Research


Research Background

After he obtained his B.S. and M.S. degrees in computer science and engineering from the Beihang University (BUAA), Hongchi Shi worked as a lecturer at BUAA for three years and visited the State University of New York at Stony Brook as a CEEC (Committee on Educational Exchange with China, chaired by Nobel Laureate Dr. C.N. Yang) fellow for one year and a half.

In the Fall of 1990, he became a Ph.D. student in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at the University of Florida. As a graduate research assistant and subsequently a visiting assistant professor at the University of Florida, he worked with Dr. Gerhard X. Ritter on all the aspects of the image algebra project for several years. The image algebra project sponsored by the Wright Laboratory Armament Directorate (now the Air Force Research Laboratory) and DARPA had the goal to develop a concise, coherent algebra that can be employed to solve problems in the image processing and computer vision (IP/CV) domain. He introduced parallel processing techniques into image algebra and developed a new subarea Parallel Image Processing with Image Algebra. This new development served as a proof of concept for the Air Force's Wright Laboratory Armament Directorate's initiation of the research program Parallel Algebraic Logic (PAL). The PAL program was aimed at providing a high-speed single instruction multiple data-stream (SIMD) dual-use computer suited to the rigors of military guidance and tracking systems as well as commercial image processing and computer vision applications. Several parts of his dissertation have been published in refereed journals and international conference proceedings. The whole dissertation has been published as a book chapter in an Academic Press book series. His research contributions are in the establishment of image algebra as a framework for image processing on parallel computers, the development of architectural support for image algebra, and the design of parallel image processing algorithms under the image algebra framework. In his dissertation, he demonstrated how SIMD mesh-connected computers can be adopted for image algebra and developed an efficient implementation for image algebra primitives. He also demonstrated how to use image algebra to concisely specify parallel image processing algorithms. His parallel image component labeling algorithm is a significant contribution to the area of parallel algorithm research, giving a positive answer to an open question posed by several researchers on image component labeling with local operations.

In the Fall of 1995, he joined the University of Missouri-Columbia as an assistant professor. He continued his research on parallel computing with applications to image processing. He participated in the PAL program as a member of the university and industry consortium led by the Lockheed Martin Corporation to tightly integrate image algebra with the GAPP (Geometric Array Parallel Processor) hardware. Independently or in collaboration with his colleagues in the Department of Computer Science (CS) and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), he has investigated techniques for low-cost high-speed image processing and graphics rendering critical for many applications such as medical image processing, machine vision, automatic target recognition and tracking, data compression, scientific data visualization, and 3D animation. In addition, he has extended his research to related areas such as neural networks and distributed computing.

In the Fall of 2001, he was awarded tenure and promoted to the rank of associate professor at the University of Missouri. He further extended his research to related emerging research areas such as Internet computing and wireless sensor networks.

In the Fall of 2006, he was promoted to the rank of full professor at the University of Missouri. His research at the University of Missouri has led to many refereed journal and conference publications and has attracted several research grants and contracts.

In the Fall of 2007, he joined the Texas State University-San Marcos as a professor of computer science and the chairman of the Department of Computer Science. He continues to actively perform research in areas around the main theme: parallel and distributed computing.