sent:    8 January 2003
subject: TC18 newsletter nr 1 2003

Dear all,

This electronic newsletter is sent to all members and it is also added
to the TC18 web page.
Stina Svensson is in charge of the web page.

This is the first TC18 newsletter. Since the first announcement for
TC18, around 40 people have joined. We welcome all of you. It is nice
to know that so many are interested already from the start. It is also
nice to know that there are a large group of people wanting to have an
active role in TC18. We are at the moment distributing the various
tasks among the interested. More about how we plan to structure the
work is indicated below.

In this newsletter we have included the information we find relevant
for the moment. Please let us know if you want us to write about other
topics. The same holds if you have something you want to add, such as
announcements for conferences, special issues or other important
events.

The next newsletter is planned for the end of March. We are already
collecting information for it. 

If you have any ideas on how to improve the presentation of the web
page, or to want help, do not hesitate to contact us.

Best regards, and HAPPY NEW YEAR 2003

Annick and Stina.

Contents:
=========

1. DGCI deadline coming up

2. Special issues

3. Image/code data base

4. Basic notions and open problems

5. Degrees

=====================================

1. DGCI deadline coming up

Deadline for paper submission to DGCI is approaching. The last date is
15 march 2003. We remind you to submit papers. Please visit the web
page for the conference for more information:
http://dgci.cib.na.cnr.it/

During the conference the first TC18 meeting will be held. This will
allow us to meet and discuss about Discrete Geometry in general and
what role we want TC18 to have in particular.

2. Special issues

The second of the two special issues for DGCI 2000 is now ready. It is
published as Volume 125, Issue 1 in Discrete Applied Mathematics.

A Special Issue in Theoretical Computer Science (TCS) on
"Combinatorics of the Discrete Plane and Tilings" is planned to be
published in October 2003. Deadline for paper submission is February
28th, 2003. For more information, see
http://www.liafa.jussieu.fr/~vuillon/special2003.htm 
or contact Laurent Vuillon (Laurent.Vuillon@liafa.jussieu.fr).

3. Image/code data base

Currently a TC18 image and code data base is under
construction. Responsible for this are David Coeurjolly
(dcoeurjo@univ-lyon2.fr) and Eric Remy
(eric.remy@mailup.univ-mrs.fr). It will be available from the TC18 web
page.

The idea is to make it easy for us to try our own algorithms on the
same image examples as other researchers, as well as to try the
algorithms of other researchers.

More work is required before the web page can open, such as file
formats and uploading process for members. What is fixed so far is
that there will be only copyright free data and code. The aim is to
have a mix between synthetic images and real data. Also wanted is
mathematical objects, to have a kind of exact Euclidean signatures of
the shapes (surface area, curvature...) in order to allow experimental
comparison of discrete estimators.

4. Basic notions and open problems

The "open problems" discussion is already available thanks to Reinhard
Klette. Do not hesitate to propose and discuss new problems. A very
efficient tool to find explanations as well as references on some
specific topics is also available on the open problem page (see link
from the TC18 web page) under "Publication Database".

In the following, the part of TC18 web page dedicated to basic notions
will be organised into sub-topics with some main references, and some
slides. Work with the organisation of this is still in progress.

5. Degrees

Recently we have had (at least) two persons, registered as
TC18-members, getting a new degree.

Dr. Ingela Nyström, Centre for Image Analysis, Uppsala, Sweden, has
received the "Docent" degree during the autumn. In Sweden this degree,
taken 4-5 years after the PhD, is, for example, necessary to have your
own PhD students. On 13 November 2002 she held her "Docent"
lecture. The title of the talk was "Challenges in measuring surface
area and volume in digital images".

MSc David Coeurjolly, Université Lumière Lyon 2, Lyon, France,
defended his PhD thesis " Algorithmique et géométrie discrète pour la
caractérisation des courbes et des surfaces" on 18 December 2002.