James O'Brien
ProfessorInfo Links
Research Areas
Graphics (GR)Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
Scientific Computing (SCI)
Computer animation, physical simulation, surface modeling, human perception of motion, computational geometry, image processing, scientific computing
Research Centers
Berkeley Center for New Media (BCNM)Visual Computing Lab (VCL)
Biography
James F. O’Brien is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley and Chief Scientist at Avametric. His research interests include graphics, computer animation, simulations of physical systems, and the forensic analysis of images and video. He has authored numerous papers on these topics. In addition to his research pursuits, Prof. O'Brien has worked with film and game companies on integrating advanced simulation physics into games and special effects. His methods for destruction modeling have been used in over 100 feature films and AAA game titles. In 2015 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his work in destruction modeling with an Academy Award for Technical Achievement. He received his doctorate from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2000, the same year he joined the faculty at UC Berkeley. Professor O'Brien is a Sloan Fellow and ACM Distinguished Scientist, has been selected as one of Technology Review's TR-100, and has been awarded research fellowships from the Okawa and Hellman Foundations. He is currently serving as ACM SIGGRAPH Director at Large.http://obrien.berkeley.edu/Education
2000, Ph.D., Computer Science, Georgia Institute of Technology1997, M.S., Computer Science, Georgia Institute of Technology
1992, B.S., Computer Science, Florida International University
Selected Publications
E. Kee, J. O'Brien, and H. Farid, "Exposing Photo Manipulation with Inconsistent Shadows," ACM Transactions on Graphics, vol. 32, no. 4, pp. XX:1--12, Sep. 2013.R. Narain, T. Pfaff, and J. O'Brien, "Folding and Crumpling Adaptive Sheets," ACM Transactions on Graphics, vol. 32, no. 4, pp. xxx:1--8, July 2013.
D. Kim, W. Koh, R. Narain, K. Fatahalian, A. Treuille, and J. O'Brien, "Near-exhaustive Precomputation of Secondary Cloth Effects," ACM Transactions on Graphics, vol. 32, no. 4, pp. xxx:1--7, July 2013.
P. Clausen, M. Wicke, J. Shewchuk, and J. O'Brien, "Simulating Liquids and Solid-Liquid Interactions with Lagrangian Meshes," ACM Transactions on Graphics, vol. 32, no. 2, pp. 17:1--15, April 2013.
R. Narain, A. Samii, and J. O'Brien, "Adaptive Anisotropic Remeshing for Cloth Simulation," ACM Transactions on Graphics, vol. 31, no. 6, pp. 147:1--10, Nov. 2012.
F. Hecht, Y. J. Lee, J. Shewchuk, and J. O'Brien, "Updated Sparse Cholesky Factors for Corotational Elastodynamics," ACM Transactions on Graphics, vol. 31, no. 5, pp. X:1--13, Oct. 2012.
V. Conotter, J. O'Brien, and H. Farid, "Exposing Digital Forgeries in Ballistic Motion," IEEE TRransactions on Information Forensics and Security, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 1--14, Feb. 2012.
J. O'Brien and H. Farid, "Exposing Photo Manipulation with Inconsistent Reflections," ACM Transactions on Graphics, vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 1--11, Jan. 2012.
A. G. Kirk and J. O'Brien, "Perceptually Based Tone Mapping for Low-Light Conditions," ACM Transactions on Graphics, vol. 30, no. 4, pp. 42:1--10, July 2011.
H. Wang, R. Ramamoorthi, and J. O'Brien, "Data-Driven Elastic Models for Cloth: Modeling and Measurement," ACM Transactions on Graphics, vol. 30, no. 4, pp. 71:1--11, July 2011.
S. Javdani, S. Tandon, J. Tang, J. O'Brien, and P. Abbeel, "Modeling and Perception of Deformable One-Dimensional Objects," in Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2011, 2011, pp. 1-8.
M. Cusumano-Towner, A. Singh, S. Miller, J. O'Brien, and P. Abbeel, "Bringing Clothing into Desired Configurations with Limited Perception," in Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2011, 2011, pp. 1-8.
H. Wang, J. O'Brien, and R. Ramamoorthi, "Multi-Resolution Isotropic Strain Limiting," ACM TOG / Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH Asia 2010, pp. 160:1-10, Dec. 2010.
M. Wicke, D. Ritchie, B. M. Klingner, S. Burke, J. Shewchuk, and J. O'Brien, "Dynamic Local Remeshing for Elastoplastic Simulation," ACM TOG / Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH 2010, pp. 49:1-11, July 2010.
H. Wang, F. Hecht, R. Ramamoorthi, and J. O'Brien, "Example-Based Wrinkle Synthesis for Clothing Animation," ACM TOG / Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH 2010, pp. 107:1-8, July 2010.
R. T. Held, E. A. Cooper, J. O'Brien, and M. S. Banks, "Using Blur to Affect Perceived Distance and Size," ACM Transactions on Graphics, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 19:1--16, March 2010.
R. Alterovitz, E. Lessard, J. Pouliot, I. J. Hsu, J. O'Brien, and K. Goldberg, "Optimization of HDR brachytherapy dose distributions using linear programming with penalty costs," Medical Physics, vol. 33, no. 11, pp. 4012-4019, Nov. 2006.
A. W. Bargteil, T. G. Goktekin, J. O'Brien, and J. A. Strain, "A semi-Lagrangian contouring method for fluid simulation," ACM Trans. Graphics, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 19-38, Jan. 2006.
A. Bargteil, T. G. Goktekin, J. O'Brien, and J. Strain, "Semi-Lagrangian Contouring for Fluid Simulation," ACM Transactions on Graphics, vol. 25, pp. 19-38, Jan. 2006.
O. Arikan, D. A. Forsyth, and J. O'Brien, "Fast and detailed approximate global illumination by irradiance decomposition," in Proc. 32nd ACM SIGGRAPH Intl. Conf. on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH '05), J. Marks, Ed., New York, NY: The Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., 2005, pp. 1108-1114.
Awards, Memberships and Fellowships
Technical Achievement (Oscar) Award, 2015ACM Distinguished Scientist Award, 2009
Jim and Donna Gray Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching of Computer Science, 2008
Hellman Fellow, 2004
MIT Tech Review Top 100 Innovators Under 35 (TR100), 2004
Sloan Research Fellow, 2003
Okawa Research Grant, 2000