Q&A with the 2012 Technical Papers Chair Hanspeter Pfister from Harvard

Following is a brief conversation with Hanspeter Pfister, the SIGGRAPH 2012 Technical Papers Chair from Harvard University. Pfister is Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. 

His research lies at the intersection of visualization, computer graphics, and computer vision. He received his PhD in computer science in 1996 from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and his MS in Electrical Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1991.


Briefly describe your past experiences as a SIGGRAPH volunteer:
I attended my first SIGGRAPH in Chicago in 1992 and got hooked immediately. From 1994 to 1996, I was a student volunteer, hanging out mostly at the International Center and occasionally crimping ethernet cables -- great times! In 2001, I was invited to join the SIGGRAPH Technical Papers Committee for the first time. In 2005, I was jury member of the Sketches program, which I chaired in 2006. And I've been a member of the Papers, Courses, and Sketches Committees for SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia numerous times.

What motivated you to serve as this year's Technical Papers Chair?
It is a huge honor to be asked to become Technical Papers Chair, so when Rob Cook -- chair of the Papers Advisory Group -- asked me, I immediately said yes. The main motivation was to give back to the community that has been a big part of my career for many years. And I was looking forward to being a part of (and shaping) the process that selects the highest quality papers for acceptance at SIGGRAPH. 

How exactly is the Jury selected?
Selecting the Technical Papers Committee is the most important thing a Technical Papers Chair does. The first step was to select the Papers Advisory Board, which consisted of Marc Alexa (SIGGRAPH 2013 Chair), Kavita Bala (SIGGRAPH ASIA 2011 Chair), Fredo Durand, Hugues Hoppe (SIGGRAPH 2011 Chair), Holly Rushmeier, and Peter-Pike Sloan (SIGGRAPH ASIA 2012 Chair). They were a tremendous help throughout the process and helped me to select the committee. We had to identify the experts in various communities, balance the areas in which we anticipated submission, find the right mix between experience and fresh blood, and consider term limits to make sure that new members join us each year. It was a daunting, but very exciting task.

How did the Jury process go this year?
Besides a server crash on submission day, it went exceedingly well. The 53 members of the Papers Committee did a tremendous amount of work, as did the hundreds of external reviewers. I had a lot of support from my assistant Angela Anderson from Talley Management, and a host of other people who helped to run the process smoothly and professionally. Overall we accepted 94 papers out of 449 submissions for an acceptance rate of 21%, and referred another 9 papers to the ACM Transactions on Graphics.

Did you notice any trends in the submissions?
In addition to traditional areas such as rendering, surface modeling, image and video processing, fluid simulation, and character animation, we accepted papers in emerging areas such as 3D fabrication, light field displays, real-time sound synthesis, and tactile feedback devices. I am especially excited about papers that stretch the definition of graphics because they help evolve our field and make SIGGRAPH vibrant and exciting.

Did the content for S2012 meet your expectations?
Seeing the huge number of submissions and considering how much work went into them is humbling. I am deeply thankful to all the authors who sent their work to SIGGRAPH 2012, and to all the reviewers and committee members for selecting the best papers this year in computer graphics and interactive techniques. We ended up with a terrific and exciting program with outstanding papers in all of the technical areas.

How can the Technical Papers program make certain that it remains relevant for years to come?
Looking at the creativity and ingenuity of the submissions this year I am not worried about the future. And the great thing about SIGGRAPH is that it is able to reinvent itself. As long as we continue to evolve the definition of computer graphics and interactive techniques and allow for new and fresh ideas to be published we will remain relevant. And I have no doubts that visual and interactive techniques will continue to play a huge role in our everyday lives.

What is your advice to someone considering submitting a future SIGGRAPH technical paper?
Read the FAQ on our web site! Many of the questions I received have been answered there, and the process is described in great detail. And then of course produce some outstanding work that is inspiring, significant, and maybe unexpected. Then spend the effort and time to write a good paper about it. The quality of the writing really matters, and I would suggest you look carefully at some of the great papers from previous years. It does take effort, but I can assure you that every paper is treated with respect and will receive thoughtful, helpful reviews.

