News Release

Computer Graphics Competition 2008

Grand Prize: Bin Chen's "Magical Lotus"

San Diego, CA, July 08, 2008 -- Lotus flowers, kittens in the hallway, frogs and frog embryos are just some of the images that computer science students entered into the Spring 2008 edition of UC San Diego’s “rendering algorithms” graphics contest. In place of paints and brushes or cameras, computer science students at the Jacobs School of Engineering created realistic, 3D graphics by leveraging number crunching algorithms with the art and science of computer programming under deadline pressure.

The class, “CSE 168: Rendering Algorithms” is taught by Henrik Wann Jensen, UCSD’s Academy Award winning computer scientist, well known for his contributions to photo-realistic, computer-generated humans in the movies.

Each contestant had 4 minutes to describe how his or her realistic image was rendered using software that each student developed as part of the class.

“Another great year. The students did an outstanding job,” said Jensen after the presentations.

Matthias Zwicker, a computer science professor at the Jacobs School, Wojciech Jarosz, the course TA and Iman Sadeghi, who won last year, served as the judges.

Computer science graduate student Bin Chen took home the grand prize: admission to SIGGRAPH 2008, the premier computer graphs and interactive techniques conference.

Grand Prize: Bin Chen's "Magical Lotus"
Bin created a realistic scene depicting two lotus flowers in a pond. He implemented a number of techniques including translucency using photon mapping, depth of field, ray marching, tone mapping, and bloom. He won a Full Conference trip to SIGGRAPH 2008 for his effort.