CTU Events

30. PIS Assoc. Prof. Křivánek: Realistic rendering in computer graphics

19 Oct 2017   16:00-18:00

LECTURE ANNOTATION:

Computer generated images have become a natural part of our lives. We encounter them in animated films, cinematic special effects, advertisements, architectural and product visualizations, computer games, etc. At the same time, 3D printing technology is maturing and enables producing prints using various materials with a wide range of appearances. In this talk, I summarize some of my results in the area of computational approaches for generating photorealistic images and controlling appearance of 3D prints.

I show that these two seemingly different topics share the same basis: accurate simulation of the behavior of light in various environments. Origins of this computational problem can be traced back to the development of first nuclear weapons in the Manhattan project, and to names like von Neumann, Fermi, or Ulam. Modern light transport simulation algorithms are, among others, responsible for the incessant advances in the visual quality of blockbusters produced by studios such as Pixar, Disney, and Weta Digital.

LECTURER:

Jaroslav Křivánek is an associate professor of Computer Science at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Charles University, Prague, and a co-founder of and the Chief Science Officer at Render Legion, a company behind the realistic rendering software Corona Renderer. Previously, he was a Marie Curie research fellow at Cornell University and a researcher at the University of Central Florida, he worked as a consultant for Disney Research Zurich, Weta Digital and Sony Pictures Imageworks, and as an associate professor and researcher at Czech Technical University in Prague. Jaroslav received his Ph.D. from INRIA Rennes. His primary research interest is in computer graphics, with focus on realistic rendering, light transport simulation, and Monte Carlo methods. The technologies he has co-developed are employed, among others, by Weta Digital, Pixar Animation Studios, and many others. In 2014, Jaroslav was selected for the New Europe 100 list, “a list of outstanding challengers who are leading world-class innovation from Central and Eastern Europe”.

ABOUT THE PRAGUE COMPUTER SCIENCE SEMINAR:

The seminar will take place on the 4th Thursday of each month at 4:00pm (except June, July, August and December) alternately in the buildings of Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University, Karlovo nám. 13, Praha 2 and Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, Malostranské nám. 25, Praha 1.

Its program will consist of a one-hour lecture followed by a discussion. The lecture should be based on an (internationally) exceptional or remarkable achievement of the lecturer, presented in a way which is comprehensible and interesting to a broad computer science community. The lectures will be in English.
The seminar framework was laid out by the preparatory committee consisting of Michal Chytil (Czech Academy of Sciences, Computer Science Institute), Pavel Kordík (Czech Tech. Univ., Faculty of Information Technologies), Jan Kybic (Czech Tech. Univ., Faculty of Electrical Engineering), Michal Pěchouček Czech Tech. Univ., Faculty of Electrical Engineering), Jiří Sgall (Charles University, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics), Vojtěch Svátek (University of Economics, Faculty of Informatics and Statistics), Michal Šorel (Czech Academy of Sciences,Institute of Information Theory and Automation), and Filip Železný (Czech Tech. Univ., Faculty of Electrical Engineering)

The idea to organize this seminar emerged in discussions of the representatives of several research institutes on how to avoid the undesired fragmentation of the Czech computer science community.

Place

KN:E-301 (Šrámkova posluchárna), FEL, budova E, Karlovo nám. 13, Praha 2

Organizer

Přípravný výbor PIS

Contact person

Veronika Šínová, sinova@fel.cvut.cz, 224 35 7667

More information

http://praguecomputerscience.cz/index.php?l=en&p=30