Chad Austin
3109 Turnberry #168     Ames, IA 50014     (515) 292-4570     aegis@aegisknight.org
October 28th, 2004

Objective

To acquire a challenging and stimulating position in the field of entertainment- or user-oriented software development.

Experience

Virtual Reality Applications Center (2002 - Present)

Ames, Iowa - Research Assistant

Under Dr. Dirk Reiners: Designed and developed OpenGL GPU performance analysis tool for automatic scene graph optimization. Developed OpenFlight model loader for the OpenSG scene graph.

Under Dr. Adrian Sannier: Managed build process of distributed military simulation on both IRIX and Linux. Created Java-based startup tool to simplify task of starting multi-process vehicle simulation on several networked computers. Developed calibration software for magnetic field trackers in virtual environments such as Iowa State University's CAVEs. Established internal collaboration tools to help streamline software engineering processes and maintain a better information history. Developed audio system for data sonification experiment with flight simulators in the CAVE. Developed 3ds max importers and exporters for motion capture and character animation data.

Netscape Communications Corporation (Summer of 2001)

Mountain View, California - Quality Assurance Engineer

Confirmed and verified bug fixes on Windows, Linux, and MacOS, using the BugZilla issue tracking software. Implemented fixes for accessibility and internationalization bugs. Implemented an audio decoding and playback system for the Mozilla Media Player.

Vermeer Manufacturing (1998 - 2001)

Pella, Iowa - Software Engineer

Helped design, develop, and author manual for automatic horizontal directional drill planning software. Developed components in C++ for embedded drill controller running on Windows CE. Worked with team of eight programmers and six engineers to create several products within hard deadlines.

Projects (1995 - Present)

Audiere [link]

Designed and implemented high-performance and low-latency open source audio system designed for games, virtual environments, and interactive simulations. Implemented support for several audio file formats, operating systems, audio output devices, and programming languages. Used human-computer interaction skills to design often-praised API for using the system. Audiere is used in a multitude of commercial and shareware games as well as non-game commercial software.

Empyrean

Project lead and technical architect on game for November 2004 submission to Independent Games Festival. Managed team of thirteen programmers and 3D artists ranging from undergraduates to Ph.D. candidates.

Game Developers Club [link]

Co-founded and served as president of student organization for game development with approximately 25 regular members per semester. Presented a variety of topics, including design documentation, software architecture, graphics technologies, sound and music in games, using pre-written libraries, and general discussion about game industry. Hosted presentations by special guests from the game and computer graphics industries.

SCons [link]

Was one of original developers and frequent contributor to next-generation build tool. Contributions include support for Cygwin and IRIX platforms, automated test suite enhancements, interface simplifications, and some overall design. Ported build systems for several large existing codebases from Make and Visual Studio to SCons.

Sphere [link]

Created powerful system of over 90,000 lines of C++ to ease creation of 2D role-playing games. Gained extensive scripting language experience by developing compiler and runtime for custom language, and later embedding the Mozilla JavaScript interpreter. Developed integrated development environment for game resource creation and scripting. Managed online forum for Sphere community, writing documentation to assist others in getting started in game development.

Accomplishments

Education

Iowa State University (2004 - Present)

M.S. in Human Computer Interaction
4.00 Cumulative GPA. Expected graduation Summer 2005. Studied the psychology of human memory, evolutionary algorithms, advanced computer graphics techniques, and game design and development.

Iowa State University (1999 - 2003)

B.S. in Computer Science
3.12 Cumulative GPA. Focused on classes in programming languages, compilers, human interaction with technology, virtual reality, graphics, computational geometry, technical writing, linguistics, economics, and psychology of sensation and perception.

Skills

Interests
Computer Graphics 5 yearsadvanced
Digital Audio 3 yearsadvanced
Programming Language Design 5 yearsadvanced
User Interface Design 3 yearsintermediate
Software Engineering and Architecture5 yearsadvanced
Project Management 2 yearsintermediate
Operating Systems
Windows XP/2000/NT5 yearsadvanced
GNU/Linux 4 yearsadvanced
MacOS X 1 year intermediate
Windows CE 1 year intermediate
IRIX 1 year intermediate
Languages
C/C++ 7 yearsexpert
ECMAScript/JavaScript2 yearsexpert
Python 2 years advanced
Java 3 yearsadvanced
HTML/CSS 3 yearsadvanced
x86/MIPS Assembly 1 year intermediate
Technologies
OpenGL 4 yearsadvanced
DirectX 3 yearsintermediate
Design Patterns3 yearsadvanced
COM/XPCOM 2 yearsadvanced
Strengths
Strong grasp of English language.
Effective writing and speaking skills.
Highly capable in team environments and leadership positions.
Strong technical and mathematical skills.
Highly motivated and self-driven.

References

References available on request.