Improvement on last year's project

One major goal of this program was to fix some of the flaws of previous years.
Chris and his old partner Nick first modeled their Elliptical Fire Theory
last year in C++. This year, the program has been rewritten and modified in java format
using the "NetBeans" JDK. This programming language is more user friendly and has a much better
GUI (Graphical User Interface). This year's project also aims to extand upon the existing theory
to allow for variation. Finally, the project includes emperical validation of what the program displays.

Expansion on the Elliptical Fire Theory

Often referred to as the corallary of the Elliptical Fire Theory, this expansion
is based on the notion that the radii of the perfect circle formed by a perfect fire
can be shortened and elongated to account for the imperfections of real fire flow.

Emperical Validation

In order to determine the accuracy of the fire modeling program, two forms of empirical validation
have been implimented. The first was to incorporate satellite images into the program. This serves to
alleviate some inaccuracies by generating more realistic forest settings as opposed to random RGB values.
Satellite images were taken and assigned RGB values, then an actual forest was surveyed to determine what
actual types of vegetation were being represented. Secondly, small scale fire testing was done to compare
the actual flow of fire with that simulated by the program. (Note to the reader, no houses were harmed in
the executing of these experimental fires.) The fires were video taped, then frame by frame pictures were
used in comparison to the different "steps" of time in the fire program.

For more information on the project, you can access the Final Report.