Wavelets - Caltech Multi-Res Modeling Group

1 Prolegomenon
N : Preamble
These are the notes for the Course #26, Wavelets and their Applications in Computer Graphics given at
the Siggraph ’95 Conference. They are an longer and we hope improved version of the notes for a similar
course given at Siggraph ’94 (in Orlando). The lecturers and authors of the notes are (in alphabetical order)
Michael Cohen, Tony DeRose, Alain Fournier, Michael Lounsbery, Leena-Maija Reissell, Peter Schröder
and Wim Sweldens.
Michael Cohen is on the research staff at Microsoft Research in Redmond, Washington. Until recently,
he was on the faculty at Princeton University. He is one of the originators of the radiosity method for
image synthesis. More recently, he has been developing wavelet methods to create efficient algorithms for
geometric design and hierarchical spacetime control for linked figure animation.
Tony DeRose is Associate Professor at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Washington.
His main research interests are computer aided design of curves and surfaces, and he has applied wavelet
techniques in particular to multiresolution representation of surfaces.
Alain Fournier is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia.
His research interests include modelling of natural phenomena, filtering and illumination models. His
interest in wavelets derived from their use to represent light flux and to compute local illumination within a
global illumination algorithm he is currently developing.
Michael Lounsbery is currently at Alias Research in Seattle (or the company formerly known as such). He
obtained his PhD from the University of Washington with a thesis on multi-resolution analysis with wavelet
bases.
Leena Reissell is a Research Associate in Computer Science at UBC. She has developed wavelet methods
for curves and surfaces, as well as wavelet based motion planning algorithms. Her current research interests
include wavelet applications in geometric modeling, robotics, and motion extraction.
Peter Schröder received his PhD in Computer Science from Princeton University where his research focused
on wavelet methods for illumination computations. He continued his work with wavelets as a Postdoctoral
Fellow at the University of South Carolina where he has pursued generalizations of wavelet constructions.
Other research activities of his have included dynamic modelling for computer animation, massively parallel
graphics algorithms, and scientific visualization.
Wim Sweldens is a Research Assistant of the Belgian National Science Foundation at the Department of