Presenter

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.