Representing Shapes Using Topological Descriptors

Date/Time: Monday, January 13 4:10 p.m - 5:00 p.m.
Location: Barnard Hall 108
Speaker: Samuel Micka

Abstract: Techniques developed in the field of topological data analysis have grown increasingly popular in recent years for gathering insight into complex data. One example is the use of topological descriptors, such as the persistence diagram (PD), for representing and discriminating between different shapes. In this talk, we offer insight into the algorithms behind generating a set of descriptors which encode all of the geometric and topological information of a shape. Furthermore, we discuss the benefits of using PDs for representing shapes and describe efficient methods for comparing PDs to one another for the purposes of shape differentiation.

Biosketch: Samuel Micka earned his B.S. in computer science from UW-Oshkosh in 2015 and is scheduled to defend his PhD in the Spring semester of 2020 at Montana State University. His research focuses on shape reconstruction using topological descriptors, efficient searching in the space of persistence diagrams, and, more broadly, lies in the fields of algorithms, topological data analysis, and computational geometry. 

Seminars from 2019.