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Markus Gross

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Markus Gross
Markus Gross 2022
Born (1963-06-14) June 14, 1963 (age 61)
Saarland, Germany
NationalityGerman, Swiss
Known forpoint based graphics, blue-c, physics-based modeling, stereoscopic 3D, video processing
Scientific career
FieldsComputer Science
Websitegraphics.ethz.ch/~grossm

Markus Gross (born June 14, 1963, Saarland, Germany) is a Professor of Computer science at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich (ETH), head of its Computer Graphics Laboratory,[1] and serves as Chief Scientist at The Walt Disney Studios as well as Director of DisneyResearch|Studios.[2] His research interests include physically based modeling, computer animation, immersive displays, and video technology. He has published more than 430 scientific papers on algorithms and methods in the field of computer graphics and computer vision,[3] and holds more than 30 patents.[4] He has graduated more than 75 Ph.D. students.[5]

Early life and career

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Markus Gross was born on June 14, 1963, in Neunkirchen, Saarland, a region historically influenced by both Germany and France during the first half of the 20th century. As an only child, he received significant attention from his parents, who balanced their day jobs with a passion for music, regularly performing with their own band. Consequently, Gross grew up immersed in popular and jazz music.

His fascination with animated films began after watching Disney's The Jungle Book. He quickly developed a profound affection for animation and the Disney brand, becoming an avid collector of Disney comic books, which were widely popular in Europe. The character Gyro Gearloose, known for his inventive and eccentric nature, particularly resonated with him, inspiring an early interest in electronics and engineering. Encouraged by this passion, he persuaded his parents to purchase a TI-59 programmable calculator, which sparked his interest in microcoding.

Around the age of 14, Gross encountered the Commodore PET computer at his local high school, prompting him to begin programming in BASIC and Pascal. Despite the limited graphical capabilities of early computers, he became fascinated by the potential to represent computational results visually in two and three dimensions. His interest deepened upon discovering pioneering animated clips created by Ed Catmull’s team at the New York Institute of Technology, which convinced him that his future lay in computer graphics.

Gross received a Master of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Saarland University in 1986. He then continued his studies at Saarland University, earning a Ph.D. in Computer Graphics and Image Analysis in 1989 under the supervision of José Luis Encarnação, a leading authority in computer graphics in Europe.[6]

From 1990 to 1994, he was a research scientist at the Computer Graphics Center of the Department of Computer Science of the Technical University of Darmstadt from where he received his habilitation in 1995.[7]

Academic career

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In 1994, Gross joined the computer science faculty at ETH Zurich and founded the Computer Graphics Laboratory.[8] From 2004 to 2008 he served as a director of the Institute of Computational Sciences at ETH.[9]

Gross has served on papers committees of the major graphics conferences multiple times, including ACM SIGGRAPH,[10] IEEE Visualization,[11] Eurographics, Pacific Graphics,[12] and others. In 2005 he became the first European papers chair of ACM SIGGRAPH.[13] In addition, he has been the co-organizer of various international symposia. He has served on the editorial advisory boards of various journals and was associate editor of IEEE Computer Graphics & Applications.[14]

Disney Research

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In 2008, Gross was recruited by Ed Catmull to help establish a corporate R&D organization at The Walt Disney Company.[15] He was appointed Director of Disney Research Zurich, and later promoted to Vice President of Research in 2018. In 2022, he became the Chief Scientist of The Walt Disney Company.[2]

His research at Disney focuses on novel technologies for filmmaking in collaboration with his Computer Graphics Lab at ETH Zürich. He and his teams worldwide conduct research in video technologies, rendering, digital humans, augmented creativity and audience understanding with a particular emphasis on incorporating machine learning and artificial intelligence into the production pipeline of Disney.[16]

His 2010 paper High-Quality Single-Shot Capture of Facial Geometry laid the foundation for the Disney Medusa Facial Capture system, which has been used in numerous films and contributed to his second Tech-Oscar award in 2019.[17]

Research applications

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Gross' research has been successfully adopted in the film industry and led to the establishment of multiple companies and the creation of software platforms.

