Thomas A. DeFanti

Ph.D

Personal Homepage:
http://www.cs.uic.edu/~tom/

Current place of employment:
University of Illinois

Tom DeFanti is a computer graphics researcher and pioneer. His work has ranged from early computer animation, to scientific visualization, virtual reality, and grid computing. He is a distinguished professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a research scientist at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology.DeFanti did his PhD work in the early 1970s at Ohio State University, under Charles Csuri in the Computer Graphics Research Group. For his dissertation, he created the GRASS programming language, a three-dimensional, real-time animation system usable by computer novices. In 1973, he joined the faculty of the University of Illinois at Chicago. With Dan Sandin, he founded the Circle Graphics Habitat, now known as the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL). At UIC, DeFanti further developed the GRASS language, and later created an improved version, ZGRASS, implemented on the low-cost Datamax UV-1. The GRASS and ZGRASS languages have been used by a number of computer artists, including Larry Cuba, in his film 3/78 and the animated Death Star sequence for Star Wars. Later significant work done at EVL includes development of the graphics system for the Bally home computer, invention of the first data glove, co-editing the 1987 NSF-sponsored report Visualization in Scientific Computing that outlined the emerging discipline of scientific visualization, invention of PHSColograms, and invention of the CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment. DeFanti's current work includes heading the TransLight/StarLight international multi-gigabit networking project and co-directing the OptIPuter optical networking and visualization project. DeFanti contributed greatly to the growth of the SIGGRAPH organization and conference. He served as Chair of the group from 1981 to 1985, co-organized early film and video presentations (which became the Electronic Theatre), and in 1979 started the SIGGRAPH Video Review, a video archive of computer graphics research. DeFanti is a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery. He has received the 1988 ACM Outstanding Contribution Award, the 2000 SIGGRAPH Outstanding Service Award, and the UIC Inventor of the Year Award.

Publications by Thomas A. DeFanti (bibliography)

-- Choose Citation Style -- Standard format APA format MLA formatBibTex formatEndNote/Refer format what's this?

Luciano, Cristian, Banerjee, Pat and DeFanti, Thomas A. (2009): Haptics-based virtual reality periodontal training simulator. In Virtual Reality, 13 (2) pp. 69-85.

Kenyon, Robert V., Sandin, Daniel J., Smith, Randall C., Pawlicki, Richard R. and DeFanti, Thomas A. (2007): Size-Constancy in the CAVE. In Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 16 (2) pp. 172-187.

Kooima, Robert, Peterka, Tom, Girado, Javier, Ge, Jinghua, Sandin, Daniel J. and DeFanti, Thomas A. (2007): A GPU Sub-pixel Algorithm for Autostereoscopic Virtual Reality. In: Sherman, William R., Lin, Ming C. and Steed, Anthony (eds.) IEEE Virtual Reality Conference, VR 2007 10-14 March, 2007, Charlotte, NC, USA. pp. 131-137.

Luo, Xun, Kenyon, Robert V., Kamper, Derek, Sandin, Daniel J. and DeFanti, Thomas A. (2007): The Effects of Scene Complexity, Stereovision, and Motion Parallax on Size Constancy in a Virtual Environment. In: Sherman, William R., Lin, Ming C. and Steed, Anthony (eds.) IEEE Virtual Reality Conference, VR 2007 10-14 March, 2007, Charlotte, NC, USA. pp. 59-66.

Peterka, Tom, Kooima, Robert, Girado, Javier, Ge, Jinghua, Sandin, Daniel J., Johnson, Andrew E., Leigh, Jason, Schulze, Jürgen P. and DeFanti, Thomas A. (2007): Dynallax: Solid State Dynamic Parallax Barrier Autostereoscopic VR Display. In: Sherman, William R., Lin, Ming C. and Steed, Anthony (eds.) IEEE Virtual Reality Conference, VR 2007 10-14 March, 2007, Charlotte, NC, USA. pp. 155-162.