Briefly describe one of your more intriguing ongoing projects at Harvard:
I am very excited to work with my neuroscience collaborators at the Harvard Center for Brain Science on reconstructing the detailed neural circuitry of the brain, one of the grand challenges of this century. We are dealing with tera- and soon petabytes of image data from electron microscopy and are working on fully-automated reconstruction techniques that are scalable and efficient. The challenges are tremendous in all areas of computer vision, visualization, graphics systems, and network analysis -- I am having a blast.

What were some of the key things you took away from your 11 years at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL)?
Work with people who are smarter than you -- at MERL I had the privilege to be surrounded by some of the best researchers and work with some of the best students around the world. Work on practical problems to drive technical innovation -- the other way around is a lot harder. And of course my boss and mentor, Joe Marks, taught me to delegate, delegate, delegate -- a skill that serves me well as a faculty member.

Would you recommend a career in computer science to your daughters and how did you pick their names?
My daughters Lilly (9) and Audrey (6) already monopolize the family iPad and laptop with their games and e-books. They are learning at an early age what makes computers so exciting: the ability to create and simulate anything. I am sure that they will pick up computer science skills in whatever career they choose.

As for how we picked their names: We like old fashioned names and wanted to make sure their names are somewhat unique, so we checked their popularity on Martin Wattenberg's fabulous Baby Name Wizard visualization. Of course the irony is that both names had a huge uptick in popularity since then. I guess we were trend setters.

SIGGRAPH 2012 Technical Papers Preview

The SIGGRAPH 2012 Technical Papers program is the premier international forum for disseminating new scholarly work in computer graphics and interactive techniques. The 39th International Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, 5–9 August 2012 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, features Technical Papers that detail new advances across many fronts, including 3D display technology, photographic prints for HDR images, textile design, and more.

“This year’s program features papers that propel the field forward as rapidly and vibrantly as possible, while at the same time keeping us well-grounded academically, ensuring that SIGGRAPH remains a breeding ground for significant new areas of research,” said Hanspeter Pfister, SIGGRAPH 2012 Technical Papers Chair from Harvard University.

The papers to be presented were chosen by a distinguished committee of academia and industry experts. Out of 449 submissions, 94 papers were accepted to SIGGRAPH 2012, representing an acceptance rate of 21 percent.

This year’s Technical Papers program also includes conference presentations for 38 papers published this year in the journal ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG). A complete listing of all selected Technical Papers will be available on the SIGGRAPH 2012 web site in late May.

Highlights from the SIGGRAPH 2012 Technical Papers program:

Tensor Displays: Compressive Light Field Synthesis Using Multilayer Displays with Directional Backlighting

Authors: Gordon Wetzstein, Douglas Lanman, Matthew Hirsch, and Ramesh Raskar, MIT Media Lab

This paper presents a new display technology for glasses-free stereo viewing. Combining multiple layers of LCD, directional back-lighting, temporal modulation, and a new mathematical formulation allows for greater depths of field, wider fields of view, and a thinner display.

Practical application as suggested by the Technical Papers Chair: Glasses-free stereo display.

Printing Spatially-Varying Reflectance for Reproducing HDR Images

Authors: Yue Dong, Microsoft Research Asia; Xin Tong, Microsoft Research Asia; Fabio Pellacini, Dartmouth College and Sapienza University of Rome; and Baining Guo, Microsoft Research Asia

When traditional photographs are printed, the range of brightness can be heavily compressed, and the result can look flat. This paper presents a solution for viewing HDR images using a reflective sheet of paper, glossy ink, and a torch light illuminating the paper. With the proposed technique, one can get a better sense of the range of brightness in the scene and adjust it by moving the light or the paper.

Practical application as suggested by the Technical Papers Chair: Printing high-dynamic-range images, keeping brightness fidelity.

Structure-Aware Synthesis for Predictive Woven Fabric Appearance

Authors: Shuang Zhao, Wenzel Jakob, Steve Marschner, and Kavita Bala, Cornell University

3D scans of real fabrics to design new 3D fabrics for rendering. The fabrics are rendered in a physically based way, which allows textile designers to predict how a given weave pattern would look if it were fabricated, resulting in highly realistic results for textile design, ecommerce, entertainment, and apparel visualization.

Practical application as suggested by the Technical Papers Chair: Designing real fabrics by predicting their appearance.

