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 Invited Speakers
"What is Your Relationship with Your Information Space?"
Jim Thomas (Principal Chief Scientist, Pacific Northwest Laboratories, USA)
(view abstract)
"Visualizing 3D Human Articulations: Problems and Solutions"
Prof Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann (Director, MIRALab University of Geneva, Switzerland)
(view abstract)
"Image Indexing and Retrieval in the Compressed Domain"
Prof Jianmin Jiang (University of Bradford, UK)
(view abstract)
"Visual Data Navigators - 'Collaboratories'"
Prof M.Jern (ITN, University of Linköping, Sweden)
(view abstract)
"Cobwebs in a Virtual Attic"
Prof Tom Furness (Director HIT Laboratory, University of Washington, USA)
"Simulating a Human Society: the Challenges"
Prof Daniel Thalmann (Director, Computer Graphics Lab, EPFL, Switzerland)
(view abstract)
"State of the Art in Digital Media"
Dr Jon Peddie (Jon Peddie & Associates, USA)
(view abstract)
Biographies of the Invited Speakers
Professor Tom Furness (HIT Laboratory, University of Washington, USA)
Dr. Furness is a pioneer in virtual interface technology and virtual reality. He received the BS degree in Electrical Engineering from Duke University and the Ph.D. in Engineering and Applied Science from the University of Southampton, England. Dr. Furness is currently a Professor of Industrial Engineering and adjunct professor of Electrical Engineering and Technical Communication at the University of Washington, and is the founding director of the Human Interface Technology Laboratory at the Washington Technology Center. Prior to joining the faculty at the University, he served a combined 23 years as an officer and civilian at the Armstrong Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, where he developed advanced cockpits and virtual interfaces for the Department of Defense. He is the author of the Super Cockpit program and served as the Chief of Visual Display Systems and Super Cockpit Director until he joined the University in 1989.
Dr. Furness lectures widely, teaches courses in virtual reality and interface design and supervises graduate students. He is a senior editor of the MIT Press Journal Presence and is the co-editor with Professor Woodrow Barfield of a book published by Oxford University Press titled: "Virtual Environments and Advanced Interface Design". He is the inventor of the personal eyewear display, the virtual retinal display, the HALO display and other display and interface technologies. Recently Dr. Furness recently received the Discover Award for Technology Innovation for his invention of the Virtual Retinal Display.
The overall mission of the Human Interface Technology Laboratory is to empower humans by building better interfaces to advanced machines that will unlock the power of human intelligence and link minds globally. The HIT Lab consists of 124 members including faculty, professional staff, students and visiting scholars. The Lab is supported in part by the Virtual Worlds Consortium, a group of 42 companies who provide funding and in-kind annual contributions to the research agenda of the Laboratory. The work of the HIT Lab encompasses the development of hardware and software technologies, human factors and applications development associated with advanced interfaces with a focus on virtual reality. The HIT Lab has also spun off 14 companies as result of technology and student transitions from the University of Washington.
http://www.hitl.washington.edu/
Professor Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann (MIRALab, University of Geneva)
Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann is currently full Professor of Computer Science at the University of Geneva, Switzerland and Adjunct Professor at HEC Montreal, Canada. She has served on a number of government advisory boards and program committees in Canada. She has received several awards, including the 1985 Communications Award from the Government of Quebec and the Moebius Award from the European Community in 1992. In l997, she was elected to the Swiss Academy of the technical Sciences. She received a BS in psychology, and MS in biochemistry, and a PhD in quantum chemistry and computer graphics from the University of Geneva.
Professor Magnenat-Thalmann has authored or co-authored over 200 papers and written and edited several books on computer animation and virtual humans. She is editor of several journals and associate editor-in-chief of the Visual Computer and the Visualization and Computer Animation journal. She was the co-director of several computer generated films, among them: "Dream Flight"(1982), "Rendez-vous a Montreal"(1987), "Flashback"(1990), "Fashion show" (1992), and "the Xian Terra Cotta Army" (1996). She devotes her time to mixing Research and real-time interactive Performances such as "Cyberdance" (l997), "Fashion Dreams" (1998) and "Marilyn speaks at Orbit" (1998).
http://miralabwww.unige.ch/
Professor Jianmin Jiang (University of Bradford, UK)
Jianmin Jiang received the B.Sc degree from Shandong Mining Institute, China, in 1982, M.Sc degree from China University of Mining and Technology in 1984, and PhD from the University of Nottingham, UK, in 1994. From 1985 to 1989, he was a lecturer at Jiangxi University of Technology, China. In 1989, he joined Loughborough University, UK, as a visiting scholar and later moved to the University of Nottingham as a Research Assistant. In 1992, he was appointed a Lecturer in electronics at Bolton Institute, UK, and moved back to Loughborough University in 1995 as a Lecturer in computer science.
