Jaume Rigau Homepage

Who & Where

I'm only a bunch of particles on a spinning rock of magma revolving around a star.

Image: Me at Earth
Credit: Jaume Rigau
Date: April 2009

My portrait measured at a past instant. Usually I have my particle system more well organized from a human point of view.

I was born and live in Catalonia.
“My country is so small, that when the sun is going to sleep, he's never sure of having seen it” (Lluís Llach).
I'm a Computer Science Engineer and Ph.D. by the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in Barcelona.
To date, I'm an associate professor in the Departament d'Informàtica, Matemàtica Aplicada, i Estadística and member of the Graphics and Imaging Laboratory at the Universitat de Girona.
Usually, I'm in the Earth...

... at this point:

Departament d'Informàtica, Matemàtica Aplicada, i Estadística
Postal address: Escola Politècnica Superior, Edifici P-IV, Despatx 229
Carrer Universitat de Girona, 6
17003-Girona (Spain)
Coordinates: 41° 57' 47.8512" N, 2° 49' 53.5080" E
Telephone: (+34) 636.642.511 (Internal: 9347)
Fax: +34-972.418.792
e-mail:

Images: Earth (where is the image?... if you keep the cursor some instants over the image, it gives you the location —click any image in order to enlarge it)
Credit: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) - Visible Earth, and European Spacial Agency (ESA) - Satellite Images
Date: January 2000 - November 2006

I agree, the camera is relatively far away... but like you, I'm just one more among all the people.
Watch the images..., just now we all are travelling together in the same direction... and very fast!
Can you feel it? If not, you must look at the sky more often and carefully.
Don't worry, It's a little pleasure... listening inside the silence.


Research

I'm doing my research within the Graphics and Imaging Laboratory in the Institut d'Informàtica i Aplicacions at the Universitat de Girona.
My subgroup is specifically focused on the application of Information Theory in computer graphics.
Until 2006, we worked mainly with the global illumination problem (radiosity and ray-tracing techniques).
Since then, we have been studying problems related to imaging and shapes.

In particular, in the first case, the image registration and the search of metrics —in image complexity and computational aesthetics— are studied independently of the image origin.

With complex and high technology

Image: Star V838 Monocerotis known as The Starry Night
Credit: NASA, Hubble Heritage Team (STScI-AURA), and ESA
Date: February 2004

“View of an expanding halo of light around V838-Mon at the outer edge of our Milky Way galaxy. The illumination of interstellar dust comes from the red supergiant star at the middle of the image, which gave off a flashbulb-like pulse of light in 2002, becoming 600,000 times more luminous than our Sun. It was thus one of the most luminous stars in the entire Milky Way. The dust and gas was probably ejected from the star after a previous explosion some tens of thousands of years ago.”
News Release STScI-2004-10

With standard technology

Image: Our star, The Sun, in its Sunrise '07 over the Mediterranean sea
Credit: Jaume Rigau
Date: January 2007

“The sun is a star, a hot ball of glowing gases at the heart of our solar system. Its influence extends far beyond the orbits of distant Neptune and Pluto. Without the sun's intense energy and heat, there would be no life on Earth. And though it is special to us, there are billions of stars like our sun scattered across the Milky Way galaxy.”
NASA (Solar System Exploration)

Without technology

Image: The Starry Night (oil in canvas, Museum of Modern Art, New York)
Credit: Vincent van Gogh
Date: June 1889

“The artist wrote to his brother Theo: 'This morning I saw the country from my window a long time before sunrise, with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big.' Rooted in imagination and memory, The Starry Night embodies an inner, subjective expression of van Gogh's response to nature. In thick sweeping brushstrokes, a flamelike cypress unites the churning sky and the quiet village below. The village was partly invented, and the church spire evokes van Gogh's native land, the Netherlands.”
Gallery Label Text

In the second case, we are studying shape retrieval and classification problems.
We are also working on sites to test our measures of shape retrieval and classification, and image complexity.

You can see an overview of this research in my publications and to find previous work and related reports at co-author's sites.