Precomputed Acceleration Noise for Improved Rigid-Body Sound

Authors: Jeffrey N. Chadwick, Changxi Zheng, and Doug L. James, Cornell University

Colliding objects produce impact sounds, usually described by modal synthesis. This paper introduces the effect of acceleration in this model, thus allowing for rendering more realistic, crisper collision sounds, or making a sound audible when the modal component only would be inaudible by humans.

Practical application as suggested by the Technical Papers Chair: Improving collision-sound realism in virtual environments.

Design of Self-Supporting Surfaces

Authors: Etienne Vouga, Columbia University/King Abdullah University of Science and Technology; Mathias Höbinger, Evolute/TU Wien, Johannes Wallner, TU Graz/TU Wien; Helmut Pottmann, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology 

Finding architectural shapes that are self-supporting is a major challenge in masonry. Discrete differential geometry allows the authors to propose a non-linear optimization process approximating a given surface by a self-supporting one. They also produce a quad mesh with planar faces guiding steel/glass constructions.

Practical application as suggested by the Technical Papers Chair: A tool for architects to design constructions that have not been seen before.

Eulerian Video Magnification for Revealing Subtle Changes in the World

Authors: Hao-Yu Wu, Michael Rubinstein, Massachusetts Institute of Technology CSAIL; Eugene Shih, Quanta Research Cambridge, Inc.; Frédo Durand, William Freeman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, CSAIL,

Using an Eulerian formulation and signal-processing principles, the authors amplify subtle changes in videos that could not be perceived otherwise.

Practical application as suggested by the Technical Papers Chair: Easier monitoring of adult and infant patients.
 

CrossShade: Shading Concept Sketches Using Cross-Section Curves

Authors: Cloud Shao, University of Toronto; Adrien Bousseau, REVES - INRIA Sophia Antipolis; Alla Sheffer, The University of British Columbia; Karan Singh, University of Toronto

Cross-section curves are often used by artists to depict man-made objects. This paper exploits perceptual principles to derive a framework for shading these sketches, reconstructing appropriate normals and rendering them in a 3D-like fashion.

Practical application as suggested by the Technical Papers Chair: 3D-like rendering of sketches for improved surface depiction.

What Makes Paris Look Like Paris?
Authors: Carl Doersch, Saurabh Singh, and Abhinav Gupta, Carnegie Mellon University; Josef Sivic, INRIA/ Ecole Normale Sup´erieure, Paris; Alexei A. Efros, Carnegie Mellon University, INRIA/Ecole Normale Sup´erieure, Paris

Particular features (such as windows, lamps, trees) in photographs indicate where the images were captured. Using machine learning techniques and large collections of geotagged images, this technology extracts such elements from photographs and guesses where they were taken.

Practical application as suggested by the Technical Papers Chair: Automatic geolocalization of photographs.

Click here to watch the SIGGRAPH 2012 Technical Papers Preview Video.

SIGGRAPH 2012 Technical Papers Preview Video Unveiled

The SIGGRAPH Technical Papers program is the premier international forum for disseminating new scholarly work in computer graphics and interactive techniques. SIGGRAPH 2012 brings together more than 20,000 professionals from five continents, 5-9 August 2012 in Los Angeles, California, USA. Learn more at www.siggraph.org/s2012.

Watch the preview video by clicking here.

SIGGRAPH 2012 Emerging Technologies Preview

SIGGRAPH 2012 Emerging Technologies provides attendees an exclusive hands-on opportunity to interact with the newest developments in multiple fields including 3D displays, robotics, interactive input devices, and more.

SIGGRAPH 2012, 5-9 August at the Los Angeles Convention Center, welcomes 26 of the latest innovations selected by a jury of industry experts from 99 submissions. Countries represented include Japan, Hungary, Canada, Singapore, South Korea, United States, and China.

“Emerging Technologies demos allow attendees to directly experience novel systems. They provide a forum for presenters to showcase technology innovations and new interaction paradigms,” said Preston Smith, SIGGRAPH 2012 Emerging Technologies Chair from Laureate Institute for Brain Research. “Each one has an interactive component that is best experienced in person and involves either new technology or a novel use of existing technology. In many cases, these technologies won’t be seen by the general public for another three to five years and are right out of a research lab.”


