Prof. Daniel Thalmann is a Swiss and Canadian computer scientist and a pioneer in Virtual humans. He is currently Honorary Professor at EPFL, Switzerland and Director of Research Development at MIRALab Sarl in Geneva, Switzerland.

Biography

After a master's degree in

Nuclear Physics Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter. Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies th ...

(1970) and a combined Certificate in Statistics and Computer Science (1972) both from the

University of Geneva The University of Geneva (French: ''Université de Genève'') is a public university, public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded in 1559 by French theologian John Calvin as a Theology, theological seminary. It rema ...

, he earned a PhD in

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

(1977) also from the

. In his PhD, he worked very early on the concept of abstract machines for portable compilers and operating systems. From 1977 to 1989, he was Professor at the University of Montreal, in Canada, where he started to work on computer graphics and animation. Then, he came back to Switzerland and founded the

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a Simulation, simulated experience that employs 3D near-eye displays and pose tracking to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video gam ...

lab (VRlab) at EPFL, Switzerland. He has been Visiting Professor/ Researcher at

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in Meyrin, western suburb of Gene ...

University of Nebraska-Lincoln A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

University of Tokyo The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...

, and

National University of Singapore The National University of Singapore (NUS) is a national university, national Public university, public research university in Singapore. It was officially established in 1980 by the merging of the University of Singapore and Nanyang University ...

. From 2009 to 2017, he was Visiting Professor at the Institute for Media Innovation,

Nanyang Technological University Nanyang Technological University (NTU) is a public research university in Singapore. Founded in 1981, it is also the second oldest autonomous university in the country. The university is organised across numerous colleges and schools, includi ...

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

. He is co-editor-in-chief of the ''Journal of Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds'', and member of the editorial board of six other journals. Thalmann has published more than 650 papers in graphics, animation, and virtual reality. He is coeditor of 30 books, and coauthor of several books including ''Crowd Simulation'' (second edition 2012) and ''Stepping Into Virtual Reality'' (second edition 2023), published by Springer.

Research

In the 1980s, Thalmann together with

Nadia Magnenat Thalmann Nadia Magnenat Thalmann is a computer graphics scientist and robotician and is the founder and head of MIRALab at the University of Geneva. She has chaired the Institute for Media Innovation at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore ...

became interested in the realistic computer modelling and rendering of the human form, in motion. In 1988, they directed the short film '' Rendez-vous in Montreal'', which is widely regarded as the first computer film to employ synthetic actors, in this case

Humphrey Bogart Humphrey DeForest Bogart ( ; December 25, 1899 – January 14, 1957), nicknamed Bogie, was an American actor. His performances in classic Hollywood cinema made him an American cultural icon. In 1999, the American Film Institute selected Bogart ...

and

Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Monroe ( ; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; June 1, 1926 August 4, 1962) was an American actress and model. Known for playing comic "Blonde stereotype#Blonde bombshell, blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex ...

. In the 1990s, Thalmann focused his research on behavioural animation of Virtual Humans, introducing the concept of synthetic vision for autonomous virtual humans, and developing methods for realistic

gait Gait is the pattern of Motion (physics), movement of the limb (anatomy), limbs of animals, including Gait (human), humans, during Animal locomotion, locomotion over a solid substrate. Most animals use a variety of gaits, selecting gait based on s ...

modelling. In the late 1990s, he launched the first project on

crowd simulation Crowd simulation is the process of simulating the movement (or ) of a large number of entities or characters. It is commonly used to create Virtual cinematography, virtual scenes for visual media like films and video games, and is also used in cri ...

of virtual humans, initiating a new field of animation that now attracts many researchers. Rendering of tens of thousands of agents, collision detection and generation of varieties of individual people became important issues. He also introduced, with Marcelo Kallmann, the concept of smart objects as objects that describe their own possible interactions. He recently extended his research from virtual humans to social robots, working in the team on Nadine Social Robot. Thalmann is also recognized in the area of Virtual Rehabilitation, a term he coined with Professor Grigore Burdea of

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

(US). He has also created with him the International Conference on Virtual Rehabilitation and is a founder of the International Society of Virtual Rehabilitation.

Awards and honors

Thalmann received an Honorary Doctorate (Honoris Causa) from Paul-Sabatier University in Toulouse, France, in 2003. He also received the Eurographics Distinguished Career Award in 2010 and the 2012 Canadian Human Computer Communications Society Achievement Award. In 2015, he received the CGI Career Achievement Award from the Computer Graphics Society (CGS).CGI'15
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References

External links

List of publications
at EPFL
List of publications
at Google Scholar
Homepage and CV
at EPFL

Films/Demos

, Daniel Thalmann
Rendez-vous a Montreal
1987 * Jonathan Maim, Barbara Maim, Daniel Thalmann
Crowd Simulation
2006 * Helena Grillon, Daniel Thalmann
Attention Crowds
2007 * EPFL VRLab demos
YouTube Channel
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thalmann, Daniel Computer graphics researchers Canadian computer scientists Computer graphics professionals Swiss computer scientists Living people Place of birth missing (living people) University of Geneva alumni People associated with CERN 1946 births