I am out of email communication since 13th of July until 19th of September 2010. Please, do not ask for reviewing, another work, and immediate replies to your e-mails in this period, I will not be able to reply in all cases. I will return to your e-mails at the end of September. Thank you.

Vlastimil Havran

E-mail: havran "at character" fel.cvut.cz

Department of Computer Graphics and Interaction
Faculty of Electrical Engineering
Czech Technical University in Prague
Karlovo nam. 13
12135 PRAGUE 2
Czech Republic

tel. +420 22435 7263, fax. +420 22492 3325
Office: 420 (4th floor, building E)
Official department webpage

Basic info:

Adjunct Professor/Senior Researcher, Department of Computer Graphics and Interaction,
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague.
two pages CV (February 2010).
Ph.D. Thesis about ray shooting (so also about ray tracing).

Research interests:

Data structures and algorithms for rendering images and videos, visibility calculations, geometric range searching for global illumination, software architectures for rendering, applied Monte Carlo methods, data compression, ....

Selected Work:

Recent:
- I have recently finished the project "MPI Informatics Building Model as Data for Your Research", which provides interesting geometric data useful not only for computer graphics research. See more on the project webpage.
- Recently, I have been working together with Jiri Filip and Karol Myszkowski on BTF data compression method usefull for both CPUs and GPUs that allows for fast importance sampling. See more on the project webpage.
- I have been working for European Union IST project ARiSE project since March 2006 till the end of the project in December 2008.
- February 2006: I moved to Prague after 4 years and 5 months at Max-Planck-Institute for Informatics, Computer Graphics Group, Saarbruecken, Germany.
- I had been involved in European Union IST RealReflect project, (project webpage) since March 2002 till the end of the project in October 2005, working in the validation and testing of predictive rendering.
Present:
- I work on several topics from rendering and ray tracing, in particular general global illumination solutions and searching algorithms for rendering. The solutions are implemented mostly in GOLEM rendering system, accessible as well here: local copy of GOLEM project webpage.
- Among other activities I would like to work on the second phase of BES project ( a local copy of BES project webpage), when having time, which is not the case... This project deals with the efficiency of spatial data structures for visibility computations, in particular for tracing rays through the scene.

Some my research colaborators (alphabetical order):

Jiri Bittner, Cyrille Damez, Kirill Dmitriev, Robert Herzog, Karol Myszkowski, Werner Purgathofer, Hans-Peter Seidel, and Jiri Zara.

Professional Services:

Reviewing:

In the past I reviewed papers for these journals and conferences: ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), journal IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications (CGA), IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG), journal Computers and Graphics (Elsevier), Computer Graphics Forum (CGF), Visual Computer, Journal of Graphics Tools (JGT), WSCG conferences, SCCG conferences, SIGGRAPH conferences, Eurographics main conferences, Eurographics Symposia on Rendering, Symposia on Interactive Ray Tracing, High Performance Graphics, GRAPP conferences, Graphics Interface, Graphicon, Pacific Graphics, etc.

International Programme Committees (IPC):

EGSR 2010, HPG 2010, EG short papers 2010, SCCG 2010, GRAPP 2010, WSCG 2010, HPG 2009, EGSR 2009, GRAPP 2009, SCCG 2009, WSCG 2009, SCCG 2008, GRAPP 2008, Symposium on Interactive Ray Tracing 2008, EG 2007 (Tutorial co-chair), GRAPP 2007, SCCG 2007, Symposium on Interactive Ray Tracing 2007, GRAPP 2006, SCCG 2006, Symposium on Interactive Ray Tracing 2006.

Selected publications and presentations:

2010:
51. J. Novak, V. Havran, C. Dachsbacher: "Path Regeneration for Interactive Path Tracing", 4 pages, Eurographics 2010 as short paper, pages 61-64, May 3-7, 2010, Norrkoeping, Sweden, [PDF], [BibTeX], [VIDEO in WMV format].

50. M. Zlatuska and V.Havran: "Ray Tracing on a GPU with CUDA -- Comparative Study of Three Algorithms", in WSCG 2010 conference, Communication Papers proceedings, pages 69--76, February 1-4, 2010, [PDF], [BibTeX], [Master Thesis of Martin Zlatuska in Czech], [sources framework and scenes].

49. V.Havran, J.Filip, K.Myszkowski: "Bidirectional Texture Function Compression based on the Multilevel Vector Quantization", in Computer Graphics Forum, Vol. 29, Issue 1, pp. 175--190, January 2010, project webpage, [Article Online], [BibTeX].

2009:
48. V.Havran, J.Zajac, J. Drahokoupil, H.-P. Seidel: "MPI Informatics Building Model as Data for Your Research", Research Report MPI-I-2009-4-004, 113 pages, December 2009, project webpage [PDF] and [BibTeX].