Featured highlights from SIGGRAPH 2012 Emerging Technologies:

TELESAR V: TELExistence Surrogate Anthropomorphic Robot

Charith Lasantha Fernando, Masahiro Furukawa, Tadatoshi Kurogi, Kyo Hirota, Katsunari Sato, Kouta Minamizawa, and Susumu Tachi, Keio University, Graduate School of Media Design; Sho Kamuro, The University of Tokyo 

TELESAR V enables a user to bind with a dexterous robot and experience what that robot can feel with its fingertips when manipulating and touching objects remotely.

Chair Feedback: “Historically, robots have always been a popular Emerging Technologies attraction. This trend continues with the intriguing robotic presence of TELESAR V, a fifth generation robot that gives the user both the control of the robot and the experience that the robot is going through. Imagine being able to remotely perform some task, but also being able to feel the task that is being performed. The future applications are endless in the entertainment, science, or medical fields."

3D Capturing Using Multi-Camera Rigs, Real-Time Depth Estimation, and Depth-Based Content Creation for Multi-View and Light-Field Auto-Stereoscopic Displays

Peter Tamas Kovacs, Holografika Kft., and Ferederik Zilly, Fraunhofer Heinrich-Hertz Institut  

This futuristic system captures live HD footage with a wide-baseline multi-camera rig and estimates the depth map of the captured video streams based on which content is generated and presented on auto-stereoscopic 3D displays.

Chair Feedback: “Prepare to see something big this year at Emerging Technologies. We have a two-fold exhibit with an innovative camera rig for 3D capture, along with the largest (to date) auto-stereoscopic light-field 3D display! The presentation of this new rigging system is exciting enough, but you have to be able to experience this technology to fully appreciate it. Then witness the display of this amazing output on the impressive 140" (diagonal screen) glasses-free multi-view and light-field auto-stereoscopic 3D display. That is something to you really have to experience in person!”

Tensor Displays

Matthew Hirsch, Douglas Lanman, Gordon Wetzstein, and Ramesh Raskar, MIT Media Lab  

This new light-field-display technology system uses stacks of time-multiplexed, attenuating layers illuminated by uniform or directional backlighting optimized with non-negative tensor factorization. Tensor displays achieve greater depths of field, wider fields of view, and thinner enclosures compared to prior auto-multiscopic displays.

Chair Feedback: “’Auto-multiscopic displays’ is certainly a mouthful. But saying ’3D without glasses‘ is well understood by all. Tensor displays are an exciting display technology and is the next logical step in our ever-growing home theater experiences. It allows the user to have a 3D experience via the display but without the assistance of glasses or other such wearable devices."

Gosen: A Handwritten Notation Interface for Musical Performance and Learning Music

Tetsuaki Baba, Tokyo Metropolitan University; Yuya Kikukawa, Toshiki Yoshiike, Tatsuhiko Suzuki, Rika Shoji, and Kumiko Kushiyama, Graduate School of Design, Tokyo Metropolitan University  
 
Since the 1960s, Optical Music Recognition (OMR) has matured for printed scores, but research on handwritten notation and interactive OMR has been limited. By combining notation with performance, Gosen makes music more intuitive and accessible.

Chair Feedback: “Music is something that everyone enjoys and is a universal language. Yet one aspect that is less understood is the technical perspective of writing and reading music scores. This is an innovative device that can read any handwritten score and play that music. It can even follow written instruction as far as what instrument is to be played. This will change the way children and adults learn, create, and interact with music.”

BOTANICUS INTERACTICUS: Interactive Plants Technology

Ivan Poupyrev, Disney Research, Pittsburgh and Philipp Schoessler, University of Arts Berlin 

BOTANICUS INTERACTICUS is a technology for designing highly expressive interactive plants, both living and artificial. With a single wire placed anywhere in the soil, it transforms plants into multi-touch, gesture-sensitive, and proximity-sensitive controllers that can track a broad range of human interactions seamlessly, unobtrusively, and precisely. 

Chair Feedback: “It is not a far stretch to imagine a computer being used to time the watering of plants. But how about using the plant as the actual interface to the computer? Imagine being able to use a plant on your coffee table to fast forward a movie. Lost the remote? Go ahead and use the plant. This is a novel application of a haptic device in a new and inventive way to manipulate technology. Future applications could be in the home or entertainment industry.”

