[talks] Colloquium: Vladlen Koltun on Wednesday, Dec 3, 4:00-5:00pm

[Michael J. Freedman]

Hi,

This Wednesday at 4:00pm, Vladlen Koltun from Stanford University will 
be giving the department colloquium.  The talk is located in the small 
auditorium (CS Room 105).  I looking forward to seeing you there.

Thanks,
--mike


Abstract
--------

I will argue that the primary contribution of computer graphics in the 
next decade will be to enable richer social interaction at a distance. 
The integration of real-time computer graphics and large-scale 
distributed systems will give rise to a rich telecommunication medium, 
currently referred to as virtual worlds. The medium provides open-ended 
face-to-face communication among ad-hoc groups of people in custom 
environments and decouples shared spatial experiences from geographic 
constraints.

I will outline a research agenda for enabling and advancing the medium. 
The three driving themes are system architectures, content creation, and 
interaction. System architectures aim to support the medium at planetary 
scale. Content creation aims to enable untrained participants to create 
high-quality three-dimensional content. Interaction aims to make virtual 
world communication seamless and natural. I will demonstrate preliminary 
results in each area.


Bio: Vladlen Koltun is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at 
Stanford University. He directs the Virtual Worlds Group, which explores 
how scalable virtual world systems can be built, populated, and used. 
His prior work in computational geometry and theoretical computer 
science was recognized with the NSF CAREER Award, the Alfred P. Sloan 
Fellowship, and the Machtey Award.