Greg R. Roelofs

San Jose, CA
(408) 866-5922
roelofs@pobox.com

Goal: To do challenging, innovative research or advanced development in imaging/graphics/visualization, web search, compression, advanced user interfaces, or related areas, preferably in a Unix/Linux or cross-platform environment.
 
Education: University of Chicago University of Minnesota
    Ph.D., Physics (Radial Motions in Spiral Galaxies)           B.S., Physics  
    M.S., Physics             B.S., Astrophysics  
                  B.S., Mathematics  
 
Experience:   Yahoo! Sunnyvale, CA
Member of Technical Staff ("Technical Yahoo!") on core runtime search-engine team, September 2004 to present. Rewrote core "results presentation" code to provide more intelligent and relevant summaries of web pages returned as users' search results; profiled and optimized code; managed search-engine releases and database performance-testing on rotating basis; helped monitor and debug "unusual behavior," such as specific types of hardware failure or unusual cluster latency; documented evolving design of summarization component and of overall search engine; etc.
 
Philips Semiconductors San Jose, CA
Software Architect and Research/Development Engineer, June 2001 to September 2004.
  • 2004: Helped create embedded-Linux SDK for triple-core (MIPS + two DSPs) processor, to support digital video and audio applications.
  • 2003-2004: Ported interprocessor-communication (IPC) module of internal SDE to triple-core, dual-OS processor; unified host RPC support across VxWorks, Windows, and Linux; added VxWorks protected-memory extensions.
  • 2001-2002: Part of new innovation and strategy group for home networking and consumer-electronics architectures, with special emphasis on Linux-based gateways and set-top boxes. Led development of first Linux distribution for dual-core (MIPS + VLIW DSP) processor and helped isolate and fix several toolchain, kernel, and hardware bugs.
 
Philips Research Sunnyvale, CA
Member of Technical Staff, August 1995 to April 1996; Senior MTS, April 1996 to May 2001.
  • Context browser, 2001: Began researching novel techniques for managing large stores of text, images, audio and video clips, Web bookmarks, appointment and scheduling data, and ordinary computer files, with particular emphasis on useful and natural navigation via a handheld (PDA) or a webpad. Filed for several patents, including US 7,047,500. (Research group was terminated before more than a single, very limited prototype was completed.)
  • Reliable Home Server, 1998-2000: Developed Linux-based prototypes for home networking, including remote home monitoring with a standard web browser or wireless Palm via multiple cameras; remote control of home lighting and electronic devices (e.g., programming of legacy VCR via the Web); event (motion) detection and extended image-archiving; Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) support with bridging to a 1394-based networking standard; automated, electronic photo-album support; and standard gateway, firewall, file-serving, and audio playback functions. Helped shape corporate policy on Linux.
  • Virtual CD Jukebox, 1998: Optimized MP3 and AAC codecs for eventual use in advanced digital audio product (similar to AudioReQuest); technical lead on software architecture of first prototype.
  • Virtual communities, 1997: Investigated graphical level-of-detail algorithms, scalability of virtual worlds, and user-interface issues for 3D navigation. Designed virtual motion controller to allow omnidirectional walking or running within a virtual environment without harm (US 6,270,414); filed additional patents on low-cost methods for creating 3D models (e.g., US 6,765,572). Developed efficient techniques for the generation, storage, caching and dynamic, web-based display of a moderately large (230,000 images, 200 GB uncompressed), CGI-driven, multi-resolution map.
  • "GOLD" image format, 1996: Researched image compression and display technologies for use over low-bandwidth channels, and co-developed a very fast, compact, hybrid image format for proxy-mediated use over such links (US 6,128,021). Combination of early, high-resolution monochrome layer and low-resolution color layer provided significantly quicker legibility of embedded text, and subsequent two-pass line-interlacing scheme with deflate compression reconstructed original image losslessly, with almost no additional size penalty over GIF or PNG.
  • Internet TV, 1995: Created WebTV-like prototype (independent of but concurrent with efforts by WebTV, then known as Artemis Research) using modified X Mosaic; added support for progressive display, external control via tcl/tk "remote," next-link/previous-link capability, etc., during first two months with Philips.
In addition, mentored summer intern and managed part of jukebox project. Maintained numerous internal web pages, both local and worldwide, plus external AlphaWorld (virtual world) map site for seven years. Edited bimonthly Silicon Valley news mailing for upper and middle management, and authored various internal technical notes and white papers. Prior to joining as a researcher, performed Unix system administration (SunOS, Linux) for three years.
 
