Academic and Research Interests

  • SIGGRAPH 96

    • I have the distinct pleasure of being the Sketches Chair for the SIGGRAPH 96 conference in New Orleans. This means I'll be chairing the Technical Sketches and Posters, Artist/Designer Sketches, and Animator Sketches.

    I'm really excited about this, as I'm fully empowered to accomplish my goal of dramatically broadening the bandwidth of the firehose of information that the SIGGRAPH conference already presents. These forums will allow many more people -- particularly graduate students, with whom I still feel a strong solidarity -- to participate, by making presentations of results perhaps less exalted than those that pass into the rarefied strata of the Papers, Art Show, and Computer Animation Festival.

    I have a vision: That the sketches could become the source of the largest bulk of information presented at the conference. There are, after all, many more small but interesting results, than Truly Significant ones.

    The Sketches will also serve as an excellent place for neophytes (such as grad students) to gain experience in making public, technical presentations. I, for one, will try to get all of my students to participate. I encourage all to submit!

    See the S96 Call for Participation for details on how to submit Sketches.

  • Modeling Natural Phenomena

    • Click for a brief description of my overall research effort

    My main efforts are in the areas of modeling natural phenomena. This subsumes everything it takes to build an entire world, from scratch.

  • What's New

    • Hot topics

    Some topics we're currently making progress in...

  • Proceduralism in Computer Graphics

    • Click here for a description of my first book

    One of my primary interests is proceduralism in computer graphics. My first book, born of the course notes for the SIGGRAPH course we've taught for several years, reflects this. Go buy a copy; I may get twenty-five cents in royalties...

    In fact, I'm so into this topic that I've taught a class on it, using that as our textbook. The student's images are available for all to see in the Procedural Methods class WWW page.

  • Proceduralist/Algorithmic Computer Art

    • Click for a (scanner-cropped) larger image

    Perhaps my primary interest is proceduralist methods for the fine (visual) arts. As an academic in a university electrical engineering and computer science department, this may seem a little ... soft. Nevertheless, I claim that computer-generated algorithmic art, in its purest sense, represents a significant event in the history of the creative process. (See Formal Logic and Self Expression.) The two fractals calendars I've produced reflect some of my work in this area.

    The new fractal calendar, by Daryl Hepting.

  • ACM Lectures

    • If any of the lecture topics described in the above-linked document appeal to you, you can contact the ACM Lectureship Series and/or me to request that a lecture tour be arranged in your area.

  • Teaching

    • Of course, as a university professor, I am a teacher. I teach courses in computer graphics, at the graduate and undergraduate levels.

    One course I taught last semester is CS219 Intermediate Computer Graphics.

    I also taught a course based on our new book: CS297 Procedural Methods for Computer Graphics. The students (both real and honorary) did some way excellent images -- have a look!

  • Important Documents On Line

    • Sometimes I'm asked for copies of my doctoral dissertation. The precedeing link is to a Postscript version of the text, without figures (which were cut-and-pasted into the original!)

    Similarly, my curriculum vitae is available here in html form.