Derek Nowrouzezahrai
Full Professor
Full Professor
Former Canada Research Chair
Former NSERC CRC
Electrical & Computer Engineering
Primary Appointment
Desautels Management
Associate Member
Computer Science
Associate Member
Centre for Intelligent Machines
Director
Québec AI Institute (Mila)
Core Academic Member
McConnell Eng. Building
3480 University Street
Montreal, QC — Canada H3A 0E9
3480 University Street
Montreal, QC — Canada H3A 0E9
Research Themes
Editing Physically-based Light Transport
Can we devise intuitive controls to edit physically-based lighting in synthetic images?
Editing Complex Fluid Simulations
How do digital artists author turbulent fluid simulations? Can we design tools to help them?
Manufacturing Passive Optics & Probes
Can combining computation with 3D fabrication allow us to warp & capture light in the real world?
Research Group
Post-DocPh.D.M.Sc.B.Sc./Intern
Current Team — Ph.D.: 11 + M.Sc.: 8 + B.Sc./Intern: 8 = 27 total
Ph.D. Nicolas Vibert
Ph.D. Mattie Tesfaldet
Ph.D. Daniel Bairamian
Ph.D. Daniel Kong
Ph.D. Yuanyuan Tao
Ph.D. Somjit Nath
Ph.D. Yasaman Ziarani
Ph.D. Hossam Saeed
Ph.D. Liu Zhenyuan
Ph.D. Chenbo Jiang
Ph.D. Shubham Chopra
M.Sc. Aymen Boustani
M.Sc. Suraj Surya Vadulas
M.Sc. Sumukh Patel
M.Sc. Sumukh Patel
M.Sc. Joey Marten
M.Sc. Junha Yoo
M.Sc. Terry Chen
M.Sc. Myriam Beauvais
B.Sc./Intern Maxwell Fang
B.Sc./Intern Debopriyo Saha
B.Sc./Intern Alexandre Hafemeister
B.Sc./Intern Ahmad Aslam
B.Sc./Intern Robert Liu
B.Sc./Intern Hong Yi Meng
B.Sc./Intern Kalvin Khuu
B.Sc./Intern Matthew Litwiller
Graduated — Post-Doc: 12 + Ph.D.: 11 + M.Sc.: 42 + B.Sc./Intern: 79 = 144 total (hover or tap names for more details)
M.Sc. Jithendaraa S. 2026
M.Sc. Ken M. 2026
M.Sc. Philippe S. 2026
M.Sc. Chris E. 2026
Ph.D. Joey L. 2025
Post-Doc Jordan B. 2024
Post-Doc Hisanari O. 2024
Ph.D. Sayantan D. 2024
Post-Doc Florian G. 2024
Post-Doc Marc-Antoine B. 2024
Ph.D. Paul B. 2024
Ph.D. Damien R.-L. 2023
M.Sc. Tooba R. 2024
B.Sc./Intern Brendan M. 2022
M.Sc. Yuanyuan T. 2023
M.Sc. Yuhongze Z. 2023
M.Sc. Daniel K. 2023
M.Sc. Ziyu L. 2023
M.Sc. Alexandre S.-V. 2023
Ph.D. Loren L. 2023
M.Sc. Lancer G. 2023
Post-Doc Banafsheh A. 2023
Post-Doc Jimin R. 2022
M.Sc. Uzair A. 2022
M.Sc. Vanessa C. 2022
M.Sc. Gaspard N. 2022
B.Sc./Intern Michael G. 2022
Ph.D. Yangyang Z. 2021
B.Sc./Intern Ragheed Q. 2022
B.Sc./Intern Brad M. 2022
B.Sc./Intern Brendan M. 2022
B.Sc./Intern Sami H. 2022
M.Sc. Daniel B. 2021
M.Sc. Jack M. 2021
Post-Doc Adrien G. 2021
Post-Doc Issam L. 2021
Ph.D. Adrien D. 2021
Ph.D. Jean-Philippe G. 2021
M.Sc. Peter Q. 2021
M.Sc. Jérôme P.-L. 2021
B.Sc./Intern Alexis F. 2021
B.Sc./Intern Maxime C. 2021
B.Sc./Intern Alexa N. 2021
B.Sc./Intern Oliver J. 2021
B.Sc./Intern Siyu C. 2021
B.Sc./Intern Xinhong D. 2021
B.Sc./Intern Wanqing F. 2021
B.Sc./Intern Zheyu L. 2021
B.Sc./Intern Xuemeng S. 2021