Open-source developer (Internet)
Shareware, open-source, and free/libre software developer, 1985 to present.
  • PNG Development Group, since 1995: Founding member of group to define, implement, and standardize (IETF, later ISO/IEC) a patent-free, lossless replacement for the GIF image format. Created (and still maintain) official Portable Network Graphics and Multiple-image Network Graphics home sites; wrote PNG: The Definitive Guide (O'Reilly, June 1999) and PNG chapter of the Lossless Compression Handbook (Academic Press, December 2002); wrote and/or contributed to numerous PNG-supporting programs (see Software below).
  • Info-ZIP, 1990-2004: Helped create and distribute portable, free compressor/archiver utilities. Contributed to Zip; led development of UnZip for eight years; maintained web site for more than ten.
 
Additionally, research experience at the University of Chicago and NASA Ames (simulation and visualization software, including a doubly iterative fitting program for galactic dynamics, a 2.5-dimensional gravitational hydrodynamics code, and particle dynamics codes), AT&T Bell Labs, Argonne National Laboratory, and Fermilab (summers); teaching experience (electronics, modern physics, electromagnetism, freshman physics); and excellent technical-writing skills (see Publications below).
 
Patents: Issued:
     
Dynamically Configurable Virtual Window Manager,
G. Roelofs; filed November 2001, issued May 2006 (US 7,047,500).
Apparatus and System for Abstract Visual Representation of Audio Signals
G. Roelofs; filed September 2001, issued August 2005 (US 6,937,211).
Virtual [Elephant] Modeling by Shadow-cast Voxel-clipping
G. Roelofs; filed April 2001, issued July 2004 (US 6,765,572).
Compensating for Network Latency in a Multi-player Game
G. Roelofs; filed March 2001, issued November 2002 (US 6,475,090).
Exoskeletal Platform for Controlling Multi-Directional Avatar Kinetics in a Virtual Environment
G. Roelofs; filed December 1997, issued August 2001 (US 6,270,414) and December 2002 (EP 0 974 087 B1).
Downloading Image Graphics with Accelerated Text Character and Line Art Creation
P. v. d. Meulen and G. Roelofs; filed October 1996, issued October 2000 (US 6,128,021).
  Pending:
     
Force-Mediated [Font] Rasterization,
G. Roelofs; filed September 2001.
Nonlinear Display Method for Data of Infinite Extent,
G. Roelofs; filed August 2001.
Security System Simulates Patterns of Usage of Appliances,
G. Roelofs; filed June 2001.
System and Method for Remote Control of Consumer Electronics over Data Network with Visual Feedback,
G. Roelofs and P. v. d. Meulen; filed June 2001.
Advanced Path Checker,
P. v. d. Meulen and G. Roelofs; filed March 2001.
Virtual Model Generation via Physical Components,
G. Roelofs; filed February 2001.
GUI has Library Metaphor Based on Non-Euclidean Geometry,
G. Roelofs; filed November 2000.
Handheld Retrieves UI from Server for Controlling Apparatus via Server,
R. Sagar and G. Roelofs; filed April 2000.
  Half a dozen additional disclosures ranging from novel user interfaces to micromachines (MEMS).
 
Publications:
PNG Lossless Image Compression, in Lossless Compression Handbook, Academic Press (Elsevier Science), December 2002.
 
XV Viewer, Web Review, 10 December 1999.
 
PNG Gaining Acceptance, Web Review, 13 August 1999.
 
PNG: The Definitive Guide, O'Reilly and Associates, June 1999.
 
The Future of Linux, Linux Journal, October 1998.
 
PNG's Not GIF!, Web Review, 9 May 1997.
 
 
Take Command: unzip, Linux Journal, January 1997.
 
Radial Motions in Spiral Galaxies (dissertation), University of Chicago Press/UMI, December 1995.
 
Software: Primary author of pngquant (RGBA to RGBA-palette quantization and dithering); rpng/rpng2/wpng cross-platform demo programs (Unix, VMS, Win32); pngsplit (PNG chunk-extraction utility); UnZip; gpr (ASCII-to-PostScript converter); various Unix scripts and utilities; "which" clone for OS/2; original OS/2 port of Elvis (text editor); etc.
 
  Contributor to intel2gas (assembler-syntax converter), Firefox/Mozilla/Netscape 6+, Arena, X Mosaic, libpng, gif2png, tiff2png, pnmtopng/pngtopnm, pngcheck, XV, XPaint, giftool, Zip, lha, unrar, check/crc, file/magic, BSD mailx, BSD uuencode/uudecode (VMS port), hd (hex dumper), fm (hex editor), life (OS/2 screen saver), VMS zmodem, and others.
 
Technical: C/C++/STL, x86 assembler, some Java and Perl, FORTRAN, VRML; Unix/Linux and X development, 32-bit Windows, VxWorks, pSOS+, OS/2, DOS, VMS; PC, Sun, SGI, Cray, TriMedia, MIPS, and other hardware.


This page can be found at   http://pobox.com/~roelofs/resume-long.html .
Last updated 28 January 2007.