The “Wavelet-Turbulence software” for which he received the “Tech-Oscar” from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, has become the standard procedure for animated smoke and explosions effects within a few years; it was employed in more than 20 Hollywood productions, such as “Avatar,” “Kung Fu Panda,” “Monsters vs. Aliens,” “Sherlock Holmes,” “Iron Man 3”, “Man of Steel,” “Battleship” and others.[18] His work on physically-based modeling for facial surgery simulation (FACE Project) eventually led to the spin-off company Cyfex founded in 2000.[19][20]

In 2002 he co-founded Novodex,[21] a company focusing on middleware for physics modeling in computer games. The firm was chosen by Ageia as a software platform to support their upcoming PhysX PPU card, which became the basis of the PhysX SDK 2. x series.[22] Aegia acquired Novodex in 2004, and Gross became the chair of the technical advisory committee.[23] In 2008, Ageia was itself acquired by graphics technology manufacturer Nvidia.[24]

Gross’ research on 3D video recording, compression, editing and visual effects led to the creation of the startup-company LiberoVision[25][26] which in 2012 was acquired by Vizrt and rebranded “Viz Libero”.[27]

Before joining Disney Research, Gross also worked on the theoretical modeling of dyslexia. He developed a statistical model and a multimodal recording system to facilitate language acquisition for people with dyslexia, which resulted in the multimedia learning software Dybuster and the foundation of the company of the same name.[28][29]

Awards and Prizes

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Gross has received multiple awards. The most recent is the Eurographics Gold Medal for his outstanding research contributions, for his contributions in bridging industry and academia, and for his leadership in the field at large.[30] In 2013 he received the Karl Heinz Beckurts Prize for outstanding technological innovations with strong practical relevance.[31] Also in 2013, Gross received the Konrad Zuse Medal of the German association of computer sciences (GI), the highest award for scientific achievements in computer sciences in Germany.[32] From the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Markus Gross received a “Tech-Oscar,” also known as the Technical Achievement Award[33] together with Nils Thuerey, Theo Kim, and Doug James for the development of a procedure to simulate smoke and explosions more efficiently.[34] Further, Gross received the Outstanding Technical Contributions Award EUROGRAPHICS[35] in 2010 and the Swiss ICT Champions Award[36] in 2011.

Most Relevant Papers

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According to Google Scholar, his most cited papers are [37]

  • "Surfels: Surface elements as rendering primitives". by H Pfister, M Zwicker, J Van Baar, M Gross. Proceedings of the 27th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques. ACM Press/Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 2000. (890 cites through July 2014)
  • "Particle-based fluid simulation for interactive applications." by M Müller, D Charypar, M Gross Proceedings of the 2003 ACM SIGGRAPH/Eurographics symposium on Computer animation. Eurographics Association, 2003. (822 cites)
  • "Efficient simplification of point-sampled surfaces." by M Pauly, M Gross, LP Kobbelt. Proceedings of the conference on Visualization'02. IEEE Computer Society, 2002. (668 cites)
  • "Surface splatting." M Zwicker, H Pfister, J Van Baar, M Gross. >Proceedings of the 28th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques. ACM, 2001.(571 cites)
  • Simulating facial surgery using finite element models
    RM Koch, MH Gross, FR Carls, DF von Büren, G Fankhauser, YIH Parish
    Proceedings of the 23rd annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques. ACM, 1996. (413 cites)
  • Pointshop 3D: an interactive system for point-based surface editing
    M Zwicker, M Pauly, O Knoll, M Gross
    ACM Transactions on Graphics 21.3 (2002): 322-329. (389 cites)
  • Blue-C: a spatially immersive display and 3D video portal for telepresence
    M Gross, S Würmlin, M Naef, E Lamboray, C Spagno, A Kunz, E Koller-Meier, T. Svoboda, L. Van Gol, S. Lang, K. Strehlke, A. Vande Moere, O. Staadt
    ACM Transactions on Graphics. Vol. 22. No. 3. ACM, 2003. (302 cites)