B.Sc./Intern Weixin W. 2021
B.Sc./Intern Huang Y. 2021
B.Sc./Intern Yuanyuan T. 2021
B.Sc./Intern Mia Z. 2021
B.Sc./Intern Sophie D. 2021
B.Sc./Intern Ai D. 2021
B.Sc./Intern Sun B. 2021
Ph.D. Luis G. 2020
B.Sc./Intern Adithya L. 2020
B.Sc./Intern Daniel B. 2019
B.Sc./Intern Hassan H. 2019
B.Sc./Intern Christos P. 2020
B.Sc./Intern Otman B. 2020
B.Sc./Intern Kiren R. 2020
B.Sc./Intern Alexandre T. 2020
B.Sc./Intern Caelan M. 2020
B.Sc./Intern Chelsea M. 2020
B.Sc./Intern Saima H. 2020
Ph.D. Chakravarty C. 2019
M.Sc. Tianlun Z. 2019
B.Sc./Intern Jack M. 2019
B.Sc./Intern Peter Q. 2019
B.Sc./Intern Elie H. 2019
B.Sc./Intern Dongwen W. 2019
Ph.D. Olivier M. 2018
M.Sc. Joey L. 2018
M.Sc. Keven V. 2018
M.Sc. Yue W. 2018
M.Sc. Sayantan D. 2018
M.Sc. Fan M. 2018
B.Sc./Intern Jérôme P.-L. 2018
B.Sc./Intern Guillaume R. 2018
B.Sc./Intern Zhuonan W. 2018
B.Sc./Intern Tooba R. 2018
B.Sc./Intern Rebecca X. 2018
B.Sc./Intern Yaqing X. 2018
B.Sc./Intern Daniel B. 2018
B.Sc./Intern Isaac S. 2018
B.Sc./Intern Isaac C. 2018
B.Sc./Intern Léa A. 2018
B.Sc./Intern Joseph P. 2018
B.Sc./Intern Kiren R. 2018
B.Sc./Intern Hassan H. 2018
B.Sc./Intern Catherine G. 2018
Post-Doc Fahim M. 2017
M.Sc. Joêl P.-P. 2017
M.Sc. Cihan O. 2017
B.Sc./Intern Mei Q. 2017
B.Sc./Intern Loïs P. 2017
B.Sc./Intern Monica P. 2017
B.Sc./Intern Han Y. 2017
B.Sc./Intern Ian B. 2017
B.Sc./Intern Luis Z. 2017
B.Sc./Intern Simon R. 2017
B.Sc./Intern Samantha P. 2017
B.Sc./Intern Saul Z. 2017
B.Sc./Intern Oyku C. 2017
B.Sc./Intern Can R. 2017
B.Sc./Intern Niloofar K. 2017
B.Sc./Intern Manon B. 2017
B.Sc./Intern Zhi P. 2017
M.Sc. Cynthia B. 2016
M.Sc. Nicolas V. 2016
Post-Doc Laurent B. 2016
M.Sc. David M. 2016
M.Sc. Aude G. 2015
Post-Doc Mahdi B. 2014
Post-Doc Guofu X. 2014
M.Sc. Adrien D. 2014
M.Sc. Jean-Philippe G. 2014
M.Sc. Yangyang Z. 2014
B.Sc./Intern Julien D. 2013
B.Sc./Intern Damien B. 2013
B.Sc./Intern Frédéric M. 2013
B.Sc./Intern Julien T. 2013
B.Sc./Intern Félix T. 2013
B.Sc./Intern Yannick J. 2013
B.Sc./Intern Chakravarty C. 2013
B.Sc./Intern David M. 2012
B.Sc./Intern Cynthia B. 2012
B.Sc./Intern Yangyang Z. 2012
M.Sc. Michael M. 2012
M.Sc. Thomas H. 2012
M.Sc. Thomas S. 2012
M.Sc. Marina S. 2012
B.Sc./Intern Thorsten S. 2012
M.Sc. Benjamin M. 2011
M.Sc. Philipp K. 2011
M.Sc. Philipp S. 2011
B.Sc./Intern Jan N. 2011
B.Sc./Intern Rahul M. 2011
M.Sc. Silvan T. 2011
M.Sc. Stefan G. 2011
B.Sc./Intern Adrian B. 2011
B.Sc./Intern Sebastien M. 2011
Teaching
Current Courses (ECSE)
Previous Courses
Publications
2026 (5)
The Invisible Hand of Physics: When Video Diffusion Models Know More Than They Show
Structured Representation Learning with Locally Linear Embeddings and Adaptive Feature Fusion
Neural Render Proxies for Interactive and Differentiable Lighting: Supplemental Material
Modelling Customer Trajectories with Reinforcement Learning for Practical Retail Insights
