SIGGRAPH 2018 six awards announced

SIGGRAPH is the international heavyweight CG event representing the highest level of computer graphics. This year’s SIGGRAPH conference was held in Vancouver from August 12th to 16th.

In the rotating speech led by Chairman Roy C. Anthony and ACM SIGGRAPH, SIGGRAPH 2018 officially kicked off and the 2018 full list of winners was announced simultaneously – the award recognizes computer graphics for research, teaching, service and writing. Individuals who have made significant contributions to the academic community.

The AI ​​Technology Review will organize the winners as follows:

Outstanding Achievement Award in the Computer Graphics Field

Daniel Cohen-Or

Israel. Tel Aviv University

The award is given annually to individuals who have achieved outstanding results in the field of computer graphics and interactive technology.

This year’s winner is Professor Daniel Cohen-Or from Tel Aviv University, Israel. As a widely recognized computer graphics community, Daniel Cohen-Or has made significant contributions to geometric processing, shape analysis and image processing.

He and his colleagues were the first to study the reconstruction of three-dimensional surfaces from point clouds. The results they made after 2000 were one of the earliest results in the field. They developed a reconstruction method using the moving least squares method in the “Point Set Plane Calculation and Rendering” task, which has a wide range of influence until today. In addition, he is a pioneer in the field of geometric gradient processing, directly affecting the major breakthroughs in shape editing, morphing, parameterization, and hole completion.

ACM SIGGRAPH Outstanding Service Award

1. Scott Owen

United States. Georgia State University

The award is presented annually to recognize volunteers who have made outstanding contributions to ACM SIGGRAPH – primarily to those who have held senior positions and have provided quality services to the organization for a long time.

This year’s winner, G. Scott Owen, is a senior veteran of the SIGGRAPH organization. He is a professor at Georgia State University and has served as Director of the SIGGRAPH Executive Committee, Chairman of the SIGGRAPH Conference, Chairman of the SIGGRAPH Conference Advisory Group (CAG), and Chairman of ACM SIGGRAPH. And the chairman of the SIGGRAPH Standing Committee.

His main contribution was to launch a series of educational programs and education forums for computer graphics during his tenure as SIGGRAPH. At the same time, during his tenure as ACM SIGGRAPH, he urged ACM SIGGRAPH ASIA to implement and successfully spread the influence of the organization to Asia.

New Researcher Award

Gordon Wetzstein

United States. Stanford University

The award is presented annually to recognize newcomers who have made significant contributions to the field of computer graphics in the near future – to encourage these young scholars who have made outstanding contributions early in their careers.

This year’s winner, Gordon Wetzstein, a teacher at the Department of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, has achieved significant results in the display of hardware and display rendering technologies – he has developed a display that solves a variety of perceptual challenges, not only in automation. Stereoscopic and Gathering-Adjustment conflicts have made breakthroughs, and the need for corrective lenses to be worn by visually impaired people when viewing the display is eliminated.

In addition, Gordon Wetzstein is the author/co-author of more than 80 conference and journal publications covering computer graphics, optics, information display, computer vision and computational photography. He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of British Columbia, Canada. After graduating in 2011, he worked as a research assistant at the MIT Media Lab for a period of time and three years later at Stanford University.

Digital Art Creation Lifetime Achievement Award

Monika Fleischmann

Fraunhofer IZB Sankt Augustin

The award is awarded annually to artists who have created a number of important works and have made important contributions to the enhancement of aesthetic content in the field of digital art.

This year’s winner, Monika Fleischmann, has a multidisciplinary background (fashion design, art and drama, computer graphics) that has made her an expert in the fields of art, computer science and media technology. Her art work focuses on the popular culture of digital media. Changes in identity and perception.

She is the main force in the transformation of the media to interactive media practice and creative disciplines. She personally participates in, analyzes and outlines the evolutionary path of digital media in the face of great changes in educational culture. These become strong in her future social and cultural reflection and criticism. A powerful weapon.

Excellent Doctoral Thesis Award

Jun-Yan Zhu(朱俊彦)

United States. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The award is presented annually to doctoral candidates who have successfully written excellent dissertations in the field of computer graphics and interactive technology and successfully completed their defenses.

This year’s winner is Zhu Junyan, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is a pioneer in modern machine learning applications in the field of computer graphics. His thesis is the first paper to solve the problem of natural image synthesis with deep neural networks. The core scientific research result, CycleGAN, is not only widely used by researchers, but also the visual artist’s heart.

CycleGAN has been applied to problem solving in different fields, not limited to computer graphics – from generating synthetic training data (computer vision) to converting MRI images to CT scan images (medical images) to NLP and speech synthesis The application has a place for CycleGAN.

The AI ​​Technology Review links Zhu Junyan’s work as follows:

Ph.D. thesis address: http:t.cn/Re3MUjR

CycleGAN project address: http:t.cn/R6pEHV5

ACM SIGGRAPH Practitioner Special Award

Bill Reeves

Pixar Animation Studio

This is the first new award this year, awarded to those who have made significant contributions to the advancement of practice and development in computer graphics and mutual technology, affirming the best and most influential applications and practitioners.

As the director of animation development at Pixar Animation Studios, Bill Reeves developed breakthrough technologies such as particle systems and Z-Depth shadows, and used them in practice, such as the animated film “Star Trek 2: Khan Roar”, “Star Wars 3: Return of the Jedi”, “Juvenile Sherlock Holmes”, and even the production software such as the RenderMan renderer, have the merits of Bill Reeves.

In addition, he is one of the three founders of Pixar animation software Marionette, which has been used in Pixar animation for 26 years from 1986 to 2012.

ACM SIGGRAPH Academy

Those who have won the Stephen A. Coons Award, the Digital Art Creation Achievement Award and the Computer Graphics Excellence Award will automatically become the first members of the ACM SIGGRAPH Academy.

Welcome to https://www.siggraph.org/participate/awards to learn about previous award winners and more.