Daniel Thalmann

Prof. Daniel Thalmann is a Swiss and Canadian computer scientist and a pioneer inVirtual humans. He is currently Honorary Professor atEPFL, Switzerland and Director of Research Development at MIRALab Sarl in Geneva, Switzerland.

Daniel Thalmann

Citizenship	Switzerland and Canada
Alma mater	University of Geneva
Known for	Virtual Humans,Crowd Simulation,Virtual Rehabilitation
Spouse	Nadia Magnenat Thalmann
Awards	Dr. Honoris Causa,Paul-Sabatier University, Toulouse, France 2002 Eurographics Distinguished Career Award 2010 Canadian Human Computer Communications Society Achievement Award 2012 CGI Career Award 2015
Scientific career
Fields	Computer Science
Institutions	Nanyang Technological University École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) University of Montreal

Biography

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After a master's degree inNuclear Physics (1970) and a combined Certificate in Statistics and Computer Science (1972) both from theUniversity of Geneva, he earned a PhD inComputer Science (1977) also from theUniversity of Geneva. In his PhD, he worked very early on the concept of abstract machines for portable compilers and operating systems.^[1] From 1977 to 1989, he was Professor at theUniversity of Montreal, in Canada, where he started to work on computer graphics and animation. Then, he came back to Switzerland and founded thevirtual reality lab (VRlab) atEPFL, Switzerland. He has been Visiting Professor/ Researcher atCERN,University of Nebraska-Lincoln,University of Tokyo, andNational University of Singapore. From 2009 to 2017, he was Visiting Professor at the Institute for Media Innovation,Nanyang Technological University,Singapore. He is co-editor-in-chief of theJournal of Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds,^[2] and member of the editorial board of six other journals. Thalmann has published more than 650 papers in graphics, animation, and virtual reality. He is coeditor of 30 books, and coauthor of several books includingCrowd Simulation (second edition 2012)^[3] andStepping Into Virtual Reality (second edition 2023),^[4] published by Springer.

Research

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In the 1980s, Thalmann together withNadia Magnenat Thalmann became interested in the realistic computer modelling and rendering of the human form, in motion. In 1988, they directed the short filmRendez-vous in Montreal, which is widely regarded as the first computer film to employ synthetic actors, in this caseHumphrey Bogart andMarilyn Monroe.^[5]

In the 1990s, Thalmann focused his research on behavioural animation of Virtual Humans, introducing the concept of synthetic vision for autonomous virtual humans,^[6] and developing methods for realisticgait modelling.^[7] In the late 1990s, he launched the first project oncrowd simulation of virtual humans,^[8] initiating a new field of animation that now attracts many researchers. Rendering of tens of thousands of agents, collision detection and generation of varieties of individual people became important issues. He also introduced, with Marcelo Kallmann, the concept ofsmart objects as objects that describe their own possible interactions. He recently extended his research from virtual humans to social robots, working in the team onNadine Social Robot.

Thalmann is also recognized in the area ofVirtual Rehabilitation, a term he coined with Professor Grigore Burdea ofRutgers University (US). He has also created with him the International Conference on Virtual Rehabilitation and is a founder of the International Society of Virtual Rehabilitation.

Awards and honors

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Thalmann received an Honorary Doctorate (Honoris Causa) fromPaul-Sabatier University in Toulouse, France, in 2003.^[9] He also received theEurographics Distinguished Career Award in 2010^[10] and the 2012 Canadian Human Computer Communications Society Achievement Award.^[11] In 2015, he received the CGI Career Achievement Award from the Computer Graphics Society (CGS).^[12]