When the Scientific and Technical Academy Awards are held on
Feb. 18, the UCLA community may see one of its own on the red
carpet.
Computer science Professor Demetri Terzopoulos and his former
colleague John Platt of Microsoft won a Technical Achievement
Academy Award for a 1987 paper titled “Elastically Deformable
Models.”
Scientific and Technical Academy Awards are given to
“those accomplishments that contribute to the progress of the
industry,” according to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Sciences Web site. Unlike the Oscars, they are not limited to
achievements in the past year.
Terzopoulos’ paper concerns the computer simulation of
objects such as cloth that can change shape, known as deformable
objects.
“The project wasn’t about cloth, really,” he
said. “We were trying to create simulations of all deformable
things.”
Professor Richard Muntz, the computer science department’s
undergraduate advisor, said Terzopoulos’ work has been
significant. “He’s done a lot of different things, and
he’s a leader in his field,” Muntz said, adding that
the UCLA Department of Computer Science has actively sought out
professors with graphics backgrounds similar to
Terzopoulos’.
Terzopoulos said the techniques described in his paper are
applicable to both film and video-game technology.
“You have to simulate on a computer how clothes are
actually built in the real world,” he said. “There are
patterns and seams. But then they can be worn by the virtual actor
or human.”
Terzopoulos’ paper was based on the concept of using
physics to make the computer simulation more realistic. Before this
technology existed, Terzopoulos said, animators had to simulate
this kind of movement by hand.
“It’s a matter of mathematics,” he said.
“You have to consider the laws of physics that are relevant
to this class of objects. Eventually it all boils down to numbers.
(The field) brings together physics, computer science and
mathematics.”
He noted that the concepts developed in his paper have only
recently become widely used in motion pictures.
“About 10 years after we did our work, it began to appear
in motion pictures,” he said. “The computers we were
working with then were 1,000 times slower, so we couldn’t be
as ambitious as people are now. Other people picked up on these
ideas and pushed them further.”
According to Terzopoulos, these ideas eventually appeared in the
computer graphics of movies such as “Star Wars” and
“Troy,” along with some Pixar films.
Terzopoulos, who just came to UCLA from the University of
Toronto, said he was excited about the Oscar win.
“It’s a big honor,” he said. “I’m
delighted to receive it.”
He said he hopes the move to Los Angeles will strengthen his
ties to the entertainment industry. He is beginning work on
creating virtual characters that can act and react on their
own.
“We’re trying to have characters that can animate
themselves,” he said. “It has immediate application in
interactive games. We want to have compelling, challenging
characters. The things we develop in the lab do find their way into
motion pictures and video games.”
However, Terzopoulos’ colleagues said his work will have
an effect on the UCLA community as well.
“Vision and graphics is important not only in
entertainment but in medical imaging as well,” Muntz said.
“It adds a great deal of strength to our vision and graphics
department (to have Terzopoulos here). Students will go where there
is a strong program.”
According to department administrator Jacquelyn Trang,
Terzopoulos may teach an undergraduate class during spring
quarter.
“We’re still working on finalizing the schedule, but
if he does teach, he will be teaching CS 174A, which is a class on
graphics,” she said.
Terzopoulos said he hopes to incorporate some concepts addressed
in his paper into classes he teaches at UCLA.
“We will certainly be showing it,” he said.
“It’s more advanced than we will probably cover in an
introductory course, but you can see the mathematics come to life
on the screen. I think that’s a big motivating factor for
students.”