Wojtan Group
Computer Graphics and Physics Simulation
Computer simulations of natural phenomena are indispensable for modern scientific discoveries, modern engineering, and the digital arts. The Wojtan group uses techniques from physics, geometry, and computer science to create efficient simulations and detailed computer animations.
Natural phenomena like flowing fluids and shattering solids are both beautifully chaotic and overwhelmingly complex. This complexity makes them extremely difficult to compute without the aid of a supercomputer. The Wojtan group overcomes this complexity by combining laws of motion from physics, geometric theories from mathematics, and algorithmic optimizations from computer science to efficiently compute highly complicated natural phenomena on consumer-grade computing hardware. Their research achieves some of the world’s fastest and most detailed simulations through a deeper understanding of the underlying mathematical models and inventing novel computational techniques.
Group Leader
Administrative Support
Team
Current Projects
Efficient simulation of fluid and fracture dynamics | Numerical and geometric algorithms for solving partial differential equations | Algorithms for re-using simulation data | Computational physics applied to motion pictures, video games, and virtual reality
Publications
Chern A, Ishida S. 2024. Area formula for spherical polygons via prequantization. SIAM Journal on Applied Algebra and Geometry. 8(3), 782–796. View
Hafner C, Ly M, Wojtan C. 2024. Spin-it faster: Quadrics solve all topology optimization problems that depend only on mass moments. Transactions on Graphics. 43(4), 78. View
Chen Y-L, Ly M, Wojtan C. 2024. Primal-dual non-smooth friction for rigid body animation. Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques Conference Conference Papers ’24. SIGGRAPH: Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques Conference. View
Synak P, Kalinov A, Strugaru I-M, Etemadihaghighi A, Yang H, Wojtan C. 2024. Multi-material mesh-based surface tracking with implicit topology changes. ACM Transactions on Graphics. 43(4), 54. View
Makatura L, Wang B, Chen Y-L, Deng B, Wojtan C, Bickel B, Matusik W. 2023. Procedural metamaterials: A unified procedural graph for metamaterial design. ACM Transactions on Graphics. 42(5), 168. View
ReX-Link: Chris Wojtan
Career
Since 2015 Professor, Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA)
2011 – 2014 Assistant Professor, Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA)
2010 PhD, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA
Selected Distinctions
2022 ERC Consolidator Grant
2016 ACM SIGGRAPH Significant New Researcher Award
2015 Eurographics Young Researcher Award
2015 Eurographics Günter Enderle Best Paper Award
2014 ERC Starting Grant
2013 Microsoft Visual Computing Award
2011 Georgia Institute of Technology Sigma Chi Best PhD Thesis Award
2005 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship
