Henrik Wann Jensen, Creator of Killer 3D technologies

Computer professors don't often win Oscars, but Henrik Wann Jensen did. He invented Photon Mapping at DTU, the technique that was used to simulate the skin on Gollum in "Lord of the Rings". For his research Henrik Wann Jensen received an Academy Award at the Oscar ceremony.

 

Henrik Wann's research is focused on realistic image synthesis, global illumination, rendering of natural phenomena, and appearance modeling. His contributions to computer graphics include the photon mapping algorithm for global illumination, and the first technique for efficiently simulating subsurface scattering in translucent materials. He is the author of "Realistic Image Synthesis using Photon Mapping," AK Peters 2001. He received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Technical University of Denmark in 1996. Now he is an associate professor at the University of California at San Diego, where he is working in the computer graphics lab.