Moores Professor of Computer Science
Director of Graduate Studies,
Director of Computer Graphics
& Interactive Media Lab,
Department of Computer Science,
University of Houston, Houston, TX
Office:
Phillip G. Hoffman Hall (PGH), Rm 228
Houston, TX 77204-3010
Tel: +1 713 743 1018
Fax: +1 713 743 3335
Email (preferred way to contact me):
zdeng4 (at) central.uh.edu
OR zhigang.deng (at) gmail.com
Mailing Address:
Phillip G. Hoffman Hall, Department of Computer Science,
3551 Cullen Blvd, Room 501,
Houston, TX, 77204-3010
Dr. Zhigang Deng is Moores Professor of Computer Science and the Director of Graduate Studies at the Computer Science Department of University of Houston. He earned Ph.D. in Computer Science at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Southern California in 2006. He also completed B.S. degree in Mathematics from Xiamen University (China), and M.S. in Computer Science from Peking University (China). Over the years, he had worked at or consulted for the Founder Group (China), AT&T Research, Tencent USA, and Qualcomm.
His current research interests are in the broad areas of computer graphics, computer animation, virtual humans, human computer conversation, and biomedical informatics. He is the recipient of many awards including Moores Professorship, CASA Best Paper Awards, IEEE TCCLS Best Paper Award, ACM ICMI Ten Year Technical Impact Award, UH Teaching Excellence Award, ICRA Best Medical Robotics Paper Award Runner-up, and Google Faculty Research Award. His research has been funded by NSF, NIH, NASA, DOD, Texas NHARP, QNRP, and various industry sources (Google, Honda, Electronic Arts, Nokia, etc). Besides serving as the conference/program co-chair for CASA 2014, SCA 2015, MIG 2022, PG 2023, and CGI 2024, he has been an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, Computer Graphics Forum, etc. His research work has been incorporated into many de facto graphics/animation packages (including Maya, and Houdini) and used in many game studios (e.g., Electronic Arts). He is an ACM Distinguished member and an IEEE Senior Member.
I am constantly looking for new graduate or undergraduate students to join my group! Self-Motivated students with solid math, vision, or graphics background are encouraged to apply. If you are already a current MS or PhD student in UH Computer Science program and would like to work with me, please make sure to take COSC6372 and/or COSC6356 courses.
selected current projects
Flying Insect Modeling and SimulationAn efficient and practical model to simulate butterfly flights including wing-abdomen interaction in various conditions and environments, based on parametric maneuvering functions and force-based models
Papers:
TOG'22,
MIG'22,
SIGGRAPH'24,
TVCG'24
[Video (TOG)], [Video (SIGGRAPH'24)], [Video (TVCG'24, Bee Simulation)], [Dataset] 
Real-time Video-based Facial Performance Capture and ManipulationAutomatic algorithms to real-time capture 3D high-quality facial mesh sequences as well as video-based facial expression manipulation and face swapping
Analysis and Modeling Human Behaviors in Multiparty ConversationsQuantifying, understanding, and modeling human behaviors and gestures when they are involved with multiparty conversations
Papers:
CHI'17 ,
SCA'19 ,
PRESENCE'22 ,
MIG'22,
ICMI'23
[Video (SCA'19)], [Video (PRESENCE'22)], [Video (MIG'22)] 
Skeletal Rigging from Mesh/Point SequencesUsing the input of an animated mesh sequence, this approach can automatically extract its optimal skeleton structure, joint positions, linear blend skinning weights, and the corresponding bone transformations.
Crowd Simulation and EvacuationNew algorithms and systems to simulate crowds or group behavior in unexpected hazard situations, computational model of crowd emotion evolution, or simulated crowds by integrating physical strength consumption
Visual Traffic Simulation, Modeling, and EvaluationDesign of novel and efficient algorithms and systems to simulate large-scale realistic traffic in various road and urban settings, including mixed traffic, lane-changing, simulated traffic evaluation, and intersectional traffic simulation.
Papers:
CAVW'14a,
CAVW'14b,
CAVW'15a,
CAVW'15b,
SCA'16,
TVCG'17,
TVCG'18a,
TVCG'18b,
CGF'19,
ICCV'19,
ECCV'20,
CAVW'22
[Video I (TVCG'17)], [Video II (SCA'16)], [Video III (TVCG'18b)] 
3D Face Modeling from In-the-wild Images or VideoAutomatic methods to reconstruct 3D face models with fine-scale details from a single in-the-wild image or video, including automatically augment coarse-scale 3D faces with synthesized fine-scale geometric wrinkles.
Hexahedral Mesh Generation, Optimization, and EvaluationA first and complete pipeline to optimize the global structure of a hex-mesh, by identifying and removing those valid removal base-complex sheets that contain misaligned singularities, and a volumetric partitioning strategy based on a generalized sweeping framework to seamlessly partition the volume of an input triangle mesh into a collection of deformed cuboids.
Papers:
SIGGRAPH'15,
TVCG'16,
SGP'17,
SIGGRAPH Asia'17
[Video I (SIG'15)], [Video II (TVCG'16)], [ Source Code (SGP'17)], [ Dataset (SGP'17)], [ [Source Code (SIGGRAPH Asia'17)]] 
Color Harmony Estimation and ModelingColor composition (or color theme) is a key factor to determine how well a piece of art work or graphical design is perceived by humans. We develop novel color theme evaluation models to infer both color theme ratings and user aesthetic preferences. |
Latest News
Paper "Real-time Wing Deformation Simulations for Flying Insects" was accepted to ACM SIGGRAPH 2024 Conference.
I received a new research grant from the Qatar National Research Foundation (work with Hamad Medical Co.) to work on a Mixed Reality Laparoscopic Simulator, with the total funding of this project about $740k.
I was invited to serve as a program co-chair for Computer Graphics International (CGI) Conference 2024 conference.
Our paper "Tele-Mentoring Using Augmented Reality: A Feasibility Study to Assess Teaching of Laparoscopic Suturing Skills" published on the IEEE International Symposium on Computer-based Medical Systems (CBMS) 2023 received IEEE TCCLS Best Paper Award given by the IEEE Technical Committee on Computational Life Sciences.
I was invited to serve as the program co-chair for Pacific Graphics 2023 conference. Welcome to submit papers to PG 2023 at Daejeon, Korea!
I and colleagues (at UH ECE, U of Arkansas, and UT MD Anderson) was awarded an NIH R01 grant (more than $930K) to work on AI-Doctor Collaborative Medical Image Diagnosis.
I served as the program co-chair of ACM SIGGRAPH Conference on Motion, Interaction, and Games (MIG) 2022, which held at Guanajuato, Mexico in November 2022. Here is the MIG 2022 website.
My co-authored ACM TOG paper "A Practical Model for Realistic Butterfly Flight Simulation" was presented on ACM SIGGRAPH 2022 Conference, which introduces the first-of-its-kind computational model to animate the flights of 3D butterflies.
I was named as an ACM Distinguished Member (2021 class). Here is its ACM Press Release, and UH News.
I was invited to serve as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics in 2021.
I was selected to receive the "Moores Professorship" at the University of Houston, starting from the academic year 2021. Here is its UH Computer Science News.
I was awarded a NSF IIS grant to work on understanding and modeling behaviors of small group conversations.
I am a co-recipient of "Ten Year Technical Impact Award" (on ACM ICMI 2014 Conference) for my co-authored ICMI 2004 paper "Analysis of Emotion Recognition using Facial Expressions, Speech and Multimodal Information".
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