Personal page pmaillot

I though a large number of people could benefit from my Ph.D. Thesis on Computer Graphics Architectures I prepared between 1983 and 1986 at the University of Lyon, France. It is only available in French but if you feel like you need a translation, drop me a line and I'll make an extra effort! pdf so you can get a clean print (900kb).

Other work and algorithms available on this website:

• World coordinates clipping of Triangle strips. This algorithm is using elements from the general clipping chapter of my Ph.D. Thesis and addresses the clipping equations in world coordinates (the most general case for 3D clipping) with and without homogeneous coordinates and the specific optimization case of structured graphics primitives such as triangle strips and quad meshes, which are widely used in computer graphics for their capacity in representing complex graphics with a small memory usage. Rather than computing the intersections on the point structures themselves, the algorithm further optimizes speed in using pointers, much more compact to manipulate. This gives a significant speed advantage over more standard algorithms. This work (a close implementation) is used in the XGL™ graphics library, a component of the Solaris™ operating system (Sun Microsystems, Inc.). It has also been published in Graphics Gems II, edited by Jim Arvo.  - html, pdf (75kb)

• 2D polygon clipping. This algorithm offers a very fast execution speed and can be used with both integer or floating-point arithmetic units. It has been developed for Sun Microsystems in 1989. This work is protected by US patent #5079719, and Canadian patent #2010967. html, pdf (184kb)

• A case study on graphics primitives and data structures optimization in order to ensure the software/hardware independence for Graphics libraries, without compromising performance. Presented at Eurographics in 1991.  html, pdf (96kb)

• Back when I worked for Sun Microsystems as Technical and Architecture Lead and later as Manager of XGL™. XGL™ is a 2D and 3D graphics library. A lot of information on XGL and how to program with the library can be found in the Answerbook collection from Sun. Here's another document: XGL technical white paper: A presentation of the different capabilities of XGL™, a graphics component of the Solaris™ operating system (Sun Microsystems, Inc.). Published by Sun Microsystems in 1993. . html, pdf (635kb)

• Fun with Quaternions, or at least practical examples on how to use them for your 3D transforms. From elements initially published in my thesis, but also in Graphics Gems and the Suntech journal. pdf (119kb)

In Different areas:

• Always wanted to know how to prevent these USB devices connected to your desktop computer from disappearing during the night? Well, this will at least ensure your insurance company will validate the fact they have been stolen... Read on for this patent (US# 6745330) I filed for while working for Hewlett-Packard; the drawings are here.

• Soon at a bar near you!

  Jackpot! Jackpot is a simple device to add fun at your reunions with friends when having a drink together... Who's going to handle this round? Who's will have his/her drink for free? who will be designated to handle the next challenge proposed by the rest of the group? Well.... Let Jackpot decide! This little autonomous device will ensure a perfect randomness in picking numbers... and the famous winning combination "777". Read the complete description here. I have been designing the HW, SW and mechanical aspects of this project for ADMerchandising; a fun and learning experience. The HW and Mechanical parts are built and assembled in Asia for cost optimization reasons. THis work is protected by a patent. Here's an excerpt of the intellectual property official bulletin n°09/20 dated 15.05.09

I have also been reviewing a certain number of papers and books for ACM over the past few years; here's a list of elements I reviewed:

• Synthetic actors in computer-generated 3D films / Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann , Daniel Thalmann 
  Book, Springer-Verlag New York, Inc. November 1990 77% 
• Fast line scan-conversion / J. G. Rokne , Brian Wyvill , Xiaolin Wu 
  ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG) October 1990 Volume 9 Issue 4 
• Rasterization of nonparametric curves / John D. Hobby 
  ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG) July 1990 Volume 9 Issue 3 
• A geometric characterization of parametric cubic curves / Maureen C. Stone , Tony D. DeRose 
  ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG) July 1989 Volume 8 Issue 3 
• The mathematical structure of raster graphics / Eugene L. Fiume 
  Book, Academic Press Professional, Inc. January 1989 
• Star-vertices: a compact representation for planar meshes with adjacency information / Marcelo Kallmann , Daniel Thalmann 
  Journal of Graphics Tools January 2002 Volume 6 Issue 1 
• Controllable morphing of compatible planar triangulations 
  ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG) October 2001 Volume 20 Issue 4 
• Natural hairstyle modeling and animation 
  Graphical Models March 2001 Volume 63 Issue 2  
• The relative contributions of stereo, lighting, and background scenes in promoting 3D depth visualization / Geoffrey S. Hubona , Philip N. Wheeler , Gregory W. Shirah , Matthew Brandt 
  ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI) September 1999 Volume 6 Issue 3 
• Computing moments of objects enclosed by piecewise polynomial surfaces / Carlos Gonzalez-Ochoa , Scott McCammon , Jörg Peters 
  ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG) July 1998 Volume 17 Issue 3 
• Texture mapping 3D models of real-world scenes / Frederick M. Weinhaus , Venkat Devarajan 
  ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR) December 1997 Volume 29 Issue 4 
• Geometric modeling (2nd ed.) / Michael E. Mortenson 
  Book, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. February 1997 
• Interaction design for large displays / Kishore Swaminathan , Steve Sato 
  interactions January 1997 Volume 4 Issue 1  
• Time/space tradeoffs for polygon mesh rendering / Reuven Bar-Yehuda , Craig Gotsman 
  ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG) April 1996 Volume 15 Issue 2 
• Adaptive isocurve-based rendering for freeform surfaces / Gershon Elber , Elaine Cohen 
  ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG) July 1996 Volume 15 Issue 3 
• Height distributional distance transform methods for height field ray tracing / David W. Paglieroni , Sidney M. Petersen 
  ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG) October 1994 Volume 13 Issue 4 
• 3-D sound for virtual reality and multimedia / Durand R. Begault 
  Book, Academic Press Professional, Inc. August 1994 
• Interactive design of smooth objects with probabilistic point constraints / Ari Rappoport , Yaacov Hel-Or , Michael Werman 
  ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG) April 1994 Volume 13 Issue 2 
• A task adaptive parallel graphics renderer / Scott Whitman 
  Proceedings of the 1993 symposium on Parallel rendering November 1993 
• Natural minimal surfaces (videotape): via theory and computation / David Hoffman 
  Book, Science Television Company January 1990 
• Multiprocessor methods for computer graphics rendering / Scott Whitman 
  Book, A. K. Peters, Ltd. June 1992  
• Architectures of high-performance 3D graphics accelerators (videotape) / Kurt Akeley 
  Book, University Video Communications April 1992 
• Rendering curves and surfaces with hybrid subdivision and forward differencing / Ari Rappoport 
  ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG) October 1991 Volume 10 Issue 4 
• A triangulation algorithm from arbitrary shaped multiple planar contours / A. B. Ekoule , F. C. Peyrin , C. L. Odet 
  ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG) April 1991 Volume 10 Issue 2 
  
  
  

Note: The html pages result from a "save-as" function from Adobe framemaker. Although a little edition work is still necessary, the bulk of the work is greatly simplified.

Page maintained by Patrick-Gilles Maillot.

May 2009