Teaching

I teach as a member of the Departament d'Informàtica, Matemàtica Aplicada, i Estadística in the Escola Politècnica Superior at the Universitat de Girona.
Currently, I'm teaching in the next courses:

Statistics: Grau en Enginyeria Electrònica, Industrial, i Automàtica, Grau en Enginyeria Química, Grau en Enginyeria Mecànica
Mathematics: Grau en Enginyeria Electrònica, Industrial, i Automàtica, Grau en Enginyeria Química, Grau en Enginyeria Mecànica
Computation Fundamentals: Grau en Enginyeria Informàtica
Lenguages, Grammars, and Automata: Grau en Enginyeria Informàtica
Abstract Models for Computation: Grau en Enginyeria Informàtica

For more details, you can go to the corresponding study sites in the Escola Politècnica Superior (information in Catalan).


Miscellany

In the image world, astrophysics and nature pictures are my favourites.
I recommend you visiting, among others, the following space-links:

Astronomy Picture of the Day
European Space Agency
HubbleSite-Gallery
Space Telescope Science Institute
Mauna Kea Observatories
Space Weather

Image: H-II region of Eagle Nebula (M16-NGC6611) known as The Pillars of Creation
Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, and J. Hester and P. Scowen (Arizona State University)
Date: April 1995

“Eerie, dramatic new pictures from Hubble Space Telescope show newborn stars emerging from 'eggs' but rather dense, compact pockets of interstellar gas called evaporating gaseous globules (EGGs). Hubble found the EGGs, appropriately enough, in the Eagle nebula, a nearby star-forming region 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Serpens.”
News Release STScI-1995-44

Image: Hubble's deepest-ever view of the universe unveils myriad galaxies back to the beginning of time
Credit: NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI) and the Hubble Ultra Deep Field Team
Date: January 2004

“There are some hundred billion (10E11) galaxies, each with, on the average, a hundred billion stars. In all the galaxies, there are perhaps as many planets as stars, 10E11 x 10E11 = 10E22, ten billion trillion. In the face of such overpowering numbers, what is the likelihood that only one ordinary star, the Sun, is accompanied by an inhabited planet? Why should we, tucked away in some forgotten corner of the Cosmos, be so fortunate? To me, it seems far more likely that the universe is brimming over with life. But we humans do not yet know. We are just beginning our explorations. The only planet we are sure is inhabited is a tiny speck of rock and metal, shining feebly by reflected sunlight, and at this distance utterly lost.”
Carl Sagan

Loads of information is moving fast.
I'd like to understand everything sent.
Great images of the past.
Hidden reflexes of the present.
The paths towards the future are cast.

And also, these Earth-links:

Google Maps
Peakware World Mountain Encyclopedia
Panorama
Explorers
National Geographic Society
World Wildlife Fund for Nature

Image: K2, Karakoram, Pakistan (8,612m)
Credit: Wikipedia (GNU Free Documentation License)
Date: August 2006

“K2 is the second highest mountain in the world, and is thought by many climbers to be the ultimate climb. Its giant pyramid peak towers in isolation, 12,000 feet above the wide Concordia glacial field at the head of the Baltoro Glacier. The sheer icy summit is flanked by six equally steep ridges. Each of its faces presents a maze of precipices and overhangs. K2 was long considered unclimbable. The first successful ascent in 1954 started with over 500 porters, 11 climbers, and six scientists. One of the climbers died of pneumonia after 40 days of raging storms. The final ascent was made by a team of two (Achille Compagnoni and Lino Lacedelli) after their oxygen supply had run out, and an emergency descent was made in darkness.”
Peakware World Mountain Encyclopedia

Image: Autumn in La Fageda d'en Jordà
Credit: Jaume Rigau
Date: November 2006

Within the Nature Reserve of the Volcanic Zone of La Garrotxa, in the northeast of Catalonia, there is a fantastic, enigmatic, and little birch forest known as La Fageda d'en Jordà. The vegetation grows on a flat layer over a lava outflow from the Croscat volcano. Fresh in the summer, in the autumn wondering through is a pleasure that let us listen to the sounds and see the colours of our earth.

There are mountains high, difficult, and remote.
And there are others low, easy, and close.
But the most important isn't to be there, but to feel there.


Last update: October 27, 2012

All the images can be zoomed out by clicking on.
At the previous date, all the links are operative, but unfortunately, by the dynamic nature of the World Wide Web, after this date I cannot guarantee their access.
The background is due to the dark energy and the dark matter (recent observations are consistent with a Universe made up of 73% dark energy, 23% dark matter, and 4% ordinary matter).