From 1997 to 2001, he worked as a Full Professor at the School of Computing, University of Glamorgan, Wales, UK, where he established and headed a research group on digital imaging and data compression. In February of 2002, he joined the Department of Electronic Imaging & Media Communications, University of Bradford, as a Professor of Digital Media. He is a chartered engineer, fellow of RSA, and a consulting Professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research interests include data compression, information retrieval, image processing in the compressed domain, Internet video coding, stereo image coding and neural network applications. He has published over 130 refereed research papers and one European patent filed by British Telecom Research Lab on pixel extraction from compressed videos without decompression.
http://imaging.comp.glam.ac.uk
Prof Mikael Jern (Linkoping University, Sweden)
Prof Jern worked during 1970-1976 with Professor Hertz at the University of Lund (Sweden). Together they invented the Color Graphics System based on the first ink jet plotter for raster based visualization software in the world. The first high-resolution colour images were produced in 1972 using pioneer raster technique. In 1980, he founded UNIRAS to address the industry with general-purpose raster graphics software. UNIRAS became a leading supplier of Visual Data Analysis and Presentation graphics software for scientists and engineers. Prof Jern served UNIRAS as the Vice President of Technology since its start. In 1993, Advanced Visual Systems (AVS), a leading 3D visualization company, acquired UNIRAS. He has remained in the merged company serving in leading technology positions.
Since 1997, Prof Jern is managing several large EC projects in the domain of visualization. These projects have developed innovative Web-based visualization technology based on both VRML and downloadable Web components. His recent areas of research interest include Web-based collaborative visualisation technology within information visualization, medical imaging and 3D terrain mapping. His last awarded EC project started in September 2001 and is called "SmartDoc". Prof Jern has participated in numerous graphics standard committees and presented papers at international meetings and conferences. He has published more than 150 technical papers and several books in visual computing and visualization application areas. At SIGGRAPH 93, he was elected "pioneer of computer graphics". In Sept 1999, he was appointed Professor at Linkoping University, Sweden.
E-Mail: mikael.jern@telia.com or
mikje@itn.liu.se
http://servus.itn.liu.se/smartdoc/
Dr Jon Peddie (Jon Peddie Associates)
Jon Peddie is one of the pioneers of the computer graphics industry. He began his career in computer graphics in 1962. After the successful launch of several graphics manufacturing companies, he began JPA in 1984 to provide comprehensive data, information, and management expertise to the computer graphics industry. Peddie lectures at numerous conferences on topics pertaining to graphics technology and the emerging trends in digital media technology. He is frequently quoted in trade and business publications, and contributes articles to various publications. Peddie is also the author of several books including "Graphics User Interfaces and Graphics Standards", "High Resolution Graphics Display Systems", and "Multimedia and Graphics Controllers".
JonPeddie@compuserve.com
http://www.jpa.com/
Professor Daniel Thalmann (EPFL, Switzerland)
Daniel Thalmann is Full Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, where he is Director of the Computer Graphics Laboratory (LIG). LIG includes an expert team of about forty engineers, researchers, and designers and is involved in many European and National Projects. Daniel Thalmann's research interests include Virtual Humans, Computer Animation, Networked Virtual Environments, and Artificial Life. He is Co-editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Visualization and Computer Animation and an editorial board member of several publications including The Visual Computer and the CADDM Journal of the China Engineering Society. He has organized several courses at SIGGRAPH and is Co-chair of the Eurographics working group on animation and simulation. He has published more than 250 papers and is co-editor of 25 books, and coauthor of several including the recent book on "Avatars in Networked Virtual Environments", published by John Wiley and Sons. Daniel Thalmann was member of numerous Program Committees, Program Chair of several conferences including IEEE VR 2000, and chair of the Computer Graphics International '93, Pacific Graphics '95, ACM VRST '97, and MMM '98 conferences.
http://ligwww.epfl.ch/
James J. Thomas (Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories, USA)
Jim Thomas is Chief Scientist for Information Technologies at Battelle Pacific Northwest National Laboratory with over 30 years' experience. He specialises in the research, design, and implementation of innovative information visualization, multimedia, and human computer interaction technology. He has received several international science awards including "Top 100 Scientific Innovators" (Science Digest), and twice the Research and Development's Industrial Research 100 Significant Scientific and Industry Accomplishment's "Top 100 Innovators in Science and Industry". In addition, he was awarded the Federal Laboratories Consortium Technology Transfer Award for innovation in transferring research technology to industry and universities.
Mr Thomas has taught courses at ACM SIGGRAPH, is an adjunct Lecturer at Washington State University, and within the last 5 years has given 19 Keynote Lectures at major Conferences and Symposia. He served on the Academy of Sciences Panel on Virtual Reality and has held many positions in ACM SIGGRAPH, including Chair, Vice-Chair, and Co-Chair for ACM SIGGRAPH 87. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications. He is an interdisciplinary scientist and technology motivator, bringing together interdisciplinary teams, providing the vision, and enabling the creative processes. He serves as a science adviser on several boards for government, academia, and industry with over 150 publications.
http://www.pnl.gov/infoviz
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