Jarek Rossignac, a professor with the School of Interactive Computing, has earned the 2014 Bézier Award from the Solid Modeling Association.

The Solid Modeling Association established the award in 2007 in honor of the late Pierre Bézier, a founder in the field. This award is the highest distinction in solid modeling and computer-aided design.

In its citation, the Bézier award committee honored Rossignac “to recognize the significant impact of his work in CSG, Non-manifold B-reps, Mesh Simplification, and Compression, as well as his role in founding the Solid Modeling series of symposia.”

“I am proud to be listed amongst the pioneers who have created the foundations and the initial Solid Modeling systems, which have transformed manufacturing by automating design, analysis, and process planning,” Rossignac said. “This field makes it possible for scientists and engineers to fully exploit the amazing capabilities of 3D printing and of high resolution biomedical scanning.”

Rossignac remembers fondly a fortuitous first meeting with Bézier after the elder scientist approached him after Rossignac finished a Gunter Enderle award-winning talk on Minkowski morphs between two polyhedra.

“He pointed out that I could use his Bézier curve construction idea to define a morph between more than two shapes—a great suggestion that, of course, I could not ignore,” Rossignac said. “So I did it and published later under the title ‘AGRELs and BIPs: Metamorphosis as a Bézier Curve in the Space of Polyhedra’ in his honor."

Rossignac, who leads the Modeling, Animation, Graphic, Interaction & Compression (MAGIC) Lab, joined Georgia Tech in 1996 as the second director of the GVU Center.

Before that he was senior manager and visualization strategist at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center.  He earned a Ph.D. in E.E. from the University of Rochester, a Diplôme d'Ingénieur from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure en Électricité et Mécanique (ENSEM), and a Maîtrise in M.E. from the University of Nancy, France.

He has authored 24 patents and more than 154 peer-reviewed articles. He created the ACM Solid Modeling Symposia series; chaired 25 conferences and program committees; delivered about 30 distinguished or invited lectures and keynotes; and served on the editorial boards of seven professional journals and on 82 technical program committees. He is a fellow of the Eurographics Association.