Lewis (Lew) Hitchner
Most Recent Affiliation(s):
- California Polytechnic State University, NASA AMES Research Center, Lecturer
Bio:
SIGGRAPH 1996
Dr. Hitchner obtained the Ph.D. degree from the University of Utah where he did research in 3D digital image processing and computer graphics. He was a faculty member in Computer Science at UC Santa Cruz for five years, and he is currently a lecturer in the Computer Science Department at California Polytechnic State University. His research and industrial employment includes four years Virtual Reality research at NASA Ames Research Center, two years in R&D for Xtensory Inc., and Sterling Software, Inc., and VR software development consulting for Sense8 Corp. Recently he has designed and taught technical training courses in VR software for Sense8 Corp. He is also the editor and author of ‘The Virtual Software Report’ published by the VR NEWS of London, UK.
SIGGRAPH 1992
Lew Hitchner’s education includes a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Dartmouth College, an M.S. degree in Operations Research from Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Univ. of Utah. At Utah he Studied graphics and digital image processing. His dissertation topic was on software for true 3D volumetric displays. He also worked on remote sensing and medical image processing at Utah. His introduction to computer science was in 1962 when he graduated from the Moore School of Electrical Engineering Summer Session for Secondary School Students in Computer Mathematics and Programming, an NSF funded project taught by Moore School graduate student Andries Van Dam.
Lew’s employment history includes 5 years as an Operations Research analyst in the MIS Dept. of ICI, America, Inc., “several” years as a Teaching and Research Asst. in Geography and Computer Science Depts. at Univ. of Utah, and 5 years on the Computer Science faculty at Univ. of Calif., Santa Cruz. At UCSC he taught undergrad and graduate computer graphics and digital image processing courses and conducted research in digital image compression and in the application of human visual perception to computer graphics and digital image processing. Prior to taking his current position he spent 9 months as a visiting Scientist in the Image Science and Applications Dept., IBM Palo Alto Scientific Center. For the past 2 1/2 years Lew has been a Scientist at RIACS (Res. Inst. for Advanced Computer Science) at NASA Ames Research Center. While in this position he has been the technical director of the Virtual Planetary Exploration (VPE) project. VPE utilizes virtual environment techniques to provide “virtual exploration” of terrain surfaces of Mars and other planets to planetary geologists, mission planners, and mission operations managers.
Learning Category: Jury Member:
Experience(s):
Learning Category: Presentation(s):
![Knowledge Base for the Emerging Discipline of Computer Graphics](https://history.siggraph.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2006-SIGGRAPH-Image-Not-Available-1-150x150.jpg)
Type: [Educator’s Forum]
Knowledge Base for the Emerging Discipline of Computer Graphics Presenter(s): [Alley] [Laxer] [Flaxman] [Geigel] [Gold] [Hitchner] [Orr] [Pollack]
[SIGGRAPH 2006]
![Teaching Gems for Computer Science and Engineering](https://history.siggraph.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2002-SIGGRAPH-Image-Not-Available-1-150x150.jpg)
Type: [Educator’s Forum]
Teaching Gems for Computer Science and Engineering Presenter(s): [Bailey] [Cunningham] [Hitchner]
[SIGGRAPH 2002]
![Going Farther in Less Time: Responding to Change in Introductory Graphics Courses](https://history.siggraph.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/1999-SIGGRAPH-Image-Not-Available-150x150.jpg)
Type: [Educator’s Forum]
Going Farther in Less Time: Responding to Change in Introductory Graphics Courses Presenter(s): [Wolfe] [Cunningham] [Grissom] [Hitchner]
[SIGGRAPH 1999]
![Programming Animation and Interaction in Open Inventor](https://history.siggraph.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/1996-39-Course-Cover-Programming-Animation-and-Interaction-in-Open-Inventor-150x150.jpg)
Type: [Courses]
Programming Animation and Interaction in Open Inventor Presenter(s): [Buckalew] [Readey] [Hitchner]
Entry No.: [39]
[SIGGRAPH 1996]