational journey, encouraging me to become well-rounded and giving me a good start in life. My fiancée Elizabeth Bruce has been there, not only for the final copy edit, but also for almost all my graduate career, listening, encouraging, taking up the slack when I've been engrossed in abstract things and bringing happiness into my life just by being herself.
Sunday we spent at my parents' place, I tweaked and pondered my presentation, Ellie worked on sewing, and we took some time to walk around the property.
I slept terribly before the thesis: partly because we were catching the bus to Montreal very early in the morning, partly nerves, I guess. Four of us - my parents, Ellie and me, caught the bus up and got coffee near the university. Ellie and I went ahead to pick up a projector and do some last minute prep while my folks checked out the art store at Concordia.
My thesis defense was about an hour, split between presenting and questions. My folks and Ellie, as well as one of my colleagues, were there in addition to the panel, and things went smoothly, if a tad long, in the presentation. The questions were substantial but not brutal, and prefaced with approval of the thesis and of my work with the research group. We didn't have to wait too long to find out that, with a few simple fixes, my thesis could proceed, approved, to binding and placement in the library.
My parents had to leave soon after to catch the bus back, so Ellie and I wandered off together to pick up her re-sized engagement ring (we'd tried to retrieve it from the Bay on Saturday, but with the giant crack scare we couldn't), and have some lunch at Santropol, where we were happily accosted by my cousins and given a "family eats free" lunch.
I'm still probably going to attend convocation, but I think the defence (along with actually writing the thesis) are the defining moments of doing a master's degree.
I figure that such a document has such a small circulation that to give the acknowledgements any weight, they may as well be published one Web search from all the people mentioned. So, without any further ado:
A Symmetry-group Semantics for Shape Grammars
Eric Hortop
Acknowledgements
This thesis would not have happened if it weren't for help, support and inspiration from many people.
I'd like to thank Dr. Fred Szabo, my supervisor, who kept me on track, helped focus my work and keep my plans realistic, and has lent support in myriad ways throughout my time at Concordia. He encouraged me to become a co-op student in 2001, vouched for me on many occasions, involved me as a teaching assistant in his courses, and listened to various worries, problems and hare-brained schemes of mine. His help, encouragement and gentle but firm insistence on regular milestones are probably the major factors in this document being ready in 2007 rather than early 2008.
Dr. Cheryl Dudek and Dr. Lydia Sharman started what was to become the Generative Design project back in 2002, and took a chance on hiring a young, undergraduate me to take some tentative steps into computerized grammars. The project provides a context for the work in this thesis, and has been a space for me to learn, teach and develop a lot, in addition to being work that has allowed me to pursue my studies. Thanks especially to Cheryl for co-ordinating the undertaking and for many good hours of working together on technological things, writing and the arts and infrastructure aspects of the project. Thanks also Dr. Sudhir Mudur and Dr. Thomas Fevens for bringing their expertise to the project and thus exposing me to a variety of perspectives on the challenges of working with shape grammars and images. I'd like to extend thanks to Drs. Szabo, Dudek and Mudur, as well as to committee chair Dr. Hal Proppe, for taking the time to evaluate this thesis and sit on my committee, and to Ann-Marie Agnew, the Mathematics and Statistics department's graduate secretary, for kindness, encouragement and guidance with the various administrative processes of graduate life.
Ramgopal Rajagopalan, with GUI help from Yojana Joshi and further significant refinements from Nasim Sedag, wrote the grammar interpreter and design system that allowed me to explore grammar creation and modification much faster than manual methods would permit. Dania El-Khechen helped think through some important issues while we worked on the paper that sparked this thesis. Ramgopal and Dania were also excellent comrades in arms when arguing out what symmetry group to assign to real-world artefacts, contributing greatly to my understanding of and confidence with them. Dr. Ivo Rosenberg at Université de Montréal introduced me to the lattice and order theory with which much of the heavy lifting in this thesis is done.
The open source community, in particular the contributors to Inskcape, GraphViz and LATEX (including the Mac front end TeXShop), have created powerful tools whose features have made writing, illustrating and organizing this thesis considerably easier and often more fun.
Of course, one of the most original parts of any single-author document is the collection of mistakes, omissions, hand-waving and other problems. These are my problem alone.
I would like to thank Ian Rennie, my principal for stretches of both elementary and high school, for sharing his enthusiasm for computing, geometry and mathematics with me and a gaggle of computer clubbers after hours at Ormstown Elementary School; Mary-Ellen O'Neil and Gregg Edwards for coaching the Intellectual Olympics team at Chateauguay Valley Regional and Rick Laverty and Hugh Maynard for guiding and trusting a bunch of geeky youth to undertake web design projects for SchoolNet, and giving us the opportunities to learn and solve problems for ourselves. All of these educators went out of their way to expose me, and many others, to exciting ideas and projects.
I would also like to thank Kevin Murphy, formerly of Statistics Canada, for patiently guiding me through writing my first thesis-sized document in 2002. When writing this thesis seemed impossible, the co-op term spent researching, hacking and documenting under his supervision was a happy counterexample.
My parents, John Hortop and Lynne Stockwell, have supported and encouraged me through my entire (somewhat circuitous) educational journey, encouraging me to become well-rounded and giving me a good start in life. My fiancée Elizabeth Bruce has been there, not only for the final copy edit, but also for almost all my graduate career, listening, encouraging, taking up the slack when I've been engrossed in abstract things and bringing happiness into my life just by being herself.