Fast Cutting of Cage Based Deformation with Walk on Spheres
2025 (6)
Stamp: Differentiable task and motion planning via stein variational gradient descent
Stamp: Differentiable task and motion planning via stein variational gradient descent
Spherical Harmonic Exponentials for Efficient Glossy Reflections
Hierarchical Differentiable Fluid Simulation
Generative Point Tracking with Flow Matching
Ctrl-Crash: Controllable Diffusion for Realistic Car Crashes
Behavioral Suite Analysis of Self-Supervised Learning in Atari
2024 (7)
Task-Oriented Slot-Based Cumulant Discovery in General Value Functions
Reinforcement Learning for Sequence Design Leveraging Protein Language Models
Regional Adaptive Metropolis Light Transport
Neural Implicit Reduced Fluid Simulation
Learnable fractal flames
Inferring cellular contractile forces and work using deep morphology traction microscopy
Efficient Neural Graphics
2023–2005 (164)
2023 (11)
Visual question answering from another perspective: CLEVR mental rotation tests
Visual Question Answering From Another Perspective: CLEVR Mental Rotation Tests
Scaling neural representations for multi-view reconstruction of scenes
Parameter-space ReSTIR for differentiable and inverse rendering
Minimax Exploiter: A Data Efficient Approach for Competitive Self-Play
Meshdiffusion: Score-based generative 3d mesh modeling
Learning neural implicit representations with surface signal parameterizations
Efficient graphics representation with differentiable indirection
Differentiable visual computing for inverse problems and machine learning
Cone-traced supersampling with subpixel edge reconstruction
Cone-traced supersampling for signed distance field rendering
A model-based solution to the offline multi-agent reinforcement learning coordination problem
2022 (13)
Uncertainty-driven active vision for implicit scene reconstruction
Single-pass stratified importance resampling
Overcoming challenges in leveraging GANs for few-shot data augmentation
Neural shadow mapping
Neural Shadow Mapping-Supplemental
Learning latent structural causal models
Latent variable models for bayesian causal discovery
Efficient differentiation of pixel reconstruction filters for path-space differentiable rendering
Compact Poisson Filters for Fast Fluid Simulation
Challenges in leveraging gans for few-shot data augmentation
Attention-based neural cellular automata
A monte carlo method for fluid simulation
2021 (8)
Weakly supervised underwater fish segmentation using affinity LCFCN
Supplementary Material for Neural Geometric Level of Detail: Real-time Rendering with Implicit 3D Shapes
Neural geometric level of detail: Real-time rendering with implicit 3d shapes
SSR: Semi-supervised Soft Rasterizer for single-view 2D to 3D Reconstruction
Practical Product Sampling for Single Scattering in Media.
