Data-Driven Computer Graphics

Dr. Hanspeter Pfister, MERL

March 12, 2004
11 a.m. - 12 noon
Fuller Labs 320

Abstract

During its formative years, computer graphics has focused largely on modeling the everyday world with analytic representations that are transformed into images and animations using efficient simulations. These analytic models are used for the representation of surface shape, the description of surface reflectance, and the application of physics for simulating the dynamics of elastic materials, to name just a few examples. At present, this framework for computer graphics is very mature and has produced some astounding results in movies and computer games. Nevertheless, much of the world is too complex to be described by analytic models, which can be easily confirmed by observations in our every-day environments or during a Sunday stroll.

In last ten years, we have also witnessed significant technological developments in the areas of high-quality sensors and measurement devices. In addition, powerful computers have become pervasive, which has greatly increased our ability to handle complexity. In this talk I will explore new, data-driven approaches to computer graphics that model the world around us directly from measurements. These approaches differ from the classical analytic models and instead depend on cameras for data acquisition, machine learning for generalization, and signal processing for image synthesis.

I will discuss three specific computer graphics applications of data-driven modeling. The first, called image-based 3D photography, addresses the problem of creating and rendering high-quality computer graphics models of arbitrary real- world objects. Second, I will discuss the problem of interpolating and extrapolating new reflectance models (specifically isotropic BRDFs) from a collection of acquired samples. Finally, I will present a practical data-driven system for the animation of faces, where identity and performance parameters are lifted directly from video.

Biography

Hanspeter Pfister is Associate Director and Senior Research Scientist at MERL - Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories - in Cambridge, MA. He is the chief architect of VolumePro, Mitsubishi Electric's real-time volume rendering hardware for PCs. His research interests include computer graphics, scientific visualization, and computer architecture. His work spans a range of topics, including point-based graphics, 3D photography, 3D face recognition, volume graphics, and computer graphics hardware. Hanspeter Pfister received his Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1996 from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He received his M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, Switzerland, in 1991. Dr. Pfister has taught courses at major graphics conferences including SIGGRAPH, IEEE Visualization, and Eurographics. He has been teaching introductory and advanced graphics courses at the Harvard Extension School since 1999. He is Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG), chair of the IEEE Technical Committee on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TCVG), and has served as a member of international program committees of major graphics conferences. Dr. Pfister was the general chair of the IEEE Visualization 2002/03 conference. He is senior member of the IEEE, and member of ACM, ACM SIGGRAPH, the IEEE Computer Society, and the Eurographics Association.

Host

Prof. Neil Heffernan

Refreshments will be served.

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