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Simon Leistikow.

I am a freelance software engineer and computer science researcher from Germany.

When not at work, I am most likely exploring the (real) world 🌍

About Me

I’m a freelance software engineer and researcher who enjoys both exploration and specialization. I genuinly like wrapping my head around interesting problems and picking up new skills along the way.

During my PhD in computer science (visualization), I worked with a wide range of data types, including volumetric and heterogeneous ensemble data, cohort and tabular data, spherical data, and graphs. This made me largely data-agnostic and comfortable adapting to whatever a project requires.

I particularly enjoy integrating systems: designing clean interfaces, writing adapters, and connecting frameworks in a way that makes the overall solution stronger than its individual parts.

Currently, I work as a freelance software engineer building audio effect plugins - an area that brings together many interesting topics under the hood.

If you have a project you’d like to discuss, feel free to reach out!

Technologies I've been working with include:
  • C++
  • JUCE
  • Qt
  • CMake
  • CI (GitHub, GitLab)
  • Linux / Windows / MacOS / Android
  • Python (e.g. C-API, scikit-learn)
  • Java
  • OpenGL / GLSL
  • OpenCL
  • OpenMP
  • OpenLB
  • STL / Boost
  • Dash / Plotly
  • VTK
  • Android API
  • SQL
  • Blender

Selected Projects

Pressure Audio Plugin
C++ JUCE CMake Blender
Pressure Audio Plugin
This is the first commercially released audio effect plugin I developed on behalf of Definition Of Hard Techno, O.B.I., and Noise Not War. The plugin combines saturation, distortion, transient shaping and filtering, primarily for the Hard Techno and Schranz genre. For this project, I had to learn the everything needed for digital sound processing (dsp) from scratch and familarized myself with the JUCE framework. Expect more to come soon!
Download Demo
Roaming Borders
Java Android-API 🌍
Roaming Borders
The idea for this app came while being on vacation in Meersburg (Germany) near the swiss border and suddenly I got charged 3€ because my phone connected itself to the swiss cell tower having a stronger signal than the german ones. This Android app automatically blocks data connectivity when roaming in user-selected countries.
Download APK
Voreen
C++ Qt CMake OpenGL OpenLB OpenMP OpenCL GLSL Boost VTK Python CI
Voreen
I am one of the maintainers of Voreen, a rapid-prototyping rendering framework. It has originally been built to quickly develop rendering algorithms for volumetric data, but since has grown to feature many flow ensemble simulation and analysis tools contributed by me.
quiGLy
C++ OpenGL GLSL Qt CMake
quiGLy
quiGly is a mostly finished project for prototyping, configuring and learning about the OpenGL pipeline, including shader programming. I contributed most of the OpenGL related code and respective Qt integration, which required to study almost the entire OpenGL 4.5 specification.
ICQ Messages Viewer
Python Qt SQL
ICQ Messages Viewer
A simplistic ICQ chat message viewer that allows to read the chat history stored in a 'Messages.qdb' database after ICQ was officially shut down.
polarsteps2kml Converter
Python XML 🌍
polarsteps2kml Converter
Polarsteps makes a great travel diary, however it's not as versatile as Google Earth. If, like me, you enjoy roaming around in Google Earth, this tool converts your polarsteps travel archives into Google Earth's .kml format.

Education

2019 - present
PhD in Computer Science
University of Münster, Germany

I am currently wrapping up research projects and finalizing the manuscript on comparative visualization of measured and simulated flow data for data assimilation.

During my PhD, I worked on various projects around (but not limited to) medical imaging data as part of DFG grants CRC 1450 – 431460824 and LI 1530/28-1 – 468824876.

That work gave me a strong, hands-on foundation in data wrangling, visualization, machine learning, flow simulation, and high-performance computing.

Please refer to my publications for more insights!

Publication List
2016 - 2019
Master of Science in Computer Science
University of Münster, Germany

A focus on applied computer science (including computer graphics, visualization, computer vision, and machine learning) led me to work on various smaller software projects. I contributed to Voreen as a student assistant throughout my master’s studies, strengthening expertise in C++, Qt, CMake, and OpenGL.

Building on my expertise with Voreen and the features I had integrated along the way, my master’s thesis focused on the visual analysis of measured and simulated flow data, incorporating the OpenLB simulation framework into Voreen.

During my thesis, collaboration with the Lattice Boltzmann research group at KIT and the Medical Physics Group at the University Hospital in Jena led to a joint DFG project for my PhD, bridging visualization, computational fluid dynamics, and medical imaging.

Master Thesis (German)
2013 - 2016
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science
University of Münster, Germany

Alongside core computer science and mathematical foundations, a minor in physics provided exposure to real-world applications of theoretical concepts.

This interest led to my bachelor’s thesis on volumetric velocity vector fields from 3D-PC-MRI, focusing on streamline calculation and visualization. To enhance data interpretation, I implemented a streamline bundling algorithm in Voreen.

Additional experience includes tutoring Computer Science 1 and 2 and assisting in software engineering tutorials.

Bachelor Thesis (German)