Slash of reality

Computer graphics lab creates the visual and the visceral...

Montreal Gazette (10/04/04); Bruemmer, Rene
Montreal is expanding as a center of academic and commercial activity in the area of computer graphics, a field that has exploded in recent years thanks to the increasing popularity and profitability of video games and computer-animated films. Over 700 people in Montreal are employed by video game makers Ubisoft and Electronic Arts, while students at the Universite de Montreal are developing new algorithms and software directed toward the more realistic and speedier rendition of computer-generated imagery. The school is often one of the select few to publish papers at ACM's SIGGRAPH, the leading forum for computer graphics research. Designers and academic programmers are pursuing the development of tools and methods that are published and adopted by the film or gaming industries, or are built upon by other researchers. Victor Ostromoukhov with the Universite's computer graphics lab notes that their work is released into the public domain, while professor Pierre Poulin explains that students and professors may be awarded private or government funding and fellowships. He also notes that students could secure a fruitful career in computer graphics based on the merits of their work. "Computer graphics is one of those rare fields where students are coveted," Poulin says. "Where computer science has been slowing down in the last few years, computer graphics is speeding up." Getting published is more complicated now thanks to the computer graphics boom, which has spawned fervent competition; this makes true innovation all the more prized, according to Poulin.

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Received via ACM Tech News.