Mark Harris
REAL-TIME GRAPHICS RESEARCH
width= I completed my Ph.D. in computer science at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in August, 2003. My dissertation topic was Real-Time Cloud Simulation and Rendering. After graduating I lived in the UK for 5 years and worked for NVIDIA. Now I live in Brisbane, Australia with my wife and daughter. (I still work for NVIDIA).

RESEARCH AND OTHER INTERESTS
My Dissertation My Dissertation: Real-Time Cloud Simulation and Rendering
What started as an internship project at iROCK Games became a three year research effort to complete my Ph.D. My various intertwined projects, including fast static cloud rendering, physically- based simulation on graphics hardware, and cloud dynamics simulation, are components of my dissertation.
SkyWorks Simulation of Cloud Dynamics on Graphics Hardware
We implement physically-based, visually-realistic interactive cloud simulation on programmable GPUs. Clouds in our system are modeled using partial differential equations describing fluid motion, thermodynamic processes, buoyant forces, and water phase transitions.
SkyWorks Real-Time Cloud Rendering
We efficiently compute realistic shadowing and view-dependent light scattering in clouds, and use impostors to accelerate the rendering of hundreds of clouds and hundreds of thousands of particles at high frame rates. See the SkyWorks page for demos and source code.
Simulation on Graphics Hardware
We use programmable graphics hardware for real-time visual simulation of diverse dynamic phenomena. The simulations we implement use an extension of cellular automata known as coupled map lattice (CML). Follow the link for more information, paper, videos, and demos.
General Purpose Computation on GPUs
Graphics processing units (GPUs) have become powerful, capable, and inexpensive coprocessors useful for a wide variety of computation. I started the GPGPU page with the aim of cataloging research and development in the area of GPGPU computation. Due to the recent interest in the area, the site has grown into GPGPU.org
Radiosity on Graphics Hardware
I worked with Greg Coombe and Anselmo Lastra on a technique for computing radiosity, including an adaptive subdivision of the model, using graphics hardware. The technique uses floating point textures and fragment programs to perform progressive refinement using a novel implementation of hemicube radiosity on the GPU.
EVE Simulation and Animation Using Hardware Accelerated Procedural Textures
This tutorial was presented at the 2003 Game Developers Conference by Greg James (NVIDIA) and Mark Harris (UNC). On this page you will find talk slides, demos, source code, and links relating to simulation and animation on the GPU.
EVE Effective Virtual Environments
For more than three years I was a research assistant in the Effective Virtual Environments (EVE) group at UNC, led by Professors Fred Brooks and Mary Whitton. Our research focuses on measuring and improving presence and task performance in virtual environments.
Cartoon Rendering
I worked with Adam Lake and Carl Marshall at Intel to develop techniques for real-time non-photorealistic rendering, including cartoon and pencil-sketch styles. I also wrote Renderman cartoon shaders for my advanced rendering course at UNC.
Beamrunner Hypercross (BHX)
It's a fight to the finish as you push your beamrunner to its limits, slicing through space on high energy beams. BHX is a game created by Team Whoopass for Dave Eberly's Game Engine Design course here at UNC. As seen on Gamasutra.com.
Internships iROCK Games Intel NVIDIA Industry Experience
Since 1997 I've had summer internships at Intel (twice) and NVIDIA, and a nine-month internship at iROCK Games.
Miscellaneous Miscellaneous
Miscellaneous other stuff, including my RenderTexture class, the Old Well model, a UNC powerpoint template, and more as I add it.
Mark Harris Page
Copyright 1999-2011 Mark J. Harris