In the CGU (now the Manchester Visualisation Centre) he was actively involved in the design and development of early device-independent graphics systems (GINO-F and GINO-M) and early developments on computer graphics standards leading to GKS and PHIGS. His research on high-performance 3D graphics and user interfaces was supported by grants from the UK's Science and Engineering Research Council, the Universities' Computer Board, and industry (Simex and Digital Equipment Corporation).
In 1985 he moved to the Department of Computer Science at Manchester to concentrate on longer-term research in graphics and visualisation. From 1990 until 1996 he was Associate Director of the Centre for Novel Computing (CNC), where his research focused on the use of a novel virtual shared-memory parallel computer (a 64-processor Kendall Square Research KSR-1) for image synthesis and scientific visualisation.
In 1991 he was one of the founders of the Advanced Interfaces Group, which is researching software systems and applications of novel 3D interfaces, including virtual environments. He is the Research Group Leader for this group. You can find a description of the group's research via our home page .
He has published and lectured extensively in the USA, Japan, Australia and throughout Europe on interactive computer graphics and visualisation, and is co-author of a leading text book on the PHIGS and PHIGS PLUS graphics standards. He is a Fellow of the European Association for Computer Graphics, holding positions as Chair of its Conference Board, Vice-Chair, and then Chair of the Association in 1989-90. He is also an Afiliate Member of IEEE and ACM.