|
Bio
Debevec's Ph.D. thesis under Prof. Jitendra Malik presented Façade, an image-based modeling system for creating virtual cinematography of architectural scenes using new techniques for photogrammetry and image-based rendering. Using Façade he directed a photorealistic fly-around of the Berkeley campus for his 1997 film The Campanile Movie whose techniques were later used to create the Academy Award-winning virtual backgrounds in the "bullet time" shots in the 1999 film The Matrix. Following his Ph.D. Debevec developed techniques for capturing real-world illumination and illuminating synthetic objects with real light, facilitating the realistic integration of photographic and computer generated imagery. His 1999 film Fiat Lux placed towering monoliths and gleaming spheres into a photorealistic reconstruction of St. Peter's Basilica, all illuminated by the light that was actually there. Techniques from this research known as HDRI and Image-Based Lighting have been used to dramatic effect in films such as the X-Men series, The Matrix sequels, the recent Narnia and Batman movies, Speed Racer, the Academy-Award winning The Golden Compass and The Curious Case of Benjamiin Button, and Terminator: Salvation. Debevec leads the design of HDR Shop, the first high dynamic range image editing program and co-authored the 2005 book High Dynamic Range Imaging. Debevec's 2004 film The Parthenon used 3D scanning, inverse global illumination, HDRI, and image-based lighting to virtually reunite the Parthenon and its sculptures, contributing to depictions of the Parthenon's history for the 2004 Olympics, NHK televison, PBS's NOVA, National Geographic, the IMAX film Greece: Secrets of the Past, and The Louvre museum. At USC ICT Debevec has led the development of several Light Stage systems that capture and simulate how people and objects appear under real-world illumination. The Light Stages have been used by studios such as Sony Pictures Imageworks, WETA Digital, and Digital Domain to create photoreal digital actors as part of the Academy Award-winning visual effects in Spider Man 2 and King Kong, the Academy Award-nominated visual effects in Superman Returns, Spider Man 3, Hancock, and the Academy-Award winning visual effects in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. In 2001 Debevec received ACM SIGGRAPH's first Significant New Researcher Award for "Creative and Innovative Work in the Field of Image-Based Modeling and Rendering", in 2002 was named one of the world's top 100 young innovators by MIT's Technology Review magazine, and in 2005 received a Gilbreth Lectureship from the National Academy of Engineering. Debevec is a member of ACM SIGGRAPH, the Visual Effects Society, and co-chaired the 2002 Eurographics Workshop on Rendering. He chaired the SIGGRAPH 2007 Computer Animation Festival and was recently elected to the ACM SIGGRAPH Executive Committee to serve through June 2012.
|
