BC 345
Station 14CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland+41 21 69 31329
wenzel.jakob@epfl.ch
www.inf.ethz.ch/∼wjakob

Wenzel Jakob
Curriculum Vitae
Education
Cornell UniversityPh.D, Computer Science, Minor: Mathematics

Ithaca, USA
2008–2013

Advised by Steve Marschner. Thesis: “Light Transport on Path-Space Manifolds”

Cornell University
M.Eng., Computer Science

Ithaca, USA
2007–2008

Thesis: “An Analytic Framework for Anisotropic Diffusion in Computer Graphics”

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Vordiplom, Double major in Computer Science and Mathematics

Karlsruhe, Germany
2004–2007

Thesis: “Accelerating the bidirectional path tracing algorithm using a dedicatedintersection processor”

Research interests{ Robust bidirectional light transport algorithms{ Scientific computing{ Applications of differential geometry{ Material appearance modeling

Publications
Upcoming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Physically Based Rendering: From Theory To Implementation (third edition)
Matt Pharr, Greg Humphreys, Wenzel Jakob
Morgan Kaufmann Publishers
Path Space MCMC Methods in Computer Graphics
Wenzel Jakob
The Eleventh International Conference on Monte Carlo and Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods in Scientific Computing

2015 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Geometric Tools for Exploring Manifolds of Light Transport Paths
Wenzel Jakob and Steve Marschner
In Communications of the ACM: Research Highlights (November 2015)
Instant Field-Aligned Meshes
Wenzel Jakob, Marco Tarini, Daniele Panozzo, Olga Sorkine-Hornung
In ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2015)
Anisotropic Gaussian Mutations for Metropolis Light Transport through Hessian-Hamiltonian
Dynamics
Tzu-Mao Li, Jaakko Lehtinen, Ravi Ramamoorthi, Wenzel Jakob, Fredo Durand
In ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2015)

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Path-space Motion Estimation and Decomposition for Robust Animation Filtering
Henning Zimmer, Fabrice Rousselle, Wenzel Jakob, Oliver Wang, David Adler, Wojciech Jarosz, Olga
Sorkine-Hornung, Alexander Sorkine-Hornung
In Computer Graphics Forum (Proceedings of Eurographics Symposium on Rendering 2015)2014 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Building Volumetric Appearance Models of Fabric using Micro CT Imaging
Shuang Zhao, Wenzel Jakob, Steve Marschner and Kavita Bala
In Communications of the ACM: Research Highlights (November 2014)
A Comprehensive Framework for Rendering Layered Materials
Wenzel Jakob, Eugene D’Eon, Otto Jakob, Steve Marschner
In ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2014)
Discrete Stochastic Microfacet Models
Wenzel Jakob, Miloš Hašan, Ling-Qi Yan, Jason Lawrence, Ravi Ramamoorthi, Steve Marschner
In ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2014)
Rendering Glints on High-Resolution Normal-Mapped Specular Surfaces
Ling-Qi Yan, Miloš Hašan, Wenzel Jakob, Jason Lawrence, Steve Marschner, Ravi Ramamoorthi
In ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2014)2013 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Light Transport on Path-Space Manifolds
Wenzel Jakob
Ph. D. thesis, Aug. 2013, Computer Science Department, Cornell University

2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Manifold Exploration: A Markov Chain Monte Carlo technique for rendering scenes
with difficult specular transport
Wenzel Jakob and Steve Marschner
In ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2012)
Structure-aware Synthesis for Predictive Woven Fabric Appearance
Shuang Zhao, Wenzel Jakob, Steve Marschner, and Kavita Bala
In ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2012)2011 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Progressive Expectation–Maximization for Hierarchical Volumetric Photon Mapping
Wenzel Jakob, Christian Regg, and Wojciech Jarosz
In Computer Graphics Forum (Proceedings of Eurographics Symposium on Rendering 2011)
Building Volumetric Appearance Models of Fabric using Micro CT Imaging
Shuang Zhao, Wenzel Jakob, Steve Marschner and Kavita Bala
In ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2011)

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Goal-Based Caustics
Marios Papas, Wojciech Jarosz, Wenzel Jakob, Szymon Rusinkiewicz, Wojciech Matusik, Tim Weyrich
In Computer Graphics Forum (Proceedings of Eurographics 2011)2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
A radiative transfer framework for rendering materials with anisotropic structure
Wenzel Jakob, Adam Arbree, Jonathan T. Moon, Kavita Bala and Steve Marschner
In ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2010)2009 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Capturing Hair Assemblies Fiber by Fiber
Wenzel Jakob, Jonathan T. Moon, Steve Marschner
In ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2009)

Awards and Fellowships
2013:

ETH Postdoctoral Fellow (awarded 207,000 CHF over a period of 2 years; funded by the ETH
Zürich Postdoctoral Fellowship program and Marie Curie Actions COFUND)

2012:

Yahoo! Teaching award for the course ‘Realistic Image Synthesis’ (CS6630), Cornell University

2009:

First prize for developing the best optimizing x86 compiler in the course CS4120 at Cornell
University (joint work with Owen Arden, Danfeng Zhang and Catalin Dumitru)

2009:

Outstanding teaching assistant award for the course ‘Introduction to Scientific Computing’(CS3220), Cornell University

2007:

Recognized for being in the top 10% of computer science Vordiplom graduates at the Karlsruhe
Institute of Technology

