Dan Piponi

R&D, ILM

Dan has worked in graphics for 15 years in fields ranging from
rendering and photogrammetry to physical simulation. He headed the R&D groups at Manex Visual Effects and Esc Entertainment that produced visual effects for the Matrix Trilogy. Dan currently works in the R&D group at ILM and recent credits include Poseidon and Star Trek.

Talk synopsis...

Collision (click to zoom)

Simulation plays an important role in the visual effects work of ILM.
Unfortunately, simulation can require significant CPU resources and
this conflicts with the desire of artists to view the results of their
work immediately.
Recently we implemented a photorealistic fire
simulator and renderer using the CUDA GPU framework. We were able to
obtain order of magnitude speed improvements over what we could
achieve with a single CPU while adhering to a design goal to keep our
system as simple as possible. I will present an equation-free crash
course on the inner workings of our fire simulator, illustrated by
recent ILM film work, and demonstrating why this challenge maps so
well to GPU hardware. I will also speak about the possible future
direction of GPU development showing how we can put the full power of
GPUs into the hands of artists.