Kawaguchi Yoichiro


'Yoichiro Kawaguchi Yoichiro Kawaguchi

Currently, Kawaguchi is an associate professor at the Art and Science Laboratory, Nippon Electronics College

He was born on Tanegashima Island, Japan, in 1952. He graduated from the Kyushu Institute of Design in 1976, with a major in the filmmaking of computer graphics. He received his MFA from the Tokyo University of Education in 1978. At the same time, from 1976 to 1979, he did research on three-dimensional freeform surface modeling at the Design Division of the Industrial Product Research Institute of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), and developed the "growth model" for morphogenetic study.

Present Affiliates:
Kawaguchi is a member of the ACM-SIGGRAPH, a member of the board of the Japan Society of Image Arts and Sciences, a Councillor of the Japanese Society for Science of Design, and a member of the Planning Committee of the Nippon Computer Graphics Association.

Kawaguchi's Art books:
DIGITAL IMAGE (1981, ASCCI Publishing), THE COMPUTER GRAPHICS (1982, Graphics-sha Inc.). MORPHOGENESIS (1985, JICC Inc.). CG IN JAPAN (1985, Graphic-sha Inc.). INDEPENDENT COMPUTER GRAPHICS ART (1986, Bijutsu-Publishing), others

Presentations:
Paper "A Morphological Study of the Form of Nature" at the technical program at SIGGRAPH' 82 (Boston). Panelist at the panels session at SIGGRAPH'83 (Detroit). Speaker at course session of SIGGRAPH'84 (Minneapolis). Speaker (invited) at PARIGRAPH' 85 (Paris). Speaker (invited) at NEWYORK-SIGGRAPH '86 (New York) …

Partipation in Exhibitions:
Computer Art Exibit 1976, 77, 78, 79 (Tokyo). SIGGRAPH'82 Art Show (Boston). SIGGRAPH'83 Film & Video Show/Art Show (Detroit). SIGGRAPH '84 Electronic Theater Show (Minneapolis). EUROGRAPHICS '84 (Copenhagen), Video Culture '84 (Toronto) ELECTRA '84 (Paris). Ontario Science Center '84 Show (Toronto). PARIGRAPH '85 (Paris). SIGGRAPH '85 Film & Video Show/Art Show (San Francisco).
ON KAWAGUCHI'S WORK

His principal research interest includes exploring the interrelationship of art and science in the domain of computer graphics art. Specifically, trying to develop new artistic methods and techniques in computer graphics by using nature's morphological/ecological principles.
His recent works used ray-tracing techniques and meta-balls in combination with his original algorithms based on biological principles.

This method has been successful for his artistic creation in rendering three-dimensional shaded images of stretched objects with complex characteristics representing organic surface features. Furthermore, multiple texture mapping onto the organic surface of meta-balls are carried out until the desired complexity is achieved.