DeFanti, Thomas A., Laat, Cees de, Mambretti, Joe, Neggers, Kees and Arnaud, Bill St. (2003): TransLight: a global-scale LambdaGrid for e-science. In Communications of the ACM, 46 (11) pp. 34-41.

Smarr, Larry, Chien, Andrew A., DeFanti, Thomas A., Leigh, Jason and Papadopoulos, Philip M. (2003): The OptIPuter. In Communications of the ACM, 46 (11) pp. 58-67.

DeFanti, Thomas A. (2000): Better than Being There: Next Millennium Networks. In IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 20 (1) pp. 60-61.

Czernuszenko, Marek, Sandin, Daniel J., Johnson, Andrew E. and DeFanti, Thomas A. (1999): Modeling 3D scenes from video. In The Visual Computer, 15 (7) pp. 341-348.

Leigh, Jason, Johnson, Andrew E., Brown, Maxine D., Sandin, Daniel J. and DeFanti, Thomas A. (1999): Visualization in Teleimmersive Environments. In IEEE Computer, 32 (12) pp. 66-73.

Imai, Tomoko, Johnson, Andrew E., Leigh, Jason, Pape, David E. and DeFanti, Thomas A. (1999): The Virtual Mail System. In: VR 1999 1999. p. 78.

Leigh, Jason, Johnson, Andrew E., DeFanti, Thomas A. and Brown, Maxine D. (1999): A Review of Tele-Immersive Applications in the CAVE Research Network. In: VR 1999 1999. pp. 180-.

DeFanti, Thomas A. (1997): Global tele-immersion. In: IEEE Visualization 1997 1997. p. 15.

Stevens, Rick, Woodward, Paul R., DeFanti, Thomas A. and Catlett, Charles E. (1997): From the I-WAY to the National Technology Grid. In Communications of the ACM, 40 (11) pp. 50-60.

Lehner, Valerie D. and DeFanti, Thomas A. (1997): Distributed Virtual Reality: Supporting Remote Collaboration in Vehicle Design. In IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 17 (2) pp. 13-17.

Roy, Trina M., Cruz-Neira, Carolina and DeFanti, Thomas A. (1995): Cosmic Worm in the Cave: Steering a High Perfomance Computing Application from a Virtual Environment. In Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 4 (2) pp. 121-129.

Hudson, Randy, Gunn, Charlie, Francis, George, Sandin, Daniel J. and DeFanti, Thomas A. (1995): Mathenautics: Using VR to Visit 3-D Manifolds. In: SI3D 1995 1995. pp. 167-170.

Hart, John C., Lescinsky, Gordon W., Sandin, Daniel J., DeFanti, Thomas A. and Kauffman, Louis H. (1993): Scientific and artistic investigation of multi-dimensional fractals on the AT&T Pixel Machine. In The Visual Computer, 9 (7) pp. 346-355.

Cruz-Neira, Carolina, Sandin, Daniel J. and DeFanti, Thomas A. (1993): Surround-screen projection-based virtual reality: the design and implementation of the CAVE. In: Proceedings of the 20st Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, SIGGRAPH 1993 1993. pp. 135-142.

Cruz-Neira, Carolina, Sandin, Daniel J., DeFanti, Thomas A., Kenyon, Robert V. and Hart, John C. (1992): The Cave - Audio Visual Experience Automatic Virtual Environment. In Communications of the ACM, 35 (6) pp. 64-72.

DeFanti, Thomas A., Brown, Maxine D. and McCormick, Bruce H. (1989): Visualization: Expanding Scientific and Engineering Research Opportunities. In IEEE Computer, 22 (8) pp. 12-25.

DeFanti, Thomas A., Sandin, Daniel J. and Nelson, Theodor Holm (1975): Computer graphics as a way of life. In Computers & Graphics, 1 (1) pp. 9-15.

Changes to this page (author)

21 Nov 2012: Added
07 Nov 2012: Modified