Hans-Peter Seidel receives the Eurographics Distinguished Career Award 2012 for his outstanding technical contributions to many areas of computer graphics, his continued and successful role in training young researchers, who have since established themselves as leading faculty and researchers, and for his central and unique role in advancing computer graphics in Germany and in Europe at large.
Hans-Peter Seidel received his Ph.D. in Mathematics and his Habilitation in Computer Science from Tübingen University, Germany, in 1987 and 1989. He was an assistant professor in the Computer Science Department of the University of Waterloo in Canada from 1989 to 1992. He was then full professor, holding the Chair for Computer Graphics, at Erlangen University, Germany. In 1999 he became director of the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbr\”{u}cken, Germany, where he leads the computer graphics group.
Hans-Peter Seidel’s main area of research is computer graphics; his initial interests were in geometric modeling, and in particular on B-splines. While at Erlangen, he developed several ground breaking results with his students in level-of-detail and multi-resolution modeling, as well as shading and lighting models. In more recent years, his group at the Max Planck Institute has advanced the state of the art in computer graphics in many different fields. In particular, Hans-Peter has been involved in the development of deeply influential research results in geometric modeling and geometry processing (such as multi-level partition of unity implicits, Laplacian surface editing, feature-sensitive surface extraction from volume data). Other areas in which Hans-Peter’s group has shaped the field include free-viewpoint video rendering, multi-view video performance capture, image-based reconstruction and hardware accelerated rendering.
Hans-Peter Seidel’s contributions have had significant impact, and have helped to shape the field at large. He has realized and predicted the convergence of computer graphics and computer vision early on, and his integrated view of computer graphics as 3D Image Analysis and Synthesis may serve as a guideline for positioning future graphics research in this context. He has continuously published in the best journals and conferences in the field (including more than 50 papers at Eurographics and more than 30 papers at ACM SIGGRAPH). In its 12 years of existence, the computer graphics group at the Max Planck Institute has had the largest impact and presence in terms of top international publications of all groups in Europe; this scientific leadership is due to Hans-Peter’s outstanding guidance.
Hans-Peter Seidel has also participated extensively in the program committees of all major graphics conferences, chaired many of the premier events in the field, and continues to serve on numerous editorial boards of leading international journals. As a reviewer of many national and international funding agencies he has fostered and shaped the field all over Europe. He has also played a central role in the Eurographics Association, as a chairman (2005-2006) and in many other important committees and functions. He has received many prestigious awards and distinctions, including the Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation (DFG) in 2003.
Hans-Peter Seidel has been instrumental in transforming computer graphics in Europe over the last fifteen years. By imposing extremely high standards of scientific excellence in his research group, Hans-Peter Seidel has single-handedly contributed to the creation of a network of excellence in computer graphics at a European scale. In particular, many of his former students or postdoctoral fellows now lead top-level research groups in Germany and several other European countries. These groups now show a regular presence at the best international conferences and journals, and have thus raised European computer graphics research to unprecedented levels of excellence.
Hans-Peter Seidel is one of the undisputed leaders in the field of computer graphics worldwide. His energy and insistence on high-standards of scientific excellence have placed Europe at the forefront of worldwide research in Computer Graphics.
Eurographics is extremely pleased to recognize Hans-Peter Seidel with the 2012 Distinguished Career Award.