Nathan Carr

Senior Principal Scientist, Director

San Jose

Dr. Nathan Car is a senior principal research scientist and lab director inside of the award winning Adobe Research organization.  His team focuses on imagining and inventing the next generation experiences for creative designers.  These deep innovations have transformed Adobe’s leading creative suite of products which include Photoshop, Illustrator, Dimension, AfterEffects, Fresco, Aero, among many others.

His team focuses on breakthrough science in generative imaging technology, forward and inverse 2D and 3D rendering, which includes the capture and understanding of shape, material, lighting, and animation. These technologies are unlocking the next generation of photographic editing workflows and expanding the palette of tools for creative designers. By combining forward and inverse techniques, new intelligent assistive systems can increase the velocity of the design process when working vectors, images, 3D, and video.  These technologies are also paving the way for entirely new mediums of expression that include augmented and virtual reality.

Nathan’s personal research interests include forward and inverse geometric modeling and rendering.  A driving goal behind this work is to uncover simpler representations that can accelerate and democratize working and designing in 3D.   His work in 3D shape reconstruction has not only considered geometric form, but also the topology of spaces. He co-invented kCurves, the basis for a new Curvature Tool shipping in Illustrator and Photoshop.  This a technology was also presented at SIGGRAPH 2017. Nathan also is passionate about photorealistic 3D rendering and is a primary driver behind the global illumination renderer inside of Adobe Dimension. Nathan also currently serves as an associate editor for Computer Graphics Forum. He joined Adobe after completing his PhD. from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign under the guidance of John C. Hart.

Publications

Learning Generative Models of Shape Handles

Gadelha, M., Gori, G., Ceylan, D., Měch, R., Carr, N., Boubekeur, T., Wang, R., Maji, S. (Jun. 16, 2020)

IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR)

DiffTaichi: Differentiable Programming for Physical Simulation

Hu, Y., Anderson, L., Li, T., Sun, Q., Carr, N., Ragan-Kelley, J., Durand, F. (Apr. 26, 2020)

International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR)

Variational Implicit Point Set Surfaces

Huang, Z., Carr, N., Ju, T. (Jul. 28, 2019)

ACM Transaction on Graphics (Proc. SIGGRAPH)

Fast Spatially-Varying Indoor Lighting Estimation

Garon, M., Sunkavalli, K., Hadap, S., Carr, N., Lalonde, J. (Jun. 16, 2019)

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR)

Streaming a Sequence of Textures for Adaptive 3D Scene Delivery

Simon, G., Petrangeli, S., Carr, N., Swaminathan, V. (Mar. 23, 2019)

Proceedings of IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (IEEE VR)

Perception-Driven Semi-Structured Boundary Vectorization

Dominici, E., Hoshyari, S., Sheffer, A., Carr, N., Ceylan, D., Wang, Z., Shen, I. (Jul. 15, 2018)

ACM Transaction on Graphics (Proc. SIGGRAPH)

SEETHROUGH: Finding Objects in Heavily Occluded Indoor Scene Images

Hueting, M., Reddy, P., Yumer, E., Kim, V., Carr, N., Mitra, N. (Jun. 15, 2018)

Oral

3DV

Repairing Inconsistent Curve Networks on Non-parallel Cross-sections

Huang, Z., Holloway, M., Carr, N., Ju, T. (Apr. 19, 2018)

Computer Graphics Forum (Proc. Eurographics 2018)

Nautilus: Recovering Regional Symmetry Transformations for Image Editing

Lukáč, M., Sykora, D., Sunkavalli, K., Shechtman, E., Jamriška, O., Carr, N., Pajdla, T. (Jul. 30, 2017)

ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proc. of SIGGRAPH 2017)

FlowRep: Descriptive Curve Networks for Free-Form Design Shapes

Gori, G., Sheffer, A., Vining, N., Rosales, E., Carr, N., Ju, T. (Jul. 30, 2017)

ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proc. of SIGGRAPH 2017)

k-Curves: Interpolation at Local Maximum Curvature

Yan, Z., Schiller, S., Wilensky, G., Carr, N., Schaefer, S. (Jul. 30, 2017)

ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proc. of SIGGRAPH 2017)

Skippy: Single View 3D Curve Interactive Modeling

Krs, V., Yumer, E., Carr, N., Benes, B., Měch, R. (Jul. 30, 2017)

ACM Transactions on Graphics (SIGGRAPH 2017)

Topology-Controlled Reconstruction of Multi-Labelled Domains From Cross-Sections

Huang, Z., Zou, M., Carr, N., Ju, T. (Jul. 30, 2017)

ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proc. of SIGGRAPH 2017)

Gradient-Domain Vertex Connection and Merging

Sun, W., Sun, X., Carr, N., Nowrouzezahrai, D., Ramamoorthi, R. (Jun. 19, 2017)

Eurographics Symposium on Rendering - Experimental Ideas & Implementations (2017)

Feature-aligned segmentation using correlation clustering

Zhuang, Y., Dou, H., Carr, N., Ju, T. (Apr. 12, 2017)

Computational Visual Media (2016)

PatchMatch-based Automatic Lattice Detection for Near-Regular Textures

Liu, S., Sunkavalli, K., Carr, N., Shectman, E., Do, M., Ng, T. (Dec. 11, 2015)

ICCV

PatchMatch-based Automatic Lattice Detection for Near-Regular Textures

Liu, S., Ng, T., Sunkavalli, K., Do, M., Shechtman, E., Carr, N. (Dec. 7, 2015)

International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV'15)

High-Quality Hair Modeling from a Single Portrait Photo

Chai, M., Luo, L., Sunkavalli, K., Carr, N., Hadap, S., Zhou, K. (Nov. 3, 2015)

ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proc. SIGGRAPH Asia 2015)

Topology-Constrained Surface Reconstruction From Cross-sections

Zou, M., Holloway, M., Carr, N., Ju, T. (Aug. 1, 2015)

ACM Transactions On Graphics (Proc. SIGGRAPH 2015)

Anisotropic geodesics for live-wire mesh segmentation

Zhuang, Y., Zhou, M., Carr, N., Ju, T. (Oct. 1, 2014)

Pacific Graphics

Pack Merger: A 3D Print Volume Optimizer

Vanek, J., Garcia, J., Benes, B., Mech, R., Carr, N., Stava, O., Miller, G. (May. 1, 2014)

Computer Graphics Forum

Dual-Color Mixing for Fused Deposition Modeling Printers

Reiner, T., Carr, N., Měch, R., Stava, O., Dachsbacher, C., Miller, G. (Apr. 10, 2014)

Computer Graphics Forum (Proc. Eurographics), 33(2), 2014

Automatic scene inference for 3D object compositing

Karsch, K., Sunkavalli, K., Hadap, S., Carr, N., Jin, H., Fonte, R., Sittig, M., Forsyth, D. (Apr. 1, 2014)

ACM Transactions on Graphics

Adaptive Rendering Based on Weighted Local Regression

Moon, B., Carr, N., Yoon, S. (Jan. 1, 2014)

ACM Transactions on Graphics

A general and efficient method for finding cycles in 3D curve networks

Zhuang, Y., Zou, M., Carr, N., Ju, T. (Nov. 1, 2013)

ACM Transactions On Graphics (Proc. SIGGRAPH Asia 2013)

An Algorithm for Triangulating Multiple 3D Polygons

Zou, M., Ju, T., Carr, N. (Jul. 26, 2013)

Symposium on Geometry Processing 2013

Creating Contour Gradients using 3D bevels

Asente, P., Carr, N. (Jul. 19, 2013)

CAe 2013 - Proceedings of the 2013 Symposium on Computational Aesthetics

Efficient Nonlinear Optimization via Multiscale Gradient Filtering

Martin, T., Joshi, P., Bergou, M., Carr, N. (Mar. 7, 2013)

Computer Graphics Forum 2013

Stress Relief: Improving Structural Strength of 3D Printable Objects

Stava, O., Vanek, J., Benes, B., Carr, N., Měch, R. (Aug. 7, 2012)

ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proc. SIGGRAPH 2012)

Digital Micrography

Maharik, R., Bessmeltsev, M., Sheffer, A., Shamir, A., Carr, N. (Aug. 7, 2011)

ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proc. SIGGRAPH 2011)

Context-aware garment modeling from sketches

Robson, C., Maharik, R., Sheffer, A., Carr, N. (Jun. 21, 2011)

Computers and Graphics (Proc. SMI 2011) , June 22-24

A Linear Variational System for Modeling From Curves

Andrews, J., Joshi, P., Carr, N. (Jun. 1, 2011)

Computer Graphics Forum 2011

Optimizing Structure Preserving Embedded Deformation for Resizing Images and Vector Art

Huang, Q., Měch, R., Carr, N. (Jul. 13, 2009)

Computer Graphics Forum, Pacific Graphics 2009 Conference Proceedings, 29 (7)

Importance Sampling Spherical Harmonics

Jarosz, W., Carr, N., Jensen, H. (Feb. 28, 2009)

Computer Graphics Forum (Proc. Eurographics EG’09 ), 28, 2 (4), 577–586

Coherent Layer Peeling for Transparent High-depth-Complexity Scenes

Carr, N., Měch, R., Miller, G. (Feb. 7, 2008)

In Proceedings of the 23rd ACM SIGGRAPH/EUROGRAPHICS Symposium on Graphics Hardware, 33-40

Repoussé: Automatic Inflation of 2d Artwork

Joshi, P., Carr, N. (Feb. 1, 2008)

In SBIM ’08: Proceedings of the sixth Eurographics workshop on Sketch-Based Interfaces and Modeling, Eurographics Association, Aire-la-Ville , Switzerland, 49–56

Fast GPU ray-tracing of dynamic meshes using geometry images

Carr, N., Hoberock, J., Crane, K., Hart, J. (Oct. 24, 2006)

In Graphics Interface , 203–209

Rectangular multi-chart geometry images

Carr, N., Hoberock, J., Crane, K., Hart, J. (Oct. 23, 2006)

In SGP '06: Proceedings of the fourth Eurographics symposium on Geometry Processing , 181–190

Particle-based fluid simulation on the GPU

Hegeman, K., Carr, N., Miller, G. (Aug. 21, 2006)

In Computational Science -- ICCS 2006 , 228–235

Voronoi rasterization of sparse point sets

Talton, J., Carr, N., Hart, J. (May. 24, 2005)

In Proceedings of the Second Annual Eurographics Symposium on Point-Based Graphics

Painting Detail

Carr, N., Hart, J. (Feb. 1, 2004)

In SIGGRAPH '04: ACM SIGGRAPH 2004 Papers , 845–852

Two algorithms for fast reclustering of dynamic meshed surfaces

Carr, N., Hart, J. (Feb. 1, 2004)

In Proceedings of the 2004 Eurographics/ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Geometry Processing , 224–234

GPU algorithms for radiosity and subsurface scattering

Carr, N., Hall, J., Hart, J. (Feb. 1, 2003)

In HWWS '03: Proceedings of the ACM SIGGRAPH/EUROGRAPHICS Workshop on Graphics Hardware , 51–59

Meshed atlases for real-time procedural solid texturing

Carr, N., Hart, J. (Feb. 1, 2002)

ACM Transactions on Graphics , 21(2), 106–131

The Ray Engine

Carr, N., Hall, J., Hart, J. (Feb. 1, 2002)

In HWWS '02: Proceedings of the ACM SIGGRAPH/EUROGRAPHICS Workshop on Graphics Hardware , 37-46

Antialiased parameterized solid texturing simplified for consumer-level hardware implementation

Hart, J., Carr, N., Kameya, M., Tibbitts, S., Coleman, T. (Feb. 1, 1999)

In HWWS '99: Proceedings of the ACM SIGGRAPH/EUROGRAPHICS Workshop on Graphics Hardware , 45–53

News