Jiayi(Eris) Zhang

Jiayi(Eris) Zhang

Undergrad @UofT
she/her/hers

About me

Hi! I’m a senior undergraduate student at the University of Toronto, majoring in Computer Science and Mathematics. In parallel, I’ve been working as a research assistant at the Dynamic Graphics Project Lab, advised by Prof. Alec Jacobson.

I’m broadly interested in physics-based animation, geometry processing, computational design and fabrication as well as interface technologies that augment users’ creativity and productivity.

Previously, I’ve explored different research areas with Prof. Ken Jackson on numerical analysis and with Prof. Fanny Chevalier on HCI / visualization. I also did research in geometric modeling with Prof. Marc Alexa and physics-based animation with Prof. David Levin and Prof. Alec Jacobson. It’s my great honour to be selected as a finalist for CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award 2020 and an awardee for Adobe Research Women-in-Technology Scholarship 2020.


Publications

  Surface Multigrid via Intrinsic Prolongation
  Hsueh-Ti Derek Liu, Jiayi Eris Zhang, Mirela Ben-Chen, Alec Jacobson
  ACM SIGGRAPH 2021
  Paper | Paper (low res)


  Fast Updates for Least-Squares Rotational Alignment
  Jiayi Eris Zhang, Alec Jacobson, Marc Alexa
  Eurographics 2021
  Paper | Project Page | Code


  Complementary Dynamics
  Jiayi Eris Zhang, Seungbae Bang, David I.W. Levin, Alec Jacobson
  ACM SIGGRAPH ASIA 2020
  Paper | Paper (low res) | Project Page | Talk
  *Featured in the Technical Papers Trailer and Two Minute Papers


  DataQuilt: Extracting Visual Elements from Images to Craft Pictorial
  Visualizations
  Jiayi Eris Zhang, Nicole Sultanum, Anastasia Bezerianos, Fanny Chevalier
  ACM CHI 2020
  Paper | Project Page | Talk


Selected Projects

Fast Support Reduction
In layer-based 3D fabrication, supporting structures are fabricated to support overhanging regions yet discarded later. Reducing supports saves both time and material cost. In this project, we propose a real-time skinning-based method to slim down the supporting structure while maintaining a detailed-preserved and semantically meaningful geometry. We achieve this by optimizing a set of performance objectives and searching globally in the subspace spanned by the joint handles. Artifacts e.g. self-intersection can be effectively avoided. Our method is implemented via OpenGL shaders and has potential to be employed as a structural prototyping tool that facilitates model design and fabrication.


Contact

jiayieris.zhang (at) mail.utoronto.ca