Demetri Terzopoulos (CDN), Ph.D. 1984, MIT, Cambridge, USA; is Professor of Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto. Research primarily in computer vision and graphics, and also in artificial life. Collaborators: Radek Grzeszczuk and Xiaoyuan Tu are candidates for the Ph. D. degree at the University of Toronto.

"Artifical Fishes: The Undersea World of jack Cousto" represents research spanning the fields of artificial life and computer graphics. The artificial animals depicted in the animation are autonomous virtual creatures. Going beyond state-of-the-art computer graphics animals, such as the dinosaurs featured in "Jurassic Park", our artificial animals have minds that control their physics-based bodies, making them fully "self-animating": hence, all of the complex motions that you see are produced without any keyframing or scripting whatsoever. In particular, the animations illustrate physics-based, virtual marine worlds inhabited by artificial life forms so realistic that they share many of the characteristics of real fishes in their natural habitats - dynamic, flexible bodies with muscles and fins, as well as eyes and brains with motor, perception, behavior, and learning centers.

Through coordinated muscle actions, the artificial fishes are able to swim in simulated water in accordance with hydrodynamic principles. With practice, the fishes can learn to swim efficiently, using their muscles and fins to swim gracefully among aquatic plants and other fishes. Like real fishes, they are "conscious" of themselves and their world. They react to light, temperature, and water currents. They feel hunger, fear, and sexual urges.

Technical Background

HW: Silicon Graphics
SW: In-House, ALIFE, Physical Modeling