CUNY Convenes Second Annual Imaging and Visualization Faculty-Industry Meeting

4/19/2006



New York, NY April 17, 2006 (NYSIA HOTWIRE)—The CUNY Institute for Software Design and Development (CISDD) recently entered the world of 3-D technology commercialization, by hosting its second annual faculty-industry imaging and visualization event on April 4, 2006. The meeting, titled“3-D: University and Industry R&D Perspectives,” was funded by CISDD’s Partnerships for Innovation (PFI) grant from the National Science Foundation and held at the Graduate Center of CUNY.

The full-day meeting, hosted by CISDD Executive Director Ted Brown, and chaired by City College of New York Associate Professor Zhigang Zhu, focused on new advances in 3-D technologies, and highlighted available opportunities for CISDD small business partners and CUNY faculty and staff.

Michael Reed, Senior Research Associate for Blue Sky Studios, the creators of Ice Age: The Meltdown[2006], Robots [2005], and Ice Age [2002] delivered the meeting’s keynote on “Computational Aspects of Feature Animation.” Reed, a member of the team that develops Blue Sky’s proprietary renderer CGI Studio, showed the audience how a wide cross-section of advanced technologies, including robotics, 3-D simulation and artificial intelligence are combined to make a feature film. He also spoke about the evolution of 3-D animation research and the future of the industry.

A demonstration panel followed, highlighting the research innovations of CUNY faculty and local industry representatives. The projects discussed illustrated the breadth of 3-D research performed at CUNY and in the New York City region. Featured topics included 3-D imaging and processing using digital holography, content-based 3-D mosaic representation for video of dynamic 3-D scenes, and algorithms for the automated registration of 3-D range scans using 2-D color images.


The panel featured Gene Dolgoff, CEO and Founder of The 3D Source, Inc.; John Placko, Product Manager at FUJI Hunt Photographic Chemicals, Inc.; Lori Scarlatos, Brooklyn College; Ioannis Stamos, Hunter College; Shuqun Zhang, College of Staten Island; and Zhigang Zhu, City College of New York, and was moderated by Michael Grossberg of the City College of New York.

The day ended with a workshop on imaging and visualization R&D grant opportunities. This workshop, moderated by LaGuardia Community College’s Larry
Muller, featured speaker Ken Nyeu of the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research (NYSTAR). Ken’s presentation walked participants through the range of innovative commercialization projects that are eligible for Technology Transfer Incentive Program (TTIP) grant awards. participants were also given a list of open federal grant opportunities in related faculty-industry collaboration research areas, including SBIR and STTR solicitations.

“3-D: University and Industry R&D Perspectives” arose through CISDD’s ongoing efforts to unite advanced research faculty with local business leaders. In addition to imaging and visualization, CISDD also holds faculty-industry meetings in the areas of computer security, gaming technology, and software engineering best practices.

About CISDD:

The CUNY Institute of Software Design and Development
(CISDD) is a City University of New York (CUNY) Consortium created to spur the development and commercialization of advanced software technologies and software engineering methods. CISDD leverages the research skills of CUNY faculty and students to help the New York software industry to compete more effectively with other regions in developing, incorporating, and bringing to market technological innovations in software functionality, performance, ease of development and maintenance.

Contact:

Colleen Gibney,
Project Manager
The CUNY Institute for Software Design
and Development (CISDD)
212-652-2865
http://www.cisdd.org