Member Profile: Dieter Fellner
1. What do you do, and how long have you been doing it?
I am professor of Computer Science at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), Austria, and Technical University of Darmstadt (TU Darmstadt), Germany. My appointment at TU Graz was in 2004 and at TU Darmstadt in 2006. From 2006 till 2025 I was also directing the Fraunhofer Institute of Computer Graphics (IGD) with its main location in Darmstadt, Germany.
2. What was your first job
After graduating my first job was that of research assistant at the Institute of Computer Science and Computer-Supported Media where I developed a downloadable Editing System (what you would call an ‘app’ these days) to create and edit Videotex images on an intelligent Videotex Decoder called ‘MUPID’.
3. Where did you complete your formal education?
My Master in Technical Mathematics and my PhD in Computer Science are from TU Graz, Austria
4. How did you first get involved with ACM SIGGRAPH?
Working on that Videotex Editing System one of my first challenges was to render an ellipse in general orientation on a raster grid (and on a Z80 processor). Thus, checking the literature more or less directly pointed me to the Siggraph community and I became a member in 1981
5. What is your favorite memory of a SIGGRAPH conference?
It’s hard to identify the most impressive Siggraph Conference based on the technical contents. So I guess my favorite one is one of the ‘good old’ Siggraph Conferences where SGI would throw a great party in SeaWorld Orlando :-)
6. Describe a project that you would like to share with the ACM SIGGRAPH community
Since most developed countries have, in the meanwhile, digitized their printed national library contents (i.e. all the printed material) it’s time to shift the focus to our 3+D cultural heritage – 3+D as we need to digitize and replicate the shape and the color perception of our heritage objects.
7. If you could have dinner with one living or non-living person, who would it be and why?
I’d like to have dinner with Einstein hoping that I might get a glimpse on how observations of natural processes lead to theoretical insights
8. What is something most people don’t know about you?
probably that I am an enthusiastic kite surfer
9. From which single individual have you learned the most in your life? What did they teach you?
I guess, this is my PhD advisor, Hermann Maurer. When he started his institute in Graz he managed to generate quite an inspiring athmosphere among the young researchers and opened the world of research to us – by bringing the who-is-who in theoretical Computer Science to our Institute but also by teaching us how the academic system works.
10. Is there someone in particular who has influenced your decision to work with ACM SIGGRAPH?
Indeed, it was also Hermann Maurer who told me that organizations like ACM and OCG (the Austrian Computer Society) and Eurographics, to name just three, are organizations which do need the support of us researchers as these organizations do care about developing the eco-system in which young colleagues can develop their talents.
11. What can you point to in your career as your proudest moment?
This was in 2018 when the Eurographics Association awarded me with the Eurographics Gold Medal.