47. V.Havran, J.Filip, K.Myszkowski: "Bidirectional Texture Function Compression based on the Multilevel Vector Quantization SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL", technical report No. 2265, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Institute of Information Theory and Automation, 59 pages, December 2009, project webpage, [PDF] and [BibTex].

46. J. Bittner, O. Mattausch, P. Wonka, V. Havran, M. Wimmer: "Adaptive Global Visibility Sampling", SIGGRAPH 2009, New Orleans, ACM TOG, Vol. 28, Issue 3, pp. 94:1-94:10, August 2009, project webpage, [PDF] and [BibTeX].

45. J. Bittner, V. Havran: "RDH: Ray Distribution Heuristics for Construction of Spatial Data Structures", Spring Conference on Computer Graphics 2009, pp. 61-67, May 2009, published by ACM SIGGRAPH, Budmerice, Slovakia. [PDF] and [BibTeX].

2007:
44. V. Havran, J. Bittner: "Stackless Ray Traversal for kD-Trees with Sparse Boxes", Computer Graphics & Geometry [online journal], 2007, vol. 9, no. 3, p. 16-30, ISSN 1811-8992. Preliminary version in [PDF] and [BibTeX].

43. R. Herzog, V. Havran, S. Kinuwaki, K. Myszkowski, H.-P. Seidel: "Global Illumination using Photon Ray Splatting", Computer Graphics Forum, Vol. 26, Issue 3, pp. 503-513, (proceedings of Eurographics 2007 conference, September 2007, Prague, Czech Republic.) [PDF] and [BibTeX]

42. J. Bittner, V. Havran: "RDH: Ray Distribution Heuristics for Construction of Spatial Data Structures.". In Proceedings of Symposium on Interactive Ray Tracing 2007 (posters), [PDF] and [BibTeX]

41. R. Herzog, V. Havran, S. Kinuwaki, K. Myszkowski, H.-P. Seidel: "Global Illumination using Photon Ray Splatting", Research Report MPI-I-2007-4-003, May 2007, 66 pages, web page [PDF] and [BibTeX]

40. V. Havran: "About the Relation between Spatial Subdivisions and Object Hierarchies Used in Ray Tracing", at SCCG conference, Budmerice, Slovakia, April 26-28, 2007, pp. 55-60. [PDF] and [BibTeX]

39. V. Havran and J. Bittner: "Ray Tracing with Sparse Boxes", at SCCG conference, Budmerice, Slovakia, April 26-28, 2007, pp. 49-54. [PDF] and [BibTeX]

2006:
38. V. Havran, R. Herzog, H.-P. Seidel: "On the Fast Construction of Spatial Hierarchies for Ray Tracing", at RT06 conference", September 2006, pp. 71-80, Salt Lake City, UTAH, USA. [PDF] and [BibTeX], [Powerpoint Slides].

37. I. Wald, V. Havran: "On building fast kd-trees for ray tracing, and on doing that in O(N log N)", at RT06 conference, September 2006, pp. 61-69, Salt Lake City, UTAH, USA. [PDF] and [BibTeX].

36. V. Havran, J. Bittner: "Efficient Sorting and Searching in Rendering Algorithms", a half-day tutorial T4 at Eurographics 2006, Vienna, Monday 4th September 2006, 14:00-17:30. [Tutorial webpage] [PDF] and [BibTeX]

35. V. Havran, R. Herzog, H.-P. Seidel: "On Fast Construction of Spatial Hierarchies for Ray Tracing", research report MPI-I-2006-4-008, June 2006. [BibTeX]

2005:
34. V. Havran, R. Herzog, H.-P. Seidel: "Fast Final Gathering via Reverse Photon Mapping", EUROGRAPHICS 2005, 29 August - 2 September 2005, Dublin, Ireland. [PDF] and [BibTeX]. Also see the Master Thesis by Robert Herzog for some details.

33. V. Havran, M. Smyk, G. Krawczyk, K. Myszkowski, H.-P. Seidel: "Importance Sampling for Video Environment Maps", in Sketches, SIGGRAPH 2005, Tuesday, 2 August, 8:30 - 10:15 am, Petree Hall C, Convention Center in Los Angeles, USA. See Project Page for details (videos etc.). [BibTeX].

32.V. Havran, J. Bittner, R. Herzog, H.-P. Seidel: "Ray Maps for Global Illumination", in 16th Eurographics Symposium on Rendering, 29 June - 1 July 2005, Konstanz, Germany, pp. 43-54. [PDF] and [BibTeX]. Also see the Master Thesis by Robert Herzog for some details.