Learning to guide and to be guided in the architect-builder problem
Dynamic diffuse global illumination resampling
Differentiable compound optics and processing pipeline optimization for end-to-end camera design
A weakly supervised consistency-based learning method for covid-19 segmentation in ct images
2020 (23)
Voronoinet: General functional approximators with local support
Using speech synthesis to train end-to-end spoken language understanding models
Surprisal-triggered conditional computation with neural networks
Scalable multi-agent inverse reinforcement learning via actor-attention-critic
Scalable and sample-efficient multi-agent imitation learning
Robust motion in-betweening
Regularized inverse reinforcement learning
Real-time multifocal displays with gaze-contingent rendering and optimization
Promoting coordination through policy regularization in multi-agent deep reinforcement learning
Practical product path guiding using linearly transformed cosines
Pix2shape: Towards unsupervised learning of 3d scenes from images using a view-based representation
Participating media baking
On the effectiveness of weight-encoded neural implicit 3d shapes
Navigation agents for the visually impaired: A sidewalk simulator and experiments
Multifocal test system
Local Bases for Model-reduced Smoke Simulations
Directional sources and listeners in interactive sound propagation using reciprocal wave field coding
Differentiable Path Tracing by Regularizing Discontinuities
Delayed rejection Metropolis light transport
An efficient transport estimator for complex layered materials
Affinity lcfcn: Learning to segment fish with weak supervision
Adversarial soft advantage fitting: Imitation learning without policy optimization
A weakly supervised region-based active learning method for COVID-19 segmentation in CT images
2019 (18)
Volume path guiding based on zero-variance random walk theory
View-dependent Radiance Caching.
Subspace neural physics: Fast data-driven interactive simulation
Scalable virtual ray lights rendering for participating media
Robo-PlaNet: learning to poke in a day
Real-time multifocal displays with gaze-contingent rendering and optimization
Participating media baking
Non-linear sphere tracing for rendering deformed signed distance fields
Multifocal test system
Integral formulations of volumetric transmittance
Impulse Responses for Precomputing Light from Volumetric Media.
Hyperparameter optimization in black-box image processing using differentiable proxies.
Fast non-uniform radiance probe placement and tracing.
Dynamic diffuse global illumination with ray-traced irradiance fields
Presented at I3D Best Presentation Award Winner!
Adaptive sampling for sound propagation
A survey on gradient-domain rendering
A frequency analysis and dual hierarchy for efficient rendering of subsurface scattering
2018 (7)
Scalable appearance filtering for complex lighting effects.
Matrix bidirectional path tracing
Integrating clipped spherical harmonics expansions
Gradient-domain volumetric photon density estimation
Beyond pixel norm-balls: Parametric adversaries using an analytically differentiable renderer
A versatile parameterization for measured material manifolds
2017 (11)
Real-time global illumination using precomputed light field probes
Best Presentation Award Winner!
Interactive reconstruction of Monte Carlo image sequences using a recurrent denoising autoencoder
Gradient-domain vertex connection and merging
Gradient-domain photon density estimation
Frequency based radiance cache for rendering animations
Fast gaze-contingent optimal decompositions for multifocal displays.
Extended Path Integral Formulation for Volumetric Transport.
Combining sampling arrangements and distributions for stochastic integration in rendering
Antialiasing complex global illumination effects in path-space
A Practical Non-Linear Parameterization of the BRDF Manifold
2016 (6)
State of the art in artistic editing of appearance, lighting and material
Reduced aggregate scattering operators for path tracing
Programmable system for artistic volumetric lighting
Image processing using progressive generation of intermediate images using photon beams of varying parameters
Deep g-buffers for stable global illumination approximation.