Open Source Projects
Mitsuba Renderer
Physically based rendering software

2007–PresentDeveloped Mitsuba (http://www.mitsuba-renderer.org), an open source C++-based rendering framework thatimplements advanced rendering techniques and uses cloud computing to parallelize rendering tasks over thousandsof networked cores. Mitsuba is extremely modular to permit easy prototyping of new parts of the rendering pipeline
for research purposes. It consists of over 160K lines of code and been used in numerous research projects inacademia and industry. As of 2014, Mitsuba has been used in over 50 research publications, including 30 papers in
SIGGRAPH, SIGGRAPH Asia, and Transactions on Graphics. Users include Cornell, MIT, University of Virginia,
Columbia University, UC Berkeley, NYU, INRIA, TU Berlin, TU Dresden, Microsoft Research, NVIDIA Research,Google X, Disney Research, Volvo Car Corporation, Square Enix, Weta Digital, and the US Navy.

Nori
Educational ray tracer

2012

Developed Nori (www.mitsuba-renderer.org/nori), an educational rendering toolkit used to teach the graduatelevel computer graphics course at Cornell University.

Patents
Progressive Expectation–Maximization for Hierarchical Volumetric Photon Mapping
Wenzel Jakob, Christian Regg, and Wojciech Jarosz
Disney Enterprises, Inc., April 21, 2015, US Patent US9,013,484

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Reflective and refractive surfaces configured to project desired caustic pattern
Marios Papas, Wojciech Jarosz, Wenzel Jakob, Szymon Rusinkiewicz, Wojciech Matusik, Tim Weyrich
Disney Enterprises, Inc., Mar 14, 2013, US Patent US20130066596 A1
A Decomposition for Improving Image-based Postprocessing of Path-traced Animation Sequences
Henning Zimmer, Fabrice Rousselle, Wenzel Jakob, Oliver Wang, Olga Sorkine-Hornung, Alexander
Sorkine-Horning
Patent pending

Experience
School of Computer and Communication Sciences, EPFL
Tenure-track assistant professor

Lausanne, Switzerland
2016–Present

Leading the Realistic Graphics Lab

ETH Zürich
Zürich, Switzerland
Postdoctoral researcher at the Interactive Geometry Lab, Institute of Visual Computing
2013–Present
Working at the intersection of rendering and geometry. Advised by Olga Sorkine-Hornung

Cornell University
Graduate Research Assistant, Computer Science Department

Ithaca, USA
2008–2013

Worked on robust bidirectional light transport algorithms, massively parallel rendering and material appearance
modeling. PhD Advisor: Prof. Steve Marschner

Weta Digital
Research & Development Intern, Rendering research group

Wellington, New Zealand2012

Integrated Manifold Exploration in Weta’s rendering system. Worked on simulations of light in layered substances,which led to the 2014 SIGGRAPH paper “A Comprehensive Framework for Rendering Layered Materials”.

Disney Research Zürich
Research Intern, Rendering Group

Zürich, Switzerland
2010–2011

Worked on compact representations for volumetric transport and the design of computational materials.
Advisor: Wojciech Jarosz

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Undergraduate Research Assistant, Institute of Computer Science and Engineering

Karlsruhe, Germany
2006, 2007

Designed and implemented FPGA units for the sensory and motor control subsystems of the ARMAR-III humanoidrobot. Advised by Prof. Tamim Asfour and Prof. Rüdiger Dillmann.

SAP CEC Corporate Research
Research Intern

Walldorf, Germany
2006

Developed an interface for the integration of landmark data with SAP R/3 systems

1&1 Internet AG
Software Developer

Karlsruhe, Germany
2001-2004

Designed a J2EE application stack for company-wide permission management.

Teaching{ As lecturer- Image Synthesis (252-5705-00L), ETH Zürich, 2015, joint course with Wojciech Jarosz{ As teaching assistant- Advanced Methods in Computer Graphics (252-5704-00L), ETH Zürich, 2014
- Realistic Image Synthesis (CS6630), Cornell University, 2012
- Introduction to Compilers (CS4120), Cornell University, 2011
- Introduction to Scientific Computing (CS3220), Cornell University, 2009
- Interactive Computer Graphics (CS569), Cornell University, 2008
- Linear Algebra and Analytic Geometry, Universität Karlsruhe, 2006-2007

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Professional activities{ Editor for- Journal of Computer Graphics Techniques (JCGT){ Program committees- SIGGRAPH 2016 Technical Papers- Inverse Rendering Workshop at ICCV 2015
- Monte Carlo and Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods 2016
- Eurographics Symposium on Rendering 2015 Papers- SIGGRAPH 2015 Technical Papers- Eurographics 2015 Technical Papers & STAR (State of the Art Reports)- Eurographics Symposium on Rendering 2014 Papers- Eurographics 2013 Short Papers{ Reviewer for- SIGGRAPH: 2011-2015- SIGGRAPH Asia: 2011-2015- Eurographics: 2010-2015- Eurographics Symposium on Rendering: 2009, 2011-2015- IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications: 2012
- Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence: 2013
- The Visual Computer: 2013-2014- High Performance Graphics: 2010, 2015
- Monte Carlo and Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods (MCQMC): 2014
{ Memberships: ACM SIGGRAPH and Eurographics

Nationality & Languages
Nationality: German (also mother tongue)
English: Fluent
Japanese: Intermediate
French: Basic

Intermediate conversations, can read/write ∼1000 Kanji characters
Simple words and phrases only

Other Interests{ Hiking & Winter sports{ Japanese language studies

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