Ungrounded Haptic Rendering Device for Torque Simulation in Virtual Tennis

Wee Teck Fong, Ching Ling Chin, Farzam Farbiz, and Zhiyong Huang, Institute for Infocomm Research  
 
This interactive virtual tennis system utilizes an ungrounded haptic device to render the ball impact accelerations and torques experienced in real tennis. Novel features include the A-shaped vibrating element with high-power actuators. The application utilizes racket mass distribution and high-amplitude bending for torque generation and haptic rendering. 

Chair Feedback: "Many of our current electronic gameplay devices have done away with controllers. However, being able to receive certain feedback in gameplay is helpful for learning and also enhances the entertainment value. Learning tennis could be difficult if you expected to get a similar experience of playing a digital game with no controller and then made the transition to playing the real sport outside with a racket. This clever advancement provides the torque and impact of a real tennis match.”

Editor's note: The profiles of each of the 26 Emerging Technologies will be available on the S2012 website later this month. We will post an announcement here when they are published.

SIGGRAPH 2012 Courses Preview

Courses are short (1.5 hours) or half-day (3.25 hours) structured sessions that often include elements of interactive demonstration, performance, or other imaginative approaches to teaching. Attendees learn from leading experts in the field and gain inside knowledge that is critical to career advancement.

The spectrum of Courses ranges from an introduction to the foundations of computer graphics and interactive techniques for those new to the field to advanced instruction on the most current techniques and topics. Courses include core curricula taught by invited instructors as well as Courses selected from juried proposals.

A few highlights of Courses to look out for at SIGGRAPH 2012:

Physically Based Sound for Computer Animation
Authors: Doug James, Jeffrey Chadwick, and Changxi Zheng, Cornell University

This course addresses the need to make the principles and methods of physically based sound accessible to a broader graphics audience. It covers sound source models for numerous animated phenomena (rigid bodies, fracture, thin shells, cloth, fluids and fire), and take a hands-on approach to implementing practical systems.

Computational Displays: Combining Optical Fabrication, Computational Processing, and Perceptual Tricks to Build the Displays of the Future
Authors: Gordon Wetzstein, MIT Media Lab; Douglas Lanman, MIT Media Lab; Diego Gutierrez, Universidad de Zaragoza; Matthew Hirsch, MIT Media Lab

This course introduces computational displays that exploit the co-design of optical elements and efficient computational processing while taking particular characteristics of the human visual system into account; applications include 3D displays, next-generation projection systems, high dynamic range displays, perceptually-driven devices, and computational probes.

The complete Courses schedule will be available later this month. Click here for a list of 2011 Courses.

SIGGRAPH Media Registration Now Open

At SIGGRAPH 2012, artistic ability, scientific innovation, and everything in between converge to inspire and be inspired by the largest, most diverse gathering in computer graphics and interactive techniques in Los Angeles for the 39th International Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, 5-9 August 2012.

Online media registration  is now open. To receive the latest breaking news from SIGGRAPH 2012 exhibitors, register by 29 June. Online registration will close 2 August.

Please note: Even if you have qualified for a SIGGRAPH media badge in the past, you must re-qualify for SIGGRAPH 2012. Register online and return all required supporting documentation via fax, mail, or email to the address below:

SIGGRAPH 2012 Media Relations
401 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 2200
Chicago, IL 60611
Phone: +1.312.673.4933
Fax: +1.312.673.6707
media@siggraph.org

For a list of the documents required to complete your registration, please reference the SIGGRAPH 2012 Media Policies.  For questions and assistance with your pre-show coverage, contact: media@siggraph.org.

SIGGRAPH 2012 Media Highlights include:

SIGGRAPH Mobile: A first-time SIGGRAPH program developed to showcase the incredible advancements in mobile development. Experience the latest discoveries in the field of mobile graphics and apps during a full day of presentations, panels, workshops, and demonstrations.

Computer Animation Festival: The leading annual festival for the world's most innovative, accomplished, and amazing digital film and video creators. This year’s selections include outstanding achievements in time-based art, scientific visualization, visual effects, real-time graphics, and narrative shorts. The Computer Animation Festival is recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as a qualifying festival. Since 1999, several works originally presented in the Computer Animation Festival have been nominated for or have received a "Best Animated Short" Academy Award.

Real-Time Live!: Real-Time Live! is the premier showcase for the latest trends and techniques for pushing the boundaries of interactive visuals. As part of the Computer Animation Festival, an international jury selects submissions from a diverse array of industries to create a fast-paced, 45-minute show of cutting-edge, aesthetically stimulating real-time work.

