Alumnus Receives 2012 Computer Graphics Achievement Award
UNC computer science alumnus Greg Turk (Ph.D. 1992) was the recipient of the 2012 Computer Graphics Achievement Award from ACM SIGGRAPH at its annual conference in August. The award recognizes Turk for his contributions to physically-inspired mathematical application in graphics, particularly his work on texture synthesis, geometric modeling, and physical simulation involving thin structures.
Much of Turk’s work on textures stems from his dissertation research, in which he showed how using a cascade of reaction-diffusion systems could generate realistic-looking patterns, like leopard spots or zebra stripes.
Turk is also well known for the “Stanford bunny,” one of the most popular test models in computer graphics, which has been used in hundreds of SIGGRAPH papers. He created the bunny using a technique called “zippered meshes,” developed with Marc Levoy (Ph.D. 1989), to create polygonal models from several range scans. His current research is in the area of simulation of biological systems, including evolution, animal locomotion, and plant growth.
Turk is currently a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he is a member of the School of Interactive Computing and the Graphics, Visualization and Usability Center. His Ph.D. advisor was Henry Fuchs, the Federico Gil Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at UNC.