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Current email address: molnar 'at' nvidia 'dot' com
The Pixel-Planes group built a series of image-generation engines, based on the concepts of pixel-parallelism and linear expression evaluation:
* Pixel-Planes 1-4 (1981-1986), which implemented a full-screen pixel parallel array.
* Pixel-Planes 5 (1987-1991), which implemented multiple 128x128 arrays connected by a high-speed ring network.
* PixelFlow (1991-1997), which implemented a parallel rendering system based on real-time depth-based image compositing.
These various architectures also pioneered concepts in programmable shading and antialiasing.
The most recent system, PixelFlow was a linearly scalable architecture--its performance increased linearly with the size of the system. It was based on five high-speed custom chips, and used experimental high-speed, low-voltage signaling technology to composite images at the rates required.
PixelFlow technology was licensed to Hewlett-Packard, Integrated Device Technology, Ivex Corporation, and PixelFusion Ltd. I took part in the development of a full-scale prototype PixelFlow system, done jointly with HP, and demonstrated at Siggraph '97. This system generated over 50 million polygons per second and rendering effects such as bump-mapping, shadows, procedural textures, and particle system smoke.
I'm currently at NVIDIA, working in their (amazing) architecture group, in the Durham, NC NVIDIA office.
I am co-chair of Graphics Hardware 2003, to be held in San Diego July 26-27, 2003. I was co-chair or program chair of the 2001, 1999, and 1997 conferences as well. I served on the SIGGRAPH 1999 papers committee.
Molnar, S., "The PixelFlow Texture and Image Subsystem", Proceedings of the 10th Eurographics Workshop on Graphics Hardware, Maastricht, The Netherlands, Aug. 28-29, 1995, pp. 3-13.
Lastra, A., S. Molnar, M. Olano, and Y. Wang, "Real-Time Programmable Shading," Proceedings of the 1995 Symposium on Interactive Graphics, Monterey, CA, April 1995, pp. 59-66.
Molnar, S., M. Cox, D. Ellsworth, and H. Fuchs. "A Sorting Classification of Parallel Rendering," IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 14(4), July 1994, 23-32.
Wang, Y., and S. Molnar. "Second-Depth Shadow Mapping," (postscript, 23MB), UNC-CS Technical Report TR94-019, 1994.
Poulton, J., J. Eyles, and S. Molnar, "Breaking the Frame-Buffer Bottlenack: The Case for Logic-Enhanced Memories," IEEE CG&A, Vol. 12. No. 6, Sept., 1992, pp. 65-74.
Molnar, S., J. Eyles, and J. Poulton. "PixelFlow: High-Speed Rendering Using Image Composition," Computer Graphics: Proc. SIGGRAPH '92, Chicago, Ill., 25-31 July 1992, 231-240.
Molnar, S. "Image-Composition Architectures for Real-time Image Generation," UNC-CS Technical Report TR91-046, 1991 (Ph.D. dissertation).
Molnar, S. "Efficient Supersampling Antialiasing for High-performance Architectures," UNC-CS Technical Report TR91-023, 1991.
Molnar, S., and H. Fuchs. "Advanced Raster Graphics Architecture," Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice, 2nd ed., J. Foley, A. van Dam, S. Feiner, and J. Hughes, eds., Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1990, 855-922.
Goldfeather, J., S. Molnar, G. Turk, and H. Fuchs. "Near Real-time CSG Rendering using Tree Normalization and Geometric Pruning," IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications , 9(3), May 1989, 20-28.
Molnar, S., and M. Surles. "A Microprogramming Support Tool for Pipelined Architectures," Proc. 21st Annual Workshop on Microprogramming and Microarchitecture, San Diego, Calif., Nov. 1988, 108-110.
Molnar, S. "Combining Z-buffer Engines for Higher-Speed Rendering," Proc. Eurographics '88 Third Workshop on Graphics Hardware, Nice, France, Sept. 1988, 171-182.
Molnar, S. "Interactive CSG Modeling with Real-time Shaded Display," Proc. BRL-CAD Symposium '88, Aberdeen, Md., June 1988.
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