astronomy

Michael Kass

Michael Kass is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Michael Kass rather than just read about it. In short: Michael Kass is an American computer scientist best known for his work in computer graphics and computer vision. He has won an Academy Award and the SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Achievement Award and is an ACM Fellow.

Key takeaways

Michael Kass belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Michael Kass to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Michael Kass from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Michael Kass is an American computer scientist best known for his work in computer graphics and computer vision. He has won an Academy Award and the SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Achievement Award and is an ACM Fellow. Kass, David Baraff and Andrew Witkin shared an Academy Award for Scientific and Technical Achievement in 2005 for clothing animation, including his pioneering work on the clothing simulator used by Pixar in the short Geri's Game, Best Animated Short Film, Academy Awards 1997. He contributed a variety of technologies to Pixar animated films, from A Bug's Life through Monsters University. In 2009, Kass was honored by ACM SIGGRAPH for "his extensive and significant contributions to computer graphics, ranging from image processing to animation to modeling, and in particular for his introduction of optimization techniques as a fundamental tool in graphics." The award citation notes: "Michael is a graphics renaissance man: he's worked on animation, modeling, textures, image processing and even on graphics systems. In each area, he's made groundbreaking contributions." Google Scholar counts over 30K citations to his work, including one of the top 20 most cited papers in computer science, “Snakes: Active Contour Models," authored with Andrew Witkin and Demetri Terzopoulos. The "Snakes" paper launched the Active contour model, a framework for delineating an object outline from a possibly noisy 2D image for applications like object tracking, shape recognition, segmentation, edge detection and stereo matching. Kass developed the Hierarchical Z-Buffer with collaborators Ned Greene and Gavin Miller, a rendering technique that enables great increases in practical scene complexity compared to traditional Z-buffering. The algorithm can be found in all modern graphics processing units (GPU). Currently a distinguished engineer at NVIDIA, Kass is involved in a variety of projects related to augmented reality, virtual reality, and various types of content creation. Prior to NVIDIA, he was a senior principal engineer at Intel, a distinguished fellow at Magic Leap, a senior research scientist at Pixar, and a principal engineer at Apple Computers. His early days in advanced technologies began at Schlumberger Artificial Intelligence Research Laboratory after earning his Ph.D. from Stanford. Kass has 28 issued U.S. patents and was honored in 2018 by the New York Intellectual Property Law Association as Inventor of the Year. Kass is also a champion juggler, Argentine tango dancer, and an accomplished ice dancer.

Education Kass received a B.A. summa cum laude in artificial intelligence (independent concentration) from Princeton University, an M.S. in computer science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.

Career Michael Kass has been a distinguished engineer at NVIDIA since 2017. Prior to NVIDIA, he was a senior principal engineer in the New Technology Group at Intel, distinguished fellow at Magic Leap, a senior research scientist at Pixar Animation Studios, and a principal engineer with the Advanced Technology Group at Apple Computers. He began working on computer graphics and computer vision at Schlumberger's Palo Alto Research Center following his Ph.D.

Honors, awards and achievements

Computer science Academy Award for Technical Achievement (2005), for "pioneering work in physically-based computer-generated techniques used to simulate realistic cloth in motion pictures," with David Baraff and Andrew Witkin SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Achievement Award (2009), "for his extensive and significant contributions to computer graphics, ranging from image processing to animation to modeling, and in particular for his use of optimization for physical simulation and image segmentation" ACM Fellow (2017), "for contributions to computer vision and computer graphics, particularly optimization and simulation" New York Intellectual Property Law Association Inventor of the Year (2018), "for contributions to the field of computer graphics" Most Cited Paper in Computer Science - Citeseer (19th), for "Snakes: Active contour models," International Journal of Computer Vision (1988), with Demetri Terzopoulos and Andrew Witkin Helmholtz Award, International Conference on Computer Vision (2013), for "Snakes: Active Contour Models," ICCV 1987, with Demetri Terzopoulos and Andrew Witkin Golden Nica, Prix Ars Electronica (1992), with Andrew Witkin, for the image "Reaction Diffusion Texture Buttons," Linz, Austria Grand Prix, Pixel INA, Imagina (1991), for the animation Splash Dance, with G. Miller Marr Prize Honorable Mention, 1st International Conference on Computer Vision, London (1987), for "Snakes: Active contour models," with Demetri Terzopoulos and Andrew Witkin Best Paper in Perception-Vision, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (1987), for "Energy constraints on deformable models: Recovering shape and non-rigid Motion," with Demetri Terzopoulos and Andrew Witkin Honorable Mention, Prix Ars Electronica (1987), for the animation Knot Reel, with Andrew Witkin and K. Fleischer. Nomination, Best Paper prize, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (1986), for "Linear image features in stereopsis" Grand Prix, Parigraph (1986), for the animation Knot Reel, with Andrew Witkin and K. Fleischer

Other 2nd place, U.S. Argentine Tango Stage Championships, 2012 U.S. Adult National Silver Medalist in ice dance, 2003 U.S. Juggling Champion, 1980

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Michael Kass

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Michael Kass claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Michael Kass before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Michael Kass ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Michael Kass

In research: Michael Kass appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Michael Kass in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Michael Kass is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Academy Award for Technical Achievement winners, American computer scientists, Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Michael Kass outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Michael Kass in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Michael Kass means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Michael Kass out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Michael Kass in simple terms?

Why does Michael Kass matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Michael Kass?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Michael Kass.