Dr Cameron Browne

 

Research Fellow in Simon Colton's Computational Creativity Group at Imperial College, London. I'm currently working on the EPSRC-funded project UCT for Games and Beyond, in which I am investigating Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) methods for procedural content generation in creative domains. This involves ways in which MCTS — typically used for move planning in games and other decision problems — can instead be harnessed to analyse, optimise and design new games, music and artwork.

Education
2008
1993
1992
1990		 PhD in AI and game design, QUT (Brisbane). Dean's Award for Outstanding Thesis.
Computer Science Honours, 1st class, La Trobe University (Melbourne).
Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science, University of Queensland (Brisbane).
Bachelor of Science in Psychology, University of Queensland (Brisbane).

Work

2010-
2009
2008
2003
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994

 Research Fellow, Computational Creativity Group, Imperial College London.
Administrator, AI & Games Network, Imperial College London.
Research Associate, University of Edinburgh: Automated modelling for casual game design.
Developer, SWiSHzone.com (Sydney): SwishMax, the second most popular Flash editor.
Researcher/Developer, CISRA (Canon Research Australia): Artistic effects and animation.
Developer, Microsoft (Seattle): Windows 2000, GDI+ fonts for the NT Team.
Developer, CISRA (Canon Research Australia): Automatic font decoration. Inventor of the Year 1998.
Visiting Researcher, International Computer Science Institute (ICSI), Berkeley, USA.
Tutor, Faculty of Information Technology, QUT, Brisbane.
Tutor, Department of Computing, La Trobe University, Melbourne.

Grants

2010-

2009

2008

 EPSRC grant, UCT for Games and Beyond (EP/I001964), Imperial College London.
£546,000: Author and named researcher (part of larger £1.5m project).
TSB grant, Board Game Generation for the iPhone (AK318J), Imperial College London.
£15,000: Author and named researcher.
Flexibility Funding, Automated Math. Modelling for Casual Game Design, Univ. Edinburgh.
£12,000: Author and named researcher.

Awards

2012
2008
2005
1998

GECCO "Humies" gold medal for human-competitive results in evolutionary computation.
Dean's Award for Outstanding Thesis, QUT (Brisbane).
Australian Postgraduate Award (APA).
Canon Research Australia Inventor of the Year for 1998.

Patents

1997-

24 Patents for CISRA (Canon Research Australia).
13 single-authored and 11 co-authored.


Books

2012
2012
2011
2005
2000

 C. Browne, Margo Basics, Lulu.com, POD (ISBN 9781300095156).
C. Browne and N. Romeral Andrés, Shibumi Rule Book, Lulu.com, POD (ISBN 1471087298).
C. Browne, Evolutionary Game Design, Springer, Berlin (ISBN 1447121783).
C. Browne, Connection Games: Variations on a Theme, AK Peters, Massachusetts (ISBN 1568812248).
C. Browne, Hex Strategy: Making The Right Connections, AK Peters, Massachusetts (ISBN 1568811179).

Thesis

2008

 C. Browne, Automatic Generation and Evaluation of Recombination Games, PhD Thesis, QUT, Brisbane.

Papers
2013

C. Browne, “A Problem Case for UCT,” IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games, 5:1, 69-74.
C. Browne, "Deductive Search for Logic Puzzles," CIG 2013 (submitted).
C. Browne, "UCT for PCG," CIG 2013 (submitted).
C. Browne, S. Colton, M. Cook, J. Gow and R. Baumgarten, "Towards the Adaptive Generation of Bespoke Game Content,"
     in The IEEE Handbok of Digital Games, H. Agius and M. Angelides (eds), IEEE Press (to appear).
C. Browne, "Evolutionary Game Design: 2012 'Humies' Winner," SIGEVO Newsletter, 6:1.
C. Browne, “Metrics for Better Puzzles,” in Game Analytics: Maximizing the Value of Player Data,
     M. S. El-Nasr, A. Drachen, A. Canossa and K. Isbister (eds), Springer, Berlin (to appear).
2012

C. Browne and S. Tavener, "Life in the Fast Lane", AIFactory Newsletter, Winter 2012, Issue 2.
C. Browne and S. Colton, "Computational Creativity in a Closed Game System," CIG 2012, 296-303.
C. Browne, "Evolutionary Game Design," "Humies" competition entry, GECCO 2012, Philadelphia (gold medal winner).
C. Browne, G. Yannakakis and S. Colton, “Editorial: Special Issue on Computational Aesthetics and Games,”
     IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games, 4:3, 1-2.
C. Browne, “Elegance in Game Design,” IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games, 4:3, 229-240.
C. Browne, “Yavalath: Sample Chapter from Evolutionary Game Design,” ICGA Journal, 35:2.
C. Browne, “Go Without Ko on Hexagonal Grids,” ICGA Journal, 35:1, 37-40.
C. Browne and S. Tavener, “Bitwise-Parallel Reduction for Connection Tests,”
     IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games, 4:2, 112-119.
C. Browne, E. Powley, D. Whitehouse, S. Lucas, P. I. Cowling, P. Rohlfshagen, S. Tavener, D. Perez, S. Samothrakis and S. Colton,
     “A Survey of Monte Carlo Tree Search Methods,” IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games, 4:1, 1-43.

