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.”