Paul Kruszewski (born 1967) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

AI technologist and serial entrepreneur known for his work in

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

and

computer graphics Computer graphics deals with generating images with the aid of computers. Today, computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. A great deal ...

. He is the founder and CEO of , an AI and computer vision software engineering company based in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Government of Canada, Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is ...

. He has founded three AI startups, including , specializing in

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 scenes for visual media like films and video games, and is also used in crisis training, architec ...

, NPC behaviours, and human pose estimation. His projects have gradually gotten more complex as he's moved from developing AI software capable of understanding many people doing simple tasks to fewer people engaged in more complex tasks to perfect knowledge of individual body language.

Academic life

Kruszewski completed his bachelor's degree in

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

at the

University of Alberta The University of Alberta, also known as U of A or UAlberta, is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford,"A Gentleman of Strathcona – Alexander Cameron Ruth ...

. While attending U of A, he was president of the Computer Science Association. After graduating, he went on to obtain an MA and PhD in computer science from

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Universit ...

. For graduate school, Kruszewski received a

Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC; french: Conseil de recherches en sciences naturelles et en génie du Canada, CRSNG) is the major federal agency responsible for funding natural sciences and engineering rese ...

(NSERC) Science and Engineering scholarship in 1992. His PhD thesis on random binary trees suggested a method to produce realistic images of trees digitally. His work was inspired by '' The Algorithmic Beauty of Plants'' by Przemysław Prusinkiewicz. After completing his thesis, Kruszewski developed and commercialized the software, naming it the "Tree Druid."

Professional life

Work in industry

After obtaining his PhD, Kruszewski held various positions across North America, Europe, and Asia. During this time he developed the first

cloud-based Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage (cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over mul ...

human simulator at My Virtual Model. He also developed both the PS2 and

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by th ...

game engines at

Behaviour Interactive Behaviour Interactive Inc. is a Canadian video game development studio specializing in the production of 2D and 3D action/adventure games for home video game consoles, handheld game consoles, PCs and mobile. Based in Montreal, Canada, the comp ...

Entrepreneurial initiatives

BioGraphic Technologies Inc.

Kruszewski founded BioGraphic Technologies (BGT) in 2000. BGT is best known for developing "AI.implant", a

program. Working from his previous experience in video game development, Kruszewski focused BGT's vision on the film and

gaming Gaming may refer to: Games and sports The act of playing games, as in: * Legalized gambling, playing games of chance for money, often referred to in law as "gaming" * Playing a role-playing game, in which players assume fictional roles * Playing ...

industries, collaborating with such companies as Lucas Films,

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

and

Sony Computer Entertainment Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), formerly known as Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE), is a multinational video game and digital entertainment company wholly owned by multinational conglomerate Sony. The SIE Group is made up of two legal co ...

. Engenuity Technologies, now Presagis, a modeling and simulation software provider, saw the benefits of simulating large civilian crowds for training purposes, purchasing the company in 2005. Kruszewski became the CTO of Engenuity.

GripHeavyIndustries

In July 2007, Kruszewski founded GripHeavyIndustries, better known as Grip Entertainment, which created complex AI characters for a range of game developers, such as EA,

, and

BioWare BioWare is a Canadian video game developer based in Edmonton, Alberta. It was founded in 1995 by newly graduated Doctor of Medicine, medical doctors Ray Muzyka, Greg Zeschuk and Augustine Yip, alongside Trent Oster, Brent Oster, and Marcel Zes ...

. The company is credited on such titles as Army of Two: The 40th Day and Deus Ex: Human Revolution. In 2011, the company experienced some controversy when gamers rallied against Grip's boss fights at the end of the game Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Eidos Montreal had outsourced the development of the game's boss fights to Grip due to time constraints and the complex nature of the open-ended gameplay. Players felt that the fights were inflexible when compared with the rest of the game, causing a stir in the industry. That same year,

Autodesk Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that makes software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquartered ...

, a multinational software company, acquired Grip Entertainment.

Kruszewski's latest venture builds on previous experience gained from working with computer vision technology. He founded in April 2014 in Montreal's TandemLaunch incubator. With he has developed BodySLAM, a deep learning AI body-tracking software. As a man-machine interface, BodySLAM has multiple possible applications in various industries, such as health care, security, retail and entertainment. Sep. 17, 2021 — Hinge Health, the world’s #1 Digital Musculoskeletal Clinic™, has acquired wrnch, developer of the leading computer vision platform for measuring human motion. wrnch’s three-dimensional motion-tracking technology enables the same precise tracking of full-body movement used by elite athletes and the motion picture industry. Hinge Health now has the largest computer vision team in digital health. (https://www.hingehealth.com/hinge-health-acquires-the-most-advanced-computer-vision-technology/)

Publications and patents

Publications

The Botanical Beauty of Random Binary Trees
(1995)
On the Horton-Strahler Number for Random Tries
(1996)
An algorithm for sculpting trees
(1999)
A probabilistic technique for the synthetic imagery of lightning
(1999)
A Note on the Horton-Strahler Number for Random Binary Search Trees
(1999)
Crowd Modeling For Military Simulations Using Game Technology
(2005)
Believable and Reactive Crowds in Next Generation Games
(2006)
Navigation Challenges in Massively Destructible Worlds
(2007)
Integrating Crowd-Behavior Modeling into Military Simulation using Game Technology
(2008)
Engineering Fun
(2011)

Patents

* Method and Stem for On-Screen Animation of Digital Objects or Characters,
2004
* System and Method for Displaying Selected Garments on a Computer-Simulated Mannequin,
1999200920112012

References

__FORCETOC__ {{DEFAULTSORT:Kruszewski, Paul 1967 births Living people McGill University alumni Canadian people of Polish descent Computer vision researchers Artificial intelligence researchers University of Alberta alumni Canadian software engineers Businesspeople from Montreal Scientists from Montreal