2015 Roger Needham lecture: Linking form and function, computationally

Form and function are long believed to be tightly coupled. While scientists have studied this relation for centuries, the recent popularity of 3D scans and models provides new avenues to revisit the problem.

Prof Mitra discussed the latest in computational analysis techniques, to discover relations and structures from unorganised image and object collections. Beyond analysis, the results lead to new methodologies to design functional objects for physical use. He also discussed computational tools that support functional prototyping, guided designing, and material-aware modelling.

Watch Prof Niloy Mitra's Needham lecture

More about Prof Niloy Mitra

Niloy leads the Smart Geometry Processing Group in the Department of Computer Science at University College London (UCL). He received his PhD degree from Stanford University under the guidance of Leonidas Guibas. His research interests include shape understanding, computational design, geometry processing and, more generally, computer graphics.

He received the ACM Siggraph Significant New Researcher Award in 2013 for his work “Discovery and use of structure in 3D objects”. His work has twice been selected and featured as research highlights in Communications of the ACM.

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