I am a graduate student at the University of Toronto's Dynamic Graphics Project lab, working under the supervision of Aaron Hertzmann and Karan Singh. I previously completed an undergraduate degree in Computer Science and Mathematics at University of Toronto. My research interests lie in the use of physics-based methods and machine learning techniques for graphics content creation.

A graduate project in creating simulated characters that can robustly perform a variety of locomotion tasks and generalize across a wide range of character types.

Robust Physics-Based Locomotion Using Low-Dimensional Planning
ACM Transactions on Graphics, 2010
Igor Mordatch, Martin de Lasa, Aaron Hertzmann
webpage   paper   video

Feature-Based Locomotion Controllers
ACM Transactions on Graphics, 2010
Martin de Lasa, Igor Mordatch, Aaron Hertzmann
webpage   paper   video

An undergraduate project in trying to replicate the look and motion of watercolor paint. The core is based on parts of MoXi, Computer-Generated Watercolor papers and uses MacCormack method for more accurate pigment advection. Paintbrushes were simulated at the level of individual hairs with a simplified torsion model. The applications are lacking at the moment, consisting of a basic interactive painting system and a simple automated image painting.

At Autodesk Research, besides working on Nucleus simulation framework, I was involved in a project to improve 3D navigation experience for new users. The work has been incorporated into a surprisingly large number of Autodesk products and resulted in several publications:

Multiscale 3D Navigation
Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics, 2009
James McCrae, Igor Mordatch, Michael Glueck, Azam Khan
webpage   paper   video

ViewCube: A 3D Orientation Indicator and Controller
Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics, 2008
Azam Khan, Igor Mordatch, George Fitzmaurice, Justin Matejka, Gordon Kurtenbach
webpage   paper   video

Safe 3D Navigation
Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics, 2008
George Fitzmaurice, Justin Matejka, Igor Mordatch, Azam Khan, Gordon Kurtenbach
webpage   paper   video

An entry for a one-person real-time graphics demo competition submitted while working at Autodesk. Done in three weeks' worth of evenings, it had to adhere to noir/horror theme. Environment and low resolution character were modeled and rigged in 3dsmax and detailed in mudbox. Small and basic shader-based engine was written. Using deferred shading design turned out to be a great decision and made for a very clean shadow and postprocessing implementation.

I suppose no list of graphics projects would be complete without a raytracer that involves reflective spheres and checkerboards...

A semi-automatic painterly rendering system that lays down strokes at a location and scale of the user's choosing. Can produce fairly interesting-looking images for about five minutes' worth of work.

A full-body FK/IK character posing system that treats the task as a nonlinear optimization problem. This is much cleaner than trying to adapt typical chain IK algorithms to multiple objectives and tree structures. Gradients are available, so the approach is also reasonably fast. Rather than set by hand, joint limits are recovered from training motions: for each joint, limits are a bounding volume in the tangent space of quaternions that encloses all observed orientations.

An undergraduate course project trying to extend the idea of spatial keyframing. The system was implemented as a 3dsmax plugin/script hybrid and provided great practical experience with scattered data interpolation, dimensionality reduction and global optimization. While it is questionable how well the system is suited for full-body animation, it could be very appropriate for niche tasks such as facial and hand animation.

Spatial Pose Trees: Creating and Editing Motions Using a Hierarchy of Low-Dimensional Control Spaces
University of Toronto Technical Report, 2007
Igor Mordatch, Patrick Coleman, Karan Singh, and Ravin Balakrishnan
paper   video

Interface Techniques for 3D Control of Spatial Keyframing
SIGGRAPH Posters, 2007
Igor Mordatch, Patrick Coleman, Karan Singh, and Ravin Balakrishnan
webpage

A few of the old and sometimes embarrassing 3D animations and stills from around 2000-2004. Figure drawings coming soon.