2011

 C. Browne, “On the Dangers of Random Playouts,” ICGA Journal, 34:1.
C. Browne, “Towards MCTS for Creative Domains,” ICCC-11, Mexico City.
J. Togelius, G. Yannakakis, K. Stanley and C. Browne (2011) “Search-based Procedural Content Generation:
     A Taxonomy and Survey,” IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games, 3:3, 172-186.

2010

 C. Browne and F. Maire, “Evolutionary Game Design,” IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games, 2:1, 1-16.
J. Togelius, G. Yannakakis, K. Stanley and C. Browne, "Search-Based Procedural Content Generation,"
     EvoApplications Workshop, LNCS 2024, 141-150.
A. Howlett, S. Colton and C. Browne, “Evolving Pixel Shaders for the Prototype Video Game Subversion,”
     AI and Games Symposium, AISB'10.
A. Martin, A. Lim, S. Colton and C. Browne, “Evolving 3D Buildings for the Prototype Video Game Subversion,”
     Proceedings of the EvoGames Workshop, 111-120.

2009

 S. Colton and C. Browne, “Evolving Simple Art-based Games,” EvoGames Workshop, LNCS 5485, 283-292.

2008

 C. Browne, “Duotone Truchet-like Tilings,” Mathematics and the Arts, 2:4, 189-196.
C. Browne, “Truchet curves and surfaces,” Computers & Graphics, 32:2, 268-281.
C. Browne, “Gaudi's organic geometry,” Computers & Graphics, 32:1, 105-115.
C. Browne, “Artistic box trees,” Fractals, 15:3, 249-253.

2007

 C. Browne, “Efficient trees: greed is good,” Computers & Graphics, 31:4, 610-616.
C. Browne, “Impossible fractals,” Computers & Graphics, 31:4, 659-667.
C. Browne, “Harmonograms,” Computers & Graphics, 31:2, 292-300.
C. Browne, “Taiji variations: Yin and Yang in multiple dimensions,”Computers & Graphics 31:1, 142-146.

2006

 C. Browne, “Wild knots,” Computers & Graphics, 30:6, 1027-1032.
C. Browne and P. Wamelen, “Spiral packing,” Computers & Graphics, 30:5, 834-842.
C. Browne, “Fractal board games,” Computers & Graphics, 30:1, 126-133.

2005

 C. Browne, “Cantor knots,” Computers & Graphics, 29:6, 998-1003.
C. Browne, “Rep-tiles with woven horns,” Computers & Graphics, 29:4, 625-629.

2003

 C. Browne, “Akron: Connections in a Higher Dimension,” Abstract Games Magazine, 1:14.

2002

 C. Browne, “Hex Strategy 5: Opening Theory,” Abstract Games Magazine, 1:10.
C. Browne, “Rep-tiles with Woven Horns,” M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 5:4.

2001

 C. Browne, “Hex Strategy 4: Computer Hex,” Abstract Games Magazine, 1:8.
C. Browne, “Gonnect: The Best of Go and Hex,” Abstract Games Magazine, 1:6.

2000

 C. Browne, “Hex Strategy 3: Ladders,” Abstract Games Magazine, 1:4.
C. Browne, “Hex Strategy 2: Board Analysis,” Abstract Games Magazine, 1:3.
C. Browne, “Hex Strategy 1: Introduction and Basic Strategy,” Abstract Games Magazine, 1:2.

1998

 C. Browne, “Font Decoration by Automatic Mesh Fitting,” Electronic Publishing, Artistic Imaging, and Digital
     Typography, R. D. Hersch, J. Andre and H. Brown (eds), Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 23-43.

1996

 C. Browne, J. Hogan, and J. Hynd, “Prediction of Student Performance Using Neurocomputing Techniques,”
     Proceedings of the 1st Australasian Conference on Computer Science Education, ACM, 57-72.

Erdõs number 3.

