Michael Deering

Timeline

1. 1978–1981

   A seeing-eye computer at Berkeley

   He earns a bachelor's degree in computer science at UC Berkeley in 1978 and a PhD in 1981, with Lotfi Zadeh as his doctoral advisor. His thesis builds a computer vision mobility aid for the blind with Carter Collins at the Smith-Kettlewell Institute of Visual Sciences. In 1981, the battery-powered system, dubbed "the seeing-eye computer" by the press, scans the area ahead with a 64x64-pixel camera and tells its blind wearer about obstacles and curbs.

2. 1980–1981

   The PEARL knowledge package

   With Joseph Faletti, he builds PEARL at Berkeley from 1980 to 1981, a knowledge representation package for Lisp that stores AI knowledge structures in a hashed database for fast pattern-matching queries. AI graduate students at Berkeley use it, and the package later spreads to several other universities.

3. 1981–1988

   AI research at Schlumberger

   From 1981 to 1988, he works at Schlumberger Palo Alto Research in AI computer vision, VLSI design, 3D graphics and virtual reality. There he joins Al Davis's team on the Fairchild AI Machine One, a wafer-scale design for running AI algorithms in hardware, and drafts the first instruction set for its 40-bit processor.

4. 1988

   The triangle processor and deferred shading

   In 1988, he presents "The triangle processor and normal vector shader: a VLSI system for high performance graphics" at SIGGRAPH with Stephanie Winner, Bic Schediwy, Chris Duffy and Neil Hunt. The paper introduces the idea of deferred shading, and the Applicon and Schlumberger triangle processor it describes is his first major commercial 3D accelerator design.

5. 1988–2001

   Graphics architect at Sun

   From 1988 through 2001, he is chief architect of a series of 3D graphics accelerators at Sun Microsystems, from the Sun GT to the XVR-4000. With Mike Lavelle and Steven Schlapp, he architects 3D-RAM, a graphics memory built jointly with Mitsubishi and first released in 1995. As a Distinguished Engineer, he also serves as Sun's chief hardware graphics architect.

6. 1992–2000

   HoloSketch and Java 3D

   He presents "High resolution virtual reality" at SIGGRAPH in 1992 and "Geometry compression" in 1995. His HoloSketch system lets users create, edit and animate 3D objects inside virtual reality, and its lessons shape Java 3D, the scene graph API he co-architects. In 2000, The Java 3D API Specification appears, coauthored with Henry Sowizral and Kevin Rushforth.

7. 2001–2005

   A photon-accurate eye model

   He leaves Sun in 2001 to work independently, and from 2002 he focuses on improving rendering and displays through a better understanding of how the human eye works. At SIGGRAPH 2005, he presents "A Photon Accurate Model of the Human Eye," which grows all 5 million cones of the retina in simulation and models each photon from a display as it passes through the eye's optics.

8. 2015–2020

   Co-founding Mojo Vision

   In 2015, he and Mike Wiemer join Drew Perkins to start Mojo Vision, which raises $750,000 in seed funding. When the company leaves stealth in November 2018, he is its co-founder and Chief Science Officer. In January 2020, Mojo Vision announces the Mojo Lens, a contact lens with a built-in display.