Newsletter of the College of Architecture at Texas A&M University
Faculty and students from Texas A&M's Department of Visualization presented their research and animation work this summer at SIGGRAPH 2010, an annual convention showcasing the latest advancements in computer graphics and interactive techniques.
This year’s conference, held July 25-29 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, attracted more than 22,000 artists, researchers, gaming professionals, filmmakers, students and academics from 79 countries.
Ann McNamara, assistant professor of visualization, presented "Perceptual Rendering Methods," an overview of her and her associates’ research into subtle gaze direction, a novel technique that combines eye-tracking with subtle image-space modulation to direct a viewer's gaze about a digital image.
In another presentation, "Perceptually Motivated Graphics, Visualization, and 3D Displays," McNamara was joined by Katerina Mana from the Technical University of Crete, to talk about their research on the role of perception in computer graphics, virtual environments, visualization and 3-D displays.
McNamara also chaired "Fur, Feathers and Trees," a SIGGRAPH session in which animators discussed creating skin on a hairless cat, werewolf transformations, animated trees and a feather system employed in "Clash of the Titans."
Ergun Akleman, professor of visualization, led a presentation, "Cyclic Twill-Woven Objects," demonstrating how to create a seamless woven surface on a 3-D object, with his research associates Qing Xing, who's pursuing a Master of Science in Visualization, Jianer Chen, professor of computer science at Texas A&M, and Yen-Lin Chen, a Texas A&M graduate student in computer science and engineering.
Vinod Srinivasan, assistant professor of visualization, demonstrated how to develop effective and engaging learning games with minimal effort in a presentation titled “Designing Entertaining Educational Games Using Procedural Rhetoric: A Case Study." His research, with Lars Doucet, who's pursuing a Master of Science in Visualization degree at Texas A&M noted that sound game-design principles maximize fun and learning.
Graduate visualization students Ariel Chisholm, Megha Davalath and Robert Graf showcased their computer graphics work during the conference's "dailies" section, which featured juried images and short animations chosen for their extraordinary power and beauty.
Chisholm presented a shading study and digital concept paintings that explore nonverbal visual narrative construction. Davalath created a flight sequence with a gargoyle that was both bipedal and quadrupedal. Graf's presentation identified problems and solutions for rendering “Mandelbulb," an animated three-dimensional representation of the Mandelbrot set, a famous fractal equation.
See photos of Aggies at SIGGRAPH 2010, including a reception hosted by the Department of Visualization and attended by many former students who are now working in the industry.
Videos created by visualizations students are also available online.
- Posted: Sept. 6, 2010 -
Contact: Phillip Rollfing, prollfing@archone.tamu.edu or 979.458.0442.