31. V. Havran, M. Smyk, G. Krawczyk, K. Myszkowski, H.-P. Seidel: "Interactive System for Dynamic Scene Lighting using Captured Video Environment Maps", in 16th Eurographics Symposium on Rendering, 29 June - 1 July 2005, Konstanz, Germany, pp. 31-42. See project webpage for details. [PDF] and [BibTeX].

30. A. Efremov, V. Havran, H.-P. Seidel:"Robust and Numerically Stable Bezier Clipping Method for Ray Tracing NURBS Surfaces", at SCCG conference, Budmerice, Slovakia, May 12-14, 2005. [PDF] and [BibTeX]. Related Master Thesis by Alexander Efremov with many details on ray tracing NURBS related to the article.

29. V. Havran, A. Neumann, G. Zotti, W. Purgathofer, H.-P. Seidel:"On Cross-Validation and Resampling of BRDF Data Measurements", at SCCG conference, Budmerice, Slovakia, May 12-14, 2005. [PDF] and [BibTeX].

2004:
28. K. Dmitriev, V. Havran, H.-P. Seidel:"Faster Ray Tracing with SIMD Shaft Culling", Research Report [MPI-I-2004-4-006] and [BibTeX]. 13 pages, December 2004.

27. V. Havran, J. Bittner, H.-P. Seidel:"Ray Maps for Global Illumination", presentation in SIGGRAPH 2004 in Sketches, Los Angeles, USA, 11 August 2004, Room 502A, 13:45-15:30. [BibTeX]. The follow-up paper at EGSR 2005 conference.

26. P. Kondratieva, V. Havran, H.-P. Seidel: "Effective Use of Procedural Shaders in Animated Scenes", pp. 164--172 of LNCS 3039 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science), in CGGM'04 (Workshop on Computer Graphics and Geometric Modelling), Springer Verlag, 2004 [PDF at Springer Verlag Web Site]. The local copy of the paper [PDF] and [BibTeX]. For the copyright for this paper check Springer Verlag.

25. T. Tawara, K. Myszkowski, K. Dmitriev, V. Havran, C. Damez, H.-P. Seidel: "Exploiting Temporal Coherence in Global Illumination", 11 pages, invited paper in SCCG'2004 conference, Budmerice, Slovakia, April 2004. [BibTeX].

2003:
24. V. Havran, K. Dmitriev, H.-P. Seidel:"Goniometric Diagram Mapping for Hemisphere", 8 pages, at Eurographics 2003, Short Presentations Session, PDF at EG site, pp. 293-300, Granada, Spain, September 2003. Preliminary version of the paper [PDF] and [BibTeX]. The presentation slides in [PDF].

23. V. Havran, C. Damez, K. Myszkowski, H.-P. Seidel:"An Efficient Spatio-Temporal Architecture for Animation Rendering", presentation in SIGGRAPH 2003 in Sketches and Applications, in sketches & applications on rendering, San Diego, USA, July 2003. See Project webpage web page. [BibTeX].

22. V. Havran, C. Damez, K. Myszkowski, H.-P. Seidel:"An Efficient Spatio-Temporal Architecture for Animation Rendering", 12 pages, Eurographics Symposium on Rendering 2003, pp. 106-117, 303, Leuven, June 2003. Project Page and presentation slides in [MS Powerpoint 97]. Local copy of the paper [PDF] and [BibTeX].

21. P. Bekaert, P. Slusallek, R. Cools, V. Havran, H.-P. Seidel:"A custom designed density estimation method for light transport", Research Report [MPI-I-2003-3-004], 28 pages, September 2003. [BibTeX].

20. V. Havran, W. Purgathofer:"On Comparing Ray Shooting Algorithms", In journal Computer and Graphics, Volume 27, Issue 4, pp. 593-604, August 2003. Paper in [PDF] at journal website. [BibTeX].

19. V.Havran, J.Bittner, H.-P. Seidel: "Exploiting Temporal Coherence in Ray Casted Walkthroughs", Proceedings of SCCG'2003 conference, Budmerice, Slovakia, pp. 164--172, April 2003. Preliminary version of the paper [PDF] and [BibTeX]. Presentation slides in [MS Powerpoint 97],

2002:
18. L.Szirmay-Kalos, V.Havran, B.Balazs, L.Szecsi:"On the Efficiency of Ray-shooting Acceleration Schemes", Proceedings of SCCG'02 conference, Budmerice, Slovakia, Published by ACM SIGGRAPH, pp. 89--98, April 2002. Paper in [PDF] and [BibTeX].

17. V.Havran and J.Bittner: "On Improving KD-Trees for Ray Shooting", Journal of WSCG, Volume 10, Number 1, pp. 209--217, February 2002. [PDF] and [BibTeX].

