Eurographics is very pleased to award the Eurographics Medal 2017 to Prof. Werner Purgathofer for his outstanding leadership in the development of the Eurographics Association, for his pioneering technical contributions to the advancement of Computer Graphics as an academic discipline in Europe, and for building one of the largest centers for applied research in Graphics in Europe.
Prof. Purgathofer is a full professor of computer science and head of the Institute of Computer Graphics and Algorithms at Vienna University of Technology. He is also the president and scientific director of the VRVis Research Center for virtual reality and visualisation in Vienna, which he founded in 2000. Working in the field since 1980, he is one of the pioneers of Graphics in Europe and his group enjoys highest international reputation with leading publications in graphics, rendering, visualization, virtual reality and modelling.
Prof. Purgathofer has organised the very successful 1991 and 2006 Eurographics annual conferences in Vienna. He has been a member of Eurographics since 1981. He served on the Executive Committee of Eurographics for many years, he was Publications Board Chairman from 1993 to 2000, and he became a fellow of the association in 1997. From 2013-2014 Prof. Purgathofer was president of Eurographics.
In 2006 he received the Distinguished Career Award from Eurographics.
Please join us in congratulating Werner for an outstanding career computer graphics and to the Eurographics medal 2017.