Yang, Lei  

GPU Graphics Architect, NVIDIA

Email:

Welcome to my homepage. This website contains a collection of my academic work, past experiences and some related information.

Short Bio

I am currently a GPU Graphics Architect at NVIDIA, with a goal to evolve the GPU for the future of computer graphics. My work at NVIDIA involves both architecture and software algorithm designs. I am also experienced in GPU performance optimization, as well as image quality enhancement and evaluation for rendering.

Some of my notable contributions to the field of real-time graphics include Amortized Supersampling (later became Temporal Antialiasing, or TAA; standard technique used by most AAA-grade game engines today), Edge-aware mixed-resolution rendering (widely used in renderers), and Content/Motion Adaptive shading (a.k.a. NVIDIA Adaptive Shading or NAS used in several games). At NVIDIA I was deeply involved in the design and evolution of our recent graphics features, including Multi-Res Shading, Lens-Matched Shading, Mesh Shaders, VRS/Adaptive Shading, and Deep-Learning Supersampling (DLSS 1.0 & 2.0).

After receiving my PhD from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) in 2011, I was a graphics research scientist at the Bosch Research and Technology Center (Palo Alto, CA) for 3 years before joining NVIDIA. In recent years I have been a regular program committee member of a few leading graphics/rendering conferences (ACM I3D, EGSR). I have published and given talks in top conferences and journals including ACM TOG, SIGGRAPH, SIGGRAPH Asia, ACM I3D, Eurographics and EGSR.


Interests and specialties
  • 3D graphics and rendering techniques
  • GPU architecture
  • High performance rendering
  • Image processing
  • Image quality evaluation
  • Sampling, filtering and antialiasing

Publications
  • A Survey of Temporal Antialiasing Techniques.

    Lei Yang, Shiqiu Liu, and Marco Salvi.
    Computer Graphics Forum, Volume 39, Issue 2.
    (Proc. Eurographics 2020, State of the Art Reports)
    .
  • Visually Lossless Content and Motion Adaptive Shading in Games.

    Lei Yang, Dmitry Zhdan, Emmett Kilgariff, Eric B. Lum, Yubo Zhang, Matthew Johnson, and Henrik Rydgard.
    Proceedings of the ACM on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques. (Proc. ACM I3D 2019).
  • Procedural Window Lighting Effects for Real-Time City Rendering.

    Jennifer Chandler, Lei Yang and Liu Ren.
    ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games (I3D) 2015.
  • Depth-Presorted Triangle Lists.

    Ge Chen, Pedro V. Sander, Diego Nehab, Lei Yang and Liang Hu.
    ACM Transactions on Graphics, Volume 31, Issue 6
    (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2012).
    (Notable paper - ACM Computing Reviews 2012.)
  • Accelerating Rendering Pipelines Using Bidirectional Iterative Reprojection.

    Lei Yang and Huw Bowles.
    Advances in Real-Time Rendering in Games
    (SIGGRAPH 2012 course)
  • Temporal Coherence Methods in Real-Time Rendering.

    Daniel Scherzer, Lei Yang, Oliver Mattausch, Diego Nehab, Pedro V. Sander, Michael Wimmer and Elmar Eisemann.
    Computer Graphics Forum, Volume 31, Issue 8
  • Per-pixel translational symmetry detection, optimization, and segmentation.

    Peng Zhao, Lei Yang, Honghui Zhang and Long Quan.
    IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) 2012
  • Image-Based Bidirectional Scene Reprojection.

    Lei Yang, Yu-Chiu Tse, Pedro V. Sander, Jason Lawrence, Diego Nehab, Hugues Hoppe and Clara L. Wilkins.
    ACM Transactions on Graphics, Volume 30, Issue 6 (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2011).
  • Antialiasing Recovery.

    Lei Yang, Pedro V. Sander, Jason Lawrence and Hugues Hoppe.
    ACM Transactions on Graphics, Volume 30, Issue 3 (Presented at SIGGRAPH 2011).
  • A Survey on Temporal Coherence Methods in Real-Time Rendering.

    Daniel Scherzer, Lei Yang, Oliver Mattausch, Diego Nehab, Pedro V. Sander, Michael Wimmer and Elmar Eisemann.
    Eurographics 2011, State of the Art Report.
  • Exploiting Temporal Coherence in Real-Time Rendering.

    Daniel Scherzer, Lei Yang, Oliver Mattausch.
    ACM SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 course.
  • Amortized Supersampling.

    Lei Yang, Diego Nehab, Pedro V. Sander, Pitchaya Sitthi-amorn, Jason Lawrence and Hugues Hoppe.
    ACM Transactions on Graphics, Volume 28, Issue 5 (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2009).
  • Automated Reprojection-Based Pixel Shader Optimization.

    Pitchaya Sitthi-amorn, Jason Lawrence, Lei Yang, Pedro V. Sander, Diego Nehab and Jiahe Xi.
    ACM Transactions on Graphics, Volume 27, Issue 5 (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2008).
  • Geometry-Aware Framebuffer Level of Detail.

    Lei Yang, Pedro V. Sander and Jason Lawrence.
    Computer Graphics Forum. Volume 27, Number 4 (Proceedings of Eurographics Symposium on Rendering 2008).
  • An Improved Shading Cache for Modern GPUs.

    Pitchaya Sitthi-amorn, Jason Lawrence, Lei Yang, Pedro V. Sander and Diego Nehab.
    ACM SIGGRAPH/Eurographics Symposium on Graphics Hardware 2008.
  • A Torus Patch Approximation Approach for Point Projection on Surfaces.

    Xiao-Ming Liu, Lei Yang, Jun-Hai Yong, He-Jin Gu and Jia-Guang Sun.
    Computer Aided Geometric Design (CAGD). Volume 26, Issue 5.

Work experience
  • GPU Graphics Architecture Group - NVIDIA Corporation.

    Senior GPU Architect, Jun. 2015 - Now, Santa Clara CA USA.

    Evolve new graphics architectures and develop GPU-centric graphics features powering NVIDIA's next and future generations of GeForce and Quadro GPUs.

  • Bosch Research North America - Robert Bosch GmbH.

    Senior Research Scientist, Dec. 2011 - Jun. 2015, Palo Alto CA USA.

    Develop research prototypes and production solutions in the field of computer graphics, high performance rendering, mobile graphics and geovisualization, targeting both external and internal (BU) customers.

  • Black Rock Studio - Disney interactive Studios.

    Research Intern, Jun. 2010 - Aug. 2010, Brighton UK.

    Develop an efficient filtering algorithm for generating high-quality motion blur effects in real-time, implemented on a commercial racing game on XBox 360.

  • Advanced Technology Labs - Adobe Systems Inc.

    Research Intern, Jun. 2009 - Sep. 2009, San Jose CA USA.

    Design and implement a sampling and image reconstruction algorithm in Adobe's production ray tracer to significantly improve convergence speed of diffuse indirect illumination.

  • Tsinghua InfoTech Inc.

    Developer, Jun. 2005 - Jul. 2007, Beijing China.

    In a production 3D CAD system TiGems, maintain and enhance the geometric intersection library, which contains several hundreds of intersection algorithms; develop a new curve/surface modeling module as well as new UIs and features for solid modeling functionalities.


Education

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.  

Ph.D. in Computer Science and Enginineering, 2007 - 2011.

Thesis: Efficient Image-Space Data Reuse in Rendering and Image Processing

Thesis advisor: Prof. Pedro Sander

Tsinghua University.  

Postgraduate, Computer Science and Technology, 2004 - 2007.

Xidian University.  

B.Eng., Software Engineering, 2000 - 2004.


Academic services