References

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  1. ^ “CGL ETH Zurich“ Website of ETH Zürich – CGL. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  2. ^ a b "Education and Professional Experience" Website of M.Gross at CGL. Retrieved 02 May 2025.
  3. ^ „List of Publications“ Website of the CGL – Publications. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  4. ^ „List of Patents filed in the USA“ Website of the US Patent office. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  5. ^ Markus Gross Ph.D. Alumni Website of the CGL. Retrieved 2 May 2025.
  6. ^ "Markus Gross receives 2021 Steven Anson Coons Award" Archived 2025-05-05 at the Wayback Machine Website of the Departement of Computer sciences at the ETH Zurich. Retrieved 5 May 2025.
  7. ^ „Markus Gross – CV Overview Archived 2014-06-06 at the Wayback Machine Website of the Departement of Computer sciences at the ETH Zurich. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  8. ^ „Markus Gross extended Bio Archived 2013-10-17 at the Wayback Machine Website of M.Gross at CGL. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  9. ^ „Markus Gross short CV“ Archived 2013-10-16 at the Wayback Machine Website of M.Gross at CGL. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  10. ^ „SIGGRAPH 2005 Selects 98 Outstanding Papers From 461 Submissions“ SIGGRAPH 2005 News Releases. Retrieved on 18. February 2014
  11. ^ "IEEE Visualization Conference Committee” Archived 2013-06-15 at the Wayback Machine Website of VIS 2002 – IEEE Visualization. Retrieved on 18. February 2014
  12. ^ “Pacific Graphics 2012 Committee” Website of Pacific Graphics Conference 2012. http://sweb.cityu.edu.hk/pg2012/#section-committee
  13. ^ „SIGGRAPH 2005 Selects 98 Outstanding Papers From 461 Submissions“ SIGGRAPH 2005 News Releases. Retrieved on 18. February 2014
  14. ^ “IEEE CG&A Press Release” Press release of the IEEE CG&A. Retrieved on 18. February 2014
  15. ^ “I’m a Kind of Business Angel” said Markus Gross, Vice President Disney Research Studios in Zürich Archived 2024-05-02 at the Wayback Machine Venturelab with Markus Gross. Retrieved 24 May 2025.
  16. ^ DisneyResarch|Studios - Publications Archived 2025-03-13 at the Wayback Machine DisneyResarch|Studios website. Retrieved 13 March 2025.
  17. ^ “An Oscar for Medusa” Archived 2023-02-03 at the Wayback Machine ETH Zurich news . Retrieved 24 May 2025.
  18. ^ „Wavelet Turbulence Software“ PC-Mag News. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  19. ^ „Cyfex AG“ Corporate website. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  20. ^ "Markus Gross’ Start-ups” Archived 2014-06-06 at the Wayback Machine Markus Gross’ Website at CGL. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  21. ^ "Markus Gross’ Start-ups” Archived 2014-06-06 at the Wayback Machine Markus Gross’ Website at CGL. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  22. ^ „PhysXinfo Wiki“ Wiki - PhysX. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  23. ^ „Eurographics – Markus Gross“ Archived 2014-06-06 at the Wayback Machine Markus Gross short Bio. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  24. ^ „PhysX Wikipedia Eintrag“ Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  25. ^ „LiberoVision AG“ Corporate website. Retrieved 03 June 2013
  26. ^ "Markus Gross’ Start-ups” Archived 2014-06-06 at the Wayback Machine Markus Gross’ Website at CGL. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  27. ^ „Vizrt Acquires LiberoVision AG“ Archived 2014-02-23 at the Wayback Machine Corporate website – Pressreleases. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  28. ^ „Dybuster AG“ Archived 2014-06-06 at the Wayback Machine Corporate website. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  29. ^ „ACES profile: Dybuster develops software to treat dyslexia” Archived 2014-06-07 at the Wayback Machine Science|Business News portal. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  30. ^ "Eurographics Medal 2024: Markus Gross" Archived 2024-05-02 at the Wayback Machine Website of EUROGRAPHICS. Retrieved 2 May 2025.
  31. ^ „Karl Heinz Beckurts Prize Winner 2013“ Website of the Karl Heinz Beckurts foundation. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  32. ^ IDW online „Computer science for Hollywood: Markus Groß receives Konrad-Zuse-Medal for Achievements in computer sciences„ Website of the Informationsdiesnt Wissenschaft (idw). Retrieved 14 February 2014.
  33. ^ „2012 Scientific and Technical Awards Official Oscars website. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  34. ^ „Oscar-Worthy smoke signals Website of the ETH Life Magazine of ETH Zurich. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  35. ^ “EUROGRAPHICS Awards Winner” Archived 2014-06-06 at the Wayback Machine Website of EUROGRAPHICS. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  36. ^ "Swiss ICT Champions Award 2011” Website of the Swiss ICT Awards. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  37. ^ Markus Gross homepage. Google scholar. Retrieved 15 June 2014.
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