Normand BRIÈRE
3384 Lacombe #13
Montréal, Québec
H3T-1L8
(514) 342-5971
Email : briere@iro.umontreal.ca
Web page : http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~briere
 

Academic background

Industrial experience

Training periods

Teaching experience

Publications

Personal achievements

Scholarships and awards

Academic background
Degree  Discipline  Average Institution Date
 Doctorate  Computer Graphics  4.3 / 4.3  Université de Montréal  January 1999
 Master's  Computer Graphics  3.8 / 4.0  Université de Sherbrooke  September 1992
  • Generation of optimal line clipping algorithms
 Bachelor's  Computer Science  3.9 / 4.0  Université de Sherbrooke  December 1988

Industrial experience
 TAARNA Studios Inc  3D Software developer  1999-2002
  • Complete interactive lighting and shading module (C++, OpenGL, SGI)
  • Allows almost any changes of light, surface or volume parameter (5 to 10 FPS)
    • light color, intensity, from/to positions and cone angle
    • surface color, diffuseness, specular and roughness
    • fog color and density
  • Preprocessing handles any texture map including displacement
  • Spotlight fog shadows (1 or 2 FPS)
  • Low resolution and interlace modes for faster rendering
  • Reprojection for camera changes
  • Various tools for artists (intensity, diffuse, specular, shadow)
    • Set the intensity of a pixel with a double-click
    • Allows click&drag of diffuse or specular highlights
    • Allows interactive click&drag of shadows
  • Realistic RenderMan shaders (silk, velvet, satin, perl, metal, skin, fur, nylon)
  • Light version of these shaders for interactivity
  • Complete and intuitive UI
  • The module and shaders were used successfully in an actual production of TFX
 HENTER-JOYCE Inc  2D Software developer  1998
  • Automatic screen zooming for visually-impaired people (C, Windows NT)
  • General bitmap smoothing (any aliased character or edge)
  • Special smoothing mode for font thinning

Training Periods
 EICON TECHNOLOGY  Programmer  1988
  • EiconScript (PostScript) programming language development and maintenance
  • Accurate algorithms for primitive drawing (triangle, rectangle, trapezoid)
  • Optimized floating point routines (68000 assembly language)
  • Ramdisk tools (8088 assembly language)
  • Screen preview of laser printer pages (68000)
  • Creation of 2D and 3D images (PostScript)
 MICRO-TEMPUS  Programmer  1987
  • Contribution to software development (8088 and IBM370 assembly languages)
  • Tempus-Share uses a mainframe as a PC server
  • Tempus-Link uses a VSAM file as a PC virtual disk
 LOTO-QUÉBEC (Videoway)  Programmer  1986
  • Computer game development (6809 assembly language)
  • BurgerTime (complete)
  • Styx and PingPong (parts)
  • Useful tools used for several games: random number generator and score display

Teaching experience
 Position  Institution  Period
 Teacher - PROLOG and C++  Université de Sherbrooke  4 months (1993)
 Teacher - computer graphics  Université de Sherbrooke  8 months (1992-1993)
 Teacher - C language  Université de Sherbrooke  3 months (1991)
 Assistant - computer graphics  Université de Sherbrooke  2 years (1990-1991)
 Assistant - calculability  Université de Sherbrooke  4 months (1990)

Publications
 Papers in refereed conference proceedings
 Technical reports
  • Ali Jaoua, Normand Brière and Kacem Zéroual, Reliable design programming: a preventive methodology
  • Normand Brière and Jean-Pierre Dussault, An Optimal Tree for Line Clipping
 Course notes
  • Jean-Pierre Dussault and Normand Brière, Fondements de l'infographie tridimensionnelle. (~300 pages, TeX)
  • Normand Brière, Introduction au langage C++ (~100 pages, Word)

Personal achievements
 3D modeling and rendering system (Motif, C++, GL, SGI)
 Graphic-related projects
  • Analytic hidden-surface removal algorithm (Modula, Mac)
  • Scene reconstruction from 2D wireframe (C, SunOS)
  • 3D labyrinth walkthrough (C, Mac)
  Other stuff
  • Billiard with collisions and friction effects (C, SunOS)
  • Colorful fireworks (C, Mac)
  • Easily beatable chess player (Pascal, IBM370); new version (C++, Mac OS X)
  • Various games: Tetris, Styx, PacMan, Asteroid, Golf, Small flight simulator (6809 assembler, TRS80)
  • Text editor and assembler (6809, TRS80)

Scholarships, Awards
 Kind  Name  Location (period)
 Scholarship  FCAR  Université de Montréal (1993-1996)
 Grant  Internal financing  Université de Montréal (1995-1998)
 Scholarship  NSERC  Université de Sherbrooke (1989-1991)
 Scholarship  FCAR (not used)  Université de Sherbrooke (1989-1991)
 Prize  Digital Equipment of Canada  Université de Sherbrooke (1989)
 Award  Silver medal (Fernand Séguin)  Université de Sherbrooke (1989)
 
Interests and activities
  • Guitar
  • Chess
  • Karate
  • Skating
  • Mysticism
 
(** version française sur demande)