Allan G. Rempel, BSc, BComm, MSc, PhD, CFI*

Ex PhD Student
Department of Computer Science
Institute for Computing, Information & Cognitive Systems/Computer Science (ICICS/CS)
The University of British Columbia
201-2366 Main Mall
Vancouver, B.C. Canada V6T 1Z4
e-mail: agr at cs dot ubc dot ca
*Certified Flight Instuctor, US FAA

On MITACS Industry - Academia panel

Previous Industrial and Academic Work Publications Screen Credits

In 2012 I completed my PhD in computer graphics, working in the Imager Lab of the UBC Department of Computer Science, with my supervisor, Wolfgang Heidrich. My research interests lie mostly in the area of high dynamic range (HDR) imaging techniques and related human factors, on which I collaborated with Dolby Canada (formerly BrightSide Technologies, a.k.a. Sunnybrook Technologies). I also have interests in animation production data management and information visualization.

Previous Industrial and Academic Work

 Research Engineer, Dolby Canada, 2006 - 2008.
I developed code to implement the techniques described in collaborative published research conducted with UBC, as well as interface code to expand Dolby's software architecture. I also helped develop patents for the technology arising from the collaborative research.
Senior Software Developer, Mainframe Entertainment, 2002 - 2005.
I led the development of asset management software used on many computer-animated productions featuring Spider-Man, Inspector Gadget, Stuart Little, Barbie, Hot Wheels, Max Steel, and others.
Senior Software Engineer, Walt Disney Feature Animation, 1998 - 2001.
I led the archiving software development team, and I worked on asset management and lighting tools software development for Dinosaur, Treasure Planet, Lilo & Stitch, 102 Dalmations, Kangaroo Jack, Reign of Fire, and Home on the Range.
M.Sc., Computer Science Department, (Imager lab), UBC, 1995 - 1997.
For my Masters research with my supervisor, Alain Fournier, I developed a system that used wavelets to decompose images for fast progressive transmission and for image compression.
Research Programmer, School of Computer Science, CMU, 1993 - 1995.
I did systems administration and software development and maintenance for the Soar project, a psychologically-based software platform for research into cognitive science and artificial intelligence.
Software Engineer, SED Systems, 1993.
I worked with a team to develop software for ground-based satellite in-orbit test systems.
Founder, Omicron MicroSystems, 1989 - 1990.
I started up a company that developed and marketed an Assembly Language Development System ("ALDS") for Atari 6502-based computers.
B.Sc. (Great Distinction) and B.Comm. (Great Distinction), 1988 - 1993.
Department of Computational Science (now Computer Science), U of Saskatchewan.
I geared my courses toward my interest in artificial intelligence, particularly cognitive science. I also did summer research internships, first in discrete logic and later in software engineering with an emphasis on Eiffel.

Publications and Patents

Allan G. Rempel, "Perceptual Considerations for Displays under Varying Ambient Illumination", PhD Dissertation, UBC, 2012.
Allan G. Rempel, Wolfgang Heidrich, Rafał Mantiuk, "The Role of Contrast in the Perceived Depth of Monocular Imagery", Poster at ACM APGV 2011, and UBC Tech Report TR-2011-07.
Allan G. Rempel, Rafał Mantiuk, Wolfgang Heidrich, "Display Considerations for Improved Night Vision Performance", Proceedings of the 19th Color Imaging Conference, 191-194, 2011.
Rafał Mantiuk, Kil Joong Kim, Allan G. Rempel, Wolfgang Heidrich, "HDR-VDP-2: A calibrated visual metric for visibility and quality predictions in all luminance conditions", ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proc SIGGRAPH), 2011.
Allan G. Rempel, Wolfgang Heidrich, Hiroe Li, Rafał Mantiuk, "Video Viewing Preferences for HDR Displays Under Varying Ambient Illumination", Proceedings of the 6th Symposium on Applied Perception in Graphics and Visualization (ACM APGV '09), 45-52, 2009.
Rafał Mantiuk, Allan G. Rempel, Wolfgang Heidrich, "Display Considerations for Night and Low-Illumination Viewing", Proceedings of the 6th Symposium on Applied Perception in Graphics and Visualization (ACM APGV '09), 53-58, 2009.
Allan G. Rempel, Matthew Trentacoste, Helge Seetzen, H. David Young, Wolfgang Heidrich, Lorne Whitehead, Greg Ward, "Ldr2Hdr: On-the-fly Reverse Tone Mapping of Legacy Video and Photographs", ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proc. SIGGRAPH), 2007.

Academic and Film/TV Screen Credits

You can find some of my publications in the DBLP Computer Science Bibliography and the ACM Digital Library.

My feature film screen credits include "Dinosaur" and "Treasure Planet", both from Walt Disney Pictures.

My TV/DVD screen credits include "Barbie As Rapunzel", "Barbie Of Swan Lake", "The Princess And The Pauper", "Barbie Fairytopia", "Scary Godmother Halloween Spooktacular", "Inspector Gadget's Biggest Caper Ever: The Case Of The Giant Flying Lizard", "Max Steel: Endangered Species", "Popeye's Voyage: The Quest for Pappy", "Hot Wheels Highway 35 World Race", "AcceleRacers: Breaking Point", "AcceleRacers: The Speed of Silence" and "Stuart Little 3: Call of the Wild".

Partial listings of my screen credits can be found in various databases, including Yahoo TV credits, NYT movies credits, and IMDB.

Funding Support

I am grateful for the support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the BC Advanced Systems Institute (ASI), the Mathematics of Information Technology and Complex Systems (MITACS) Network of Centres of Excellence (NCE), and the Province of British Columbia Ministry of Advanced Education.

Aviation and other interests