A non-parametric factor microfacet model for isotropic BRDFs
2015 (7)
Virtual lens-rendering for augmented reality lens
Surface turbulence for particle-based liquid simulations
Practical Shading of Height Fields and Meshes using Spherical Harmonic Exponentiation.
High Performance Non-linear Motion Blur.
Forward to the special section on SIBGRAPI 2014
Efficient and accurate spherical kernel integrals using isotropic decomposition
A Word from the Papers Chairs
2014 (8)
Visibility silhouettes for semi-analytic spherical integration
Unifying points, beams, and paths in volumetric light transport simulation
SIBGRAPI Conference Chair
Image processing using iterative generation of intermediate images using photon beams of varying parameters
Hierarchical diffusion curves for accurate automatic image vectorization
Facial performance enhancement using dynamic shape space analysis
Error analysis of estimators that use combinations of stochastic sampling strategies for direct illumination
A Fast and Stable Feature-Aware Motion Blur Filter.
2013 (9)
The shading probe: Fast appearance acquisition for mobile ar
Refractive steganography lens and method for determining milling plan for same
Path-space manipulation of physically-based light transport
Joint importance sampling of low-order volumetric scattering.
Image-based reconstruction and synthesis of dense foliage
Filtering color mapped textures and surfaces
Compensation for self-scattering on concave screens
Accurate and Efficient Filtering using Anisotropic Filter Decomposition
2012 (10)
Virtual ray lights for rendering scenes with participating media
The magic lens: refractive steganography.
Featured on Proceedings Back Cover and Papers Fast Forward Video!
Sparse zonal harmonic factorization for efficient SH rotation
Sparse Zonal Harmonic Factorization for Efficient SH Rotation: Supplemental Material and Implementation Sketch
Progressive virtual beam lights
Manufacturing layered attenuators for multiple prescribed shadow images
Learning hatching for pen-and-ink illustration of surfaces
Irradiance rigs
Delta radiance transfer
A theory of Monte Carlo visibility sampling
2011 (7)
Wrap Shading
Runtime implementation of modular radiance transfer
Progressive photon beams
Perceptually-based compensation of light pollution in display systems
Modular radiance transfer
Light factorization for mixed-frequency shadows in augmented reality
A programmable system for artistic volumetric lighting
2010 (1)
Exploiting Coherence and Data-driven Models for Real-time Global Illumination
2009 (7)
Soft shadow rendering
Shadowing dynamic scenes with arbitrary BRDFs
Multi-objective shape segmentation and labeling
Image-based proxy accumulation for realtime soft global illumination
Fast global illumination on dynamic height fields
Extracting lines of curvature from noisy point clouds
Data-driven curvature for real-time line drawing of dynamic scenes
2008 (6)
Video browsing by direct manipulation
Solving Radiance Transport as a Differential Equation
Shadowed Relighting of Dynamic Geometry with 1D BRDFs.
Real-time line drawing for animated surfaces
Fast Soft Shadows on Height Fields via Multi-Resolution Image Processing
Fast Soft Self-Shadowing on Dynamic Height Fields
2007 (4)
Robust statistical estimation of curvature on discretized surfaces
Image-based proxy accumulation for real-time soft global illumination
Eigentransport for efficient and accurate all-frequency relighting
Winner: Best Paper Award Winner!
Compact and efficient generation of radiance transfer for dynamically articulated characters
2006 (3)
Vortex based smoke simulation and control
GPU-accelerated ray casting of node-based implicits
A controllable, fast and stable basis for vortex based smoke simulation
2005 (2)
High-Performance Double-Precision Cosine Generation.
Efficient double-precision cosine generation
Undated (3)
General Functional Approximators with Local Support
Automatic Placement of Radiance Probes
Accurate and Efficient Strategies for the Appearance
Funding Sources
My research and lab have benefited from many public and industrial sources of support, without which none of the work we pursue would be possible. I am grateful for both the past and continued support from the following sources:
