College hosts international shape
modeling conference May 22-25

Shape Modeling International 2012, an annual forum featuring the latest computational techniques and mathematical theories in shape modeling — the creation of digital representations of shapes — will be hosted May 22-25, 2012 by Texas A&M’s College of Architecture.

In addition to presenting technical papers, conference attendees, who will include leading researchers, developers and practitioners, will present papers in a new shape fabrication and sculpting category, said Ergun Akleman, professor of visualization and a member of the SMI 2012 organization committee.

The new category will feature practitioners, such as architects and sculptors, describing their shape modeling methods, inviting new questions and motivations for research.

Organizers for the conference, scheduled to take place in the Langford Architecture Center and/or Texas A&M’s Emerging Technologies and Economic Development Interdisciplinary Building, are also accepting proposals for half- and full-day courses in shape design, fabrication and construction.

SMI 2012 will also feature a physical and virtual sculpture exhibition.

In addition to Akleman, faculty from the College of Architecture facilitating SMI ‘2012 include:

• Gabriel Esquivel, assistant professor of architecture, virtual and physical sculpture exhibition chairman;
• Ann McNamara, assistant professor of visualization, courses and tutorials chairwoman and
• Wei Yan, assistant professor of architecture, shape fabrication and sculpting papers chairman.

SMI 2012 is also being sponsored by the college’s Department of Visualization, Texas A&M’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering, the Association for Computing Machinery, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Bridges Organization and the International Society of the Arts, Mathematics and Architecture.

The first SMI event was a 1994 workshop in Aizu-Wakamatsu, Japan called “Shape Modeling: Parallelism, Interactivity and Applications.”

The SMI conference has been an annual event since 2001, when it took place in Genova, Italy.

Contact:   Phillip Rollfing, prollfing@archone.tamu.edu or 979.458.0442.