2001:
16. J.Bittner and V.Havran: "Exploiting Coherence in Hierarchical Visibility Algorithms", The Journal of Visualization and Computer Animation, pp. 277--286, Volume 12, Number 5, December 2001. Journal Website and [BibTeX].

15. J.Bittner and V.Havran: "Exploiting Temporal and Spatial Coherence in Hierarchical Visibility Algorithms", Proceedings of SCCG'01 conference, Budmerice, Slovakia, pp. 213--220, April 2001. Best Paper Award. [PS] and [BibTeX]. Presentation slides in [PDF].

2000:
14. V.Havran: "Heuristic Ray Shooting Algorithms", Ph.D. Thesis, November 2000. [PDF], [PS] and [BibTeX].

13. V.Havran and W. Purgathofer: "Comparison methodology for ray shooting algorithms.", technical report TR-186-2-00-20, Vienna University of Technology, Nov. 2000. [PS], [PDF] and [BibTeX].

12. V.Havran and J.Bittner: "LCTS: Ray Shooting using Longest Common Traversal Sequences", Computer Graphics Forum (Proc. of conference Eurographics '2000), 19(3):C59--C70, Eurographics Association and Blackwell Publishers, Aug. 2000. [PDF] and [BibTeX].

11. V.Havran, J. Prikryl, and W. Purgathofer: "Statistical Comparison of Ray-Shooting Efficiency Schemes", technical report TR-186-2-00-14, Vienna University of Technology, April 2000. [PS], [PDF] and [BibTeX].

10. V.Havran, L. Dachs, and J.Zara: "VIS-RT: A Visualization System for RT Spatial Data Structures", Proceedings of WSCG'2000 conference, short communication paper, pp. 28--35, February 2000. [PDF] and [BibTeX]. Some results from the visualization

1999:
9. V.Havran: "A Summary of Octree Ray Traversal Algorithms", in Ray-Tracing News RTNv12n2, December 1999. [BibTeX].

8. V.Havran and F.Sixta: "Comparison of Hierarchical Grids", in Ray-Tracing News RTNv12n1", July 1999. [BibTeX].

7. V.Havran: "Analysis of Cache Sensitive Representation for Binary Space Partitioning Trees", in journal Informatica, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 203--210, ISSN 0350-5596, May 2000. [PDF] and [BibTeX].

6. V.Havran and J.Bittner: "Rectilinear BSP Trees for Preferred Ray Sets", Proceedings of SCCG'99 conference, pp. 171-179, April/May 1999. [PDF] and [BibTeX].

1998:
5. V.Havran, T.Kopal, J.Bittner, and J.Zara: "Fast Robust BSP Tree Traversal Algorithm for Ray Tracing", in Journal of Graphics Tools, Vol.2, No. 4, pp. 15-23, Dec 1998. [HTML] at journal website, [Sample Code] and [BibTeX].

4. J.Bittner, V.Havran, and P.Slavik: "Hierarchical Visibility Culling with Occlusion Trees", in proceedings of CGI'98, IEEE, New York, pp. 207-219, 1998. [PDF] and [BibTeX].

3. V.Havran, J.Bittner, and J.Zara: "Ray Tracing with Rope Trees", Proceedings of SCCG'98 conference, pp. 130-139, April 1998. [PDF] and [BibTeX].

1997:
2. V.Havran: "Cache Sensitive Representation for the BSP Tree", proceedings of Compugraphics'97 conference, pp. 369-376, December 1997. [PDF] and [BibTeX].

1. V.Havran and J.Zara: "Evaluation of BSP Properties for Ray Tracing", proceedings of SCCG'97, pp. 152-162, June 1997. [PDF] and [BibTeX].

All publications including reports, posters, presentations, etc. are listed here in [BibTex List].

Teaching: list of my former master students (chronological order of Master Thesis defense):
(1999) Petr Mladek, Vladimir Nadvornik, Michal Kracik, Filip Sixta, Michal Masa, Libor Dachs, (2000) Jaroslav Krivanek, (2004) Alexander Efremov, (2005) Robert Herzog, (2008) Lukas Korba, (2009) Martin Zlatuska, Jiri Drahokoupil, Michal Hapala, Jan Novak, (2010) Tomas Vanat, Lukas Krivsky, Ondrej Linda, Radomir Vavra, Ondrej Kozelka.

My favorite list of conferences
in computer graphics by VRVIS.

I am completely against software patents,
in particularly discussed from time to time in EU parliament, since it hinders the progress of software, it may disable the spinoff software companies, and makes the software more expensive to ordinary users. See web page www.nosoftwarepatents.com for more details.

This page is maintained by Vlastimil Havran. It was last updated on 2010 July 1.