Roger W. Ehrich

Professor of Computer Science
and Electrical Engineering

660 McBryde Hall (Mail address)
2202 Kraft Drive #129 (Office location)
540.231.5420
Email: WWW: http://pixel.cs.vt.edu

Education:

Ph.D., 1969, Electrical Engineering, Northwestern University
M.S., 1967, Electrical Engineering, Northwestern University
B.S., 1965, Electrical Engineering, University of Rochester

Current Research Interests:

Machine vision, data compression, human-computer interaction, educational technologies

Recent Research Grants and Contracts:

$5,279,418 through 20 funded projects, including National Science Foundation and Office of Naval Research
$641,000 though 10 equipment grants
NSF, "Interactive Accessibility," 1993-98. $1,375,000
NSF, "Planning for Virtual Schools in Electronic Villages," 1994-96, $99,824
US Department of Education, "PCs for Families," 1996-99, $559,254

Awards, Honors, and Societies:

Member, Sigma Xi, Tau Beta Pi, Phi Kappa Phi, IEEE Computer Society (senior member), Upsilon Pi Epsilon, ACM

Other Professional Experience:

2000: Senior Research Scientist, Tecomac, Inc., Denver, CO
1984-87: Associate editor, Computer Vision, Graphics, and Image Processing
1985-87: Director, Institute of Information Technology, Virginia Center for Innovative Technology
1985-87: Director, Spatial Data Analysis Laboratory, Virginia Tech
1974-76: Associate professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Massachusetts
1969-74: Assistant professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Massachusetts
1966: General Dynamics/Electronics, Rochester, NY

Selected Publications:

McCreary, F., R.W. Ehrich, and M. Lisanti, "A Longitudinal Study of Residential Internet Usage Among Elementary Students," in Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Human Factors Society," San Diego, August 2000, 364-367.
Ehrich, R.W., M. Lisanti, and F. McCreary, "Networking Families into the Schools," in Cohill, A.M. and A.L. Kavanaugh, Eds., Community Networks: Lessons from Blacksburg, Virginia, Chapter 7, 123-142. Reading MA: Artech House, 2000.
Liu, X. and R.W. Ehrich, "Analysis of Moire Patterns in Non-uniformly Sampled Halftones," Image and Vision Computing 18(10) 843-848, July 2000.
Reaux, R., R.W. Ehrich, F. McCreary, and K. Rowland, "A Study of Early Intervention Using Networked Computing in Education," Journal of Educational Computing Research 18(10), 843-848, 2000.
Tinoco, L.C., E. Fox, R. Ehrich, and H. Fuks, "QUIZIT: An Interactive Quiz System for WWW-based Instruction," Proc. VII Brazilian Symposium on Educational Technology, Belo Horizonte Brazil, November 1996. See also http://delta.cs.vt.edu/ehrich/QUIZIT.PDF
Ehrich, R.W. "Technology-Induced Disparity in K-12 Education." Virginia Libraries 42(3), 11-14, 1996.
Liu, X. and R.W. Ehrich. "Subpixel Edge Location in Binary Images Using Dithering." IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence 17(6), 629-634, 1995.
Siochi, A., and R.W. Ehrich. "Computer Analysis of User Interfaces Based on Repetition in Transcripts of User Sessions." ACM Transactions on Information Systems 4, 309-335, 1991.
Qian, J., R.W. Ehrich, and J.B. Campbell. "DNESYS: An Expert System for Automatic Extraction of Drainage Networks from Digital Elevation Data," IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing 28(1), 29-45, 1990.

Most of my work has focused in the areas of digital picture processing and image analysis. Since 1980 I have also been working in the field of human-computer interaction, especially on usability and on educational technologies. In 1993 we received a Research Infrastructure award from the National Science Foundation, and we have constructed a set of state-of-the-art laboratories to support work in HCI, Multimedia, Digital Libraries, and Virtual Realities.
In 1994 I first became actively involved in the role of networking and digital libraries in education, since that is both a departmental priority and a natural consequence of our community network, the Blacksburg Electronic Village. Most recently we have been awarded a 3-year grant from the US Department of Education to determine whether under the best of circumstances, access to networked computing by both students and their families has measurable effect upon long-term student achievement. Besides assessing outcomes when students are immersed in network-based computing at an early age, the project seeks to determine the human costs associated with full technology utilization. We are studying the applicability of different technologies, including collaboration tools, across a wide range of lesson types.
I still continue with my interests in the areas of accuracy of machine inspection and lossless data compression. I have for a long time been interested in high resolution automatic inspection, which has led to the analysis of the capabilities of inspection algorithms and the search for faster algorithms and better data structures. That has led quite naturally to a more recent interest in information-lossless data compression algorithms, both for images (binary, gray level, and color) and for textual databases. In the Fall semester, 2000, I am on leave with Tecomac, Inc., Denver, working on wavelet-based image compression and entropy coding.