OSGP Personnel
Bottom row - Steve Spencer, Jeff Light, Joan Staveley
Middle row - John Berton, Pete Carswell, Michelle Messenger, Barb Helfer
Top row - Steve Anderson, John Donkin, Jeff Faust, Jill Kempf, Bob Marshall

In the late 1980s, a group of ACCAD personnel connected with The new Ohio Supercomputer Center for the purpose of developing a flexible environment for use by supercomputer users to visualize their scientific computational data. Scott Dyer (Nelvana), Bob Marshall, Peter Carswell, Barbara Dean, Jeff Faust, Jeff Light, John Berton, Steve Anderson, Joan Staveley and others at the Ohio Supercomputer Graphics Project (OSGP) contributed significant results for a data-flow based animation and visualization environment called apE, which was the precursor for several commercial scientific visualization products.

Tom Linehan (Ohio State University - OSUArts) and Chuck Csuri converted the Computer Graphics Research Group into The Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design in 1987, with funding from a long-term Ohio Board of Regents Academic Challenge grant. ACCAD was established to provide computer animation resources in teaching, research and
production for all departments in the College of the Arts at Ohio State.

During this period, significant research and production was done in the area of animation by many faculty, staff and students, including Joan Staveley (Windlight), James Hahn (rigid dynamics - George Washington University), David Haumann (flexible dynamics - Pixar), Chris Wedge, Brian Guenter (Microsoft), Doug Roble (compositing - Digital Domain), Paul MacDougal (Integrated Device Technology), Scott Whitman (Parallel algorithms - Equator), Beth Hofer (facial animation - Pacific Data Images), Susan Amkraut and Michael Girard (flocking and human locomotion - Unreal Pictures), Midori Kitagawa (Boolean operations - ACCAD), John Chadwick (layered skeleton control of human motion), David Ebert (procedural animation - UMBC), Jim Kent (3D object morphing), Rob Rosenblum (rendering and animation of hair), and Ferdie Scheepers (animation and modeling of human musculature).

There were also many arts and design students who were involved in award-winning computer animations, and who are now very important educators or animators for the industry. These include Marla Schweppe (Rochester Institute of Technology), Tom Benoist (founder of Interactive Effects), Chitra Shriram (Xaos), Robert Lurye (Rhythm and Hues), Aliza Corson (Disney), Isabell LeBois, Craig Caldwell (University of Arizona), Ruedy Leeman, Kevin Geiger (Disney), Roberta Brandao (Xaos), Ed
Cheetham (Ringling), Tony Lupidi (Electronic Arts), Wen Hwa Seun (Digital Domain), John Warren (Pixar), Janet LuCroy (Pixar), and many others.

A more complete list of the alumni of the program and their current affiliations can be found at our web site at alumni on the ACCAD website.

Also find a compilation of the publications, dissertations and technical reports, and film/video productions that have been generated by faculty, staff, and students at ACCAD at the following areas: research and art gallery.