Editorships

2013

2012
2011

Associate Editor of the International Computer Games Association (ICGA) Journal.
Guest editor for the IEEE T-CIAIG special issue on "General Game Systems".
Guest editor for the IEEE T-CIAIG special issue on "Computational Aesthetics in Games".
Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games (T-CIAIG).

Invited Talks

2011
2010

2008

"Monte Carlo Tree Search," Imperial College London, UK.
"Monte Carlo Tree Search," Imperial College London, UK.
“Fast Playouts for Connection Games,” Friedrich-Schiller-Universitaet, Jena, Germany.
“Truchet Curves and Surfaces,” London Knowledge Lab, UK.
“Evolutionary Game Design,” Jet Propulsion Lab, Cambridge University, UK.

Programme Committees

2013



2012


2011

2010





2009

IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence, Singapore.
IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC 2013), Cancun, Mexico.
IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence in Games (CIG 2013), Niagara Falls, Canada.
International Computer Games Association Conference (CG 2013), Yokohama, Japan.
Third Workshop on Procedural Generation in Games (PCG2012), Raleigh, North Carolina.
Computational Intelligence in Games (CIG 2012), Granada, Spain. Co-chair of "MCTS for Games" special session.
AISB Symposium: AI & Games (AI-4-Games), Birgmingham, UK.
Computational Intelligence in Games (CIG 2011), Seoul, South Korea.
AI & Games Symposium (AISB '11), York, UK.
IEEE Games Innovation Conference (GIC'2010), Hong Kong.
11th annual European GAMEON Conference (GAMEON'2010), Leicester, UK.
IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence in Games (CIG'2010), Copenhagen, Denmark.
Workshop on Procedural Content for Computer Games (PC Games 2010), Monterey, USA.
4th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital games (ICFDG 2010), Sydney, Australia.
AIBS Symposium on AI & Games (AI&GAMES 2010), Leicester, UK.
Fourth International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (ICFDG 2009), Florida, USA.

Workshop and Event Organisation

2013
2012
2011
2010

AI & Game Aesthetics, AIIDE 2013 workshop, Stanford, USA.
UCT for Games and Beyond, joint project meetings.
UCT for Games and Beyond, joint project meetings.
UCT for Games and Beyond, joint project meetings.
Android programming workshop, Imperial College London.
3rd Networking Event, AI & Games Network, Dana Centre, London.
MCTS: State of the Art, Imperial College London. The world's first international symposium on MCTS!
iPad programming workshop, Imperial College London.

Supervisions

2012

2010

 Muhammad Ariff Hafiz, MEng4 project, Imperial College London, supervisor.
Ilya Zushinskiy, MEng4 project, Imperial College London, supervisor.
Gareth Williams, MSc, Imperial College London, co-supervisor.

Published Board Games

2012



2010



2009


2008


2006

 Shibumi, Nestorgames, Spain.
Margo, Nestorgames, Spain.
Yavalath Deluxe, Nestorgames, Spain.
Pentalath, Nestorgames, Spain.
Akron, Pancerola, Poland.
Margo, Pancerola, Poland.
Triad, Pancerola, Poland.
Celtica, Nestorgames, Spain.
Cross, Nestorgames, Spain.
Mutton, Nestorgames, Spain.
Rebel Moon Defense, Nestorgames, Spain.
Palago, Colour of Strategy, NZ.
Limit, Nestorgames, Spain.
Yavalath, Nestorgames, Spain.
Trilith, IQideas, NZ.

BoardGameGeek entry listing most of my game designs (63 at last count).

Artwork

2010
2009

2008


2007
2006
2005
2003
2000

Publicity art for the 10th anniversary of the California Mathematics Council.
C. Pickover, The Math Book, Sterling (contributor).
H. Gilbert and J. Lo, Performance and Cosmopolitics, Palgrave Macmillan (cover image).
A. Tiedermann, Pythagoras' Firkant: Matemagi for talfreaks, Forlaget Matematik, Nordby (contributor).
Bridges 2008, 11th annual Bridges Conference, Leeuwarden, Netherlands (exhibitor).
Computers & Graphics, all 2008 issues (cover image).
Fractals: Complex Geometry, Patterns, and Scaling in Nature and Society, September issue (cover image).
C. Pickover, The Mobius Strip, Thunder's Mouth Press, New York City (contributor).
C. Browne, Connection Games: Variations on a Theme, AK Peters, (cover image and illustrations).
H. Gilbert and A. Johnston, In Transit: Travel, Text, Empire, Peter Lang (cover image).
C. Browne, Hex Strategy: Making The Right Connections, AK Peters (cover image and illustrations).

Samples



 

September 2007 cover for Fractals.

  

2008 cover for Computers & Graphics.

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