Technical Papers: The SIGGRAPH Technical Papers program is the premier international forum for disseminating new scholarly work in computer graphics and interactive techniques. At the conference, paper authors provide brief overviews of their work in the Technical Papers Fast Forward event, then they present their complete papers in 22.5-minute sessions that include 4.5 minutes of Q&A. A complete listing of all selected papers will be available on the web site in late May.

Courses: Presented by experts in the field, SIGGRAPH 2012 courses provide attendees inside knowledge that is critical to career advancement. The spectrum of Courses ranges from an introduction to the foundations of computer graphics and interactive techniques for those new to the field to advanced instruction on the most current techniques and topics.

Keeping you informed: Stay up to date on everything SIGGRAPH 2012 with our monthly conference newsletter SIGGRAPHITTI, Facebook, and Twitter.

For complete details on all of the dynamic content available at SIGGRAPH 2012, or to register as media for the event, visit the For Media section of the SIGGRAPH 2012 web site.

Hébert Wins SIGGRAPH Lifetime Achievement Award in Digital Art

A steel ball rolls across a table covered with sand, its movement directed by one of Jean-Pierre Hébert's algorithms. The result is a mandala-like geometric pattern. © Jean-Pierre Hébert

The 2012 ACM SIGGRAPH Lifetime Achievement Award in Digital Art is awarded to Jean-Pierre Hébert for his pioneering achievements in creating art through computer programming. At the core of his work are algorithms that generate drawings on paper as well as sand and other mixed media. Jean-Pierre began working with digital conceptual algorithmic art in 1974 and has been an independent artist since 1984.

From 1989 on, his work has appeared in 17 SIGGRAPH Art Galleries to date. In 1995, he co-founded “The Algorists” with Roman Verostko, joined by Hans Dehlinger, Helaman Ferguson, Manfred Mohr, Ken Musgrave, and Mark Wilson. Jean-Pierre Hébert was appointed Artist in Residence at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at UC Santa Barbara in June 2003.He has been awarded grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation in 2006 and the David Bermant Foundation in 2009.

An image from the Hubble telescope of the most distant observed galaxies is interpreted by Hébert's software to create a network of lines on a large-format digital inkjet printer. (Original about 24 inches across.) © Jean-Pierre Hébert

His aesthetic is based on a patient, evolving exploration of the line. He looks at drawing not as gestural, but more essentially as a direct expression of thought that might be inspired by or suggestive of motion, time, music, light, logic, nature. Technically, his work rests on simple coding informed by geometry, mathematics, physics and great attention to rendering details. He also explores chaos and order, silence and sounds, music, text, poetry, and the ephemeral. Some of the ideas and concepts Jean-Pierre incorporates into his work stem from Zen Buddhism and his spiritual approach to life.

The first public exhibition of his digital drawings was in France in 1989 at the Galerie Alphonse Chave in Vence. Other landmark exhibitions he has participated in include “Alien Intelligence” at the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland in 2000, “Drawing with the Mind” at the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, “Imaging by Numbers” at the Block Museum of Art, Chicago in 2008, “Digital Pioneers” at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London in 2010, and “Drawing with Code” at the deCordova Museum in 2011.

Additional selected venues have included the Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics, Brooklyn Museum, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Tweed Museum, Getty Research Institute, New York Drawing Center, DAM (Berlin, Cologne). Hébert has resided in Santa Barbara, California since 1985. In addition to international exhibitions, he shows in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles venues and galleries.

Jean-Pierre Hébert is active as a public speaker and advocate for digital art and algorithmic methods of creating art. He has participated in SIGGRAPH panels in 1995, 1998, and 2005, the UCSB Art Symposiums in 1999 and 2007, Pratt Institute, UCLA, University of Chicago, Rhode Island School of Design, Pasadena Art Center College of Design, Southern California Institute of Architecture and many other conferences and artist talks.

ACM SIGGRAPH is honored to recognize Jean-Pierre Hébert. He is one of the pioneers who have led the way towards new forms of creative expression using digital techniques and algorithms. His consistent record of art production, exhibiting his work and public speaking as an advocate of digital art make him an exceptional individual in the field.

Click here to link to much more detailed information and artwork.