Morgan McGuire


Estimating Ambient Obscurance in Real-Time / New Initiatives in Digital Publishing

29th June 2012, 2:00pm - 3:00pm
Salle TBA, PCRI (how to get there ?)


Abstract


This talk covers two areas of my recent work that are relevant to the visualization community. The algorithmic portion summarizes some recent advances for real-time rendering of ambient obscurance (AO). This AO work focuses on conveying proximity, occlusion, and contact for 3D interaction instead of physically-based rendering for appearance.

The digital publishing portion addresses the technical challenges and opportunities of moving beyond traditional publishing workflow, from text layout libraries to copyright and economics. I have done little academic research in this area--instead I will describe production issues and experience through case studies of:

  • The Graphics Codex, a nonlinear, interactive graphics book for iPhone and iPad (http://graphicscodex.com)
  • The Journal of Computer Graphics Techniques, an independent open-access journal (http://jcgt.org)
  • codeheart.js, a framework and accompanying digital textbook for mobile and web games (http://codeheartjs.com)


Biography


Morgan McGuire is an assistant professor of Computer Science at Williams College. He received his PhD from Brown University in 2006. Prof. McGuire is the co-chair of the 2010 ACM Symposium on Non-Photorealistic Animation and Rendering, a member of the Journal of Graphics, Game, and GPU Tools editorial board, and the lead author of Creating Games: Mechanics, Content, and Technology. He previously co-chaired the ACM Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games in 2008 and 2009.

He has contributed to many commercial products including the E-Ink display for the Amazon Kindle, the PeakStream high-performance computing infrastructure acquired by Google, the Titan Quest role playing game, and the Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 video game for Xbox 360.

Prof. McGuire's current research spans computer vision and video games. He's using video cameras to help computers understand the 3D world around them, and is investigating new design methods for video games increase interactivity and engagement as well as improving 3D rendering. He incorporates these research ideas into the computer graphics and game design courses that he teaches at Williams College. He is currently working on a new Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 game at Activision and an advanced computer graphics textbook.