Invited Speakers

| Badlisham Ghazali | Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann | Alan Chalmers | Terrence Masson |

Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann

MIRALab
Centre Universitaire d'Informatique, University Of Geneva
24, Rue du General-Dufour,
CH - 1211 GENEVA4

Tel:+41 22 379.77.69
Fax: +41 22 379.77.80
thalmann@miralab.unige.ch
www.miralab.unige.ch

Biography

Prof. Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann has pioneered research into virtual humans over the
last 25 years. She obtained several Bachelor's and Master's degrees in various
disciplines (Psychology, Biology and Chemistry) and a PhD in Quantum Physics from the
University of Geneva. From 1977 to 1989, she was a Professor at the University of
Montreal where she founded the research lab MIRALab.

She was elected Woman of the Year by the Grand Montreal Association for her
pionnering work on virtual humans and her work was presented at the Modern Art
Museum of New York in 1988 . She moved to the University of Geneva in 1989, where
she founded the Swiss MIRALab, an internationally interdisciplinary lab composed of
about 25 researchers.

She is author and coauthor of more than 200 research papers and a dozen of books in
the field of modeling virtual humans, interacting with them and living in augmented life.
She has received several scientific and artistic awards for her work, mainly on the Virtual
Marylin and the film RENDEZ-VOUS A MONTREAL, but more recently, in 1997, she has
been elected to the Swiss Academy of Technical Sciences, and has been nominated as a
Swiss personality who has contributed to the advance of science in the 150 years
history CD-ROM produced by the Swiss Confederation Parliament.

She has directed and produced several films and real-time mixed reality shows, among
the latest are DREAMS OF A MANNEQUIN (2003) , THE AUGMENTED LIFE IN POMPEII
(2004) and FASHION IN EQUATIONS (2005). She is editor-in-chief of the Visual Computer
Journal published by Springer Verlag and co-Editor-in-chief of Computer Animation and
Virtual Worlds published by John Wiley. She has also participated to political events such
as the WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM in DAVOS where she was invited to give several talks
and seminars.

 

Talk Title

"Real-time animation of ancient plays during the Roman period"

In the presented article we discuss and detail the general methodological approaches,
the reconstruction strategies and the techniques that have been employed to achieve
the 3D interactive real-time virtual visualization of the digitally restituted inhabited
ancient sites of Aspendos and Pompeii, respectively simulated using a virtual and an
augmented reality setup. More specifically, the two case studies to which we will refer to
illustrate our general methodology concern the VR restitution of the Roman theatre of
Aspendos in Turkey, visualized as it was in the 3rd century, and the on-site AR
simulation of a digitally restored Thermopolium situated at the archeological site of
Pompeii in Italy.

In order to enhance both simulated 3D environments, either case study presents the
inclusion of real time animated virtual humans which are re-enacting situations and
activities that were typically performed in such sites during ancient times. Furthermore,
the implemented modelling and illumination strategies, along with the design choices
that were operated regarding both the preparation of the textured 3D models of the
sites and the simulated virtual humans, and concerning their optimization in order to
suit the needs of a real time interactive visualization, will be equally presented.