Julia Cheng Zhang's Portfolio

As a researcher, my works are dedicated to enhancing experiential learning through computer animation, visualization, game design, interactive and immersive virtual spaces, and the development of tools for improving visual perception. I’m interested in applying computing technology combined with various art forms to my research so that ideas and information can be effectively conveyed to users. As a naturally collaborative medium, technologies of computer graphics have been applied to multidisciplinary research areas. My works reflect this trend.

Lightning over South Dakota - The South Dakota Lightning Mapping Array (LMA) consists of 10 sensor stations that monitor very high frequency radio waves emitted by lightning. This dataset provides detailed information about a lightning event that occurred in western South Dakota around 2:50 PM on July 19th, 2014. The lightning flash contour data were generated by the scientists based on the raw LMA data. The lightning showed in this work lasts about 1.5 seconds. The animation repeats the lightning event 14 times played at the actual speed of the event to illustrate detailed 3D lightning observations and the lightning's dynamic progression providing a unique perspective on extreme weather.

Global Wind Flow over Salinity

Wind Flow over Salinity in the Selected Area (Atlantic Ocean)

Mega Drought - Droughts in the Southwest and Central Plains of the United States in the second half of the 21st century could be drier and longer than anything humans have seen in those regions in the last 1,000 years, according to a new NASA study published in Science Advances on Feb 12, 2015. The research found continued increases in human-produced greenhouse gas emissions drives up the risk of severe droughts in these regions. More info ...

Moon Rush - is a web-based 3D computer game that promotes the new moon race supported by Google Lunar X Prize. This coming moon exploration will be accomplished with the ingenuity and cost-effectiveness private enterprises rather than large goverment programs. Currently Moon Rush (in design phase) is participating G4C the game design competition for SpaceIL mission, sporsored by the Schusterman Family Foundation in partnership with G4C.  See and Read more ......

Moon Rush won the People's Choice Award, based on public voting, in the Shoot for the Moon Game Design Challenge at Games for Change Conference 2014.

The Moon Experience - based on the lunar landings of the Apollo program in 1961-1972, the Moon Experience is an interactive and immersive virtual reality system, designed and developed through the technology of virtual reality in conjunction with game design, learning theories, storytelling approach, motion capture, and computer animation.  See and Read more ......

Waving Ribbons - is a part of Forsythe project led by Maria Palazzi and Norah Zuniga Shaw in collaboration with choreographer William Forsythe. It is intended to reproduce an ensemble dance of 17 dancers from William Forsythe Inc. The goal is to illustrate the classical choreographic principles. With 3D time-vary data, I used ribbons to trace the dancers' movement so that the ribbon extrusions match the dancers' moving paths in time. I then made ribbons wave by adding turbulence or wind fields. For more information, please visit the multi-award-winning Synchronous Objects website.

The Other Men in Black – is a docu-drama film about Jewish history sponsored by the Melton Center for Jewish Studies at The Ohio State University. I wrote a program (in MEL script) to generate the cloud effect surrounding the village and heavens in the scene of the film. Please see the final production film directed by Phil Garrett.

The Camouflage Project - is a performance collaboration between Ohio State University Theatre Department and the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD). This interdisciplinary work links to the theme of secret agents, camouflage, deception and disguise in World War II, specifically the F section (France) of the Special Operations Executive (SOE). My role in this project is to create special effects for parachute landings and explosion. Please visit the project site for more details.

The Nearby Star System - is an interactive application created in a game engine, Unity, to illustrate stars within 50 light years including the solar system. A user can use a keyboard and mouse to explore this virtual universe. The color of a star indicates its stellar classification. In the solar system, a user can go forward and backward in time and see the movements of planets and their satellites. The accurate positions of celestial objects are computed through Swiss Ephemeris (API and DLL). The theme music created by Marty Quinn “illustrates the hourly changing values of 7 variables representing concentrations and ratios of iron and oxygen atoms, electron energy levels, and counterstreaming electron events”. Please visit UNH Experimental Space Plasma Group to see their interesting works.

Parametric Modeling - Inspired by the different shapes of astronomy observatories at Kitt Peak, I modeled several astronomy observatories on the mountain with a set of parameters so that the shapes of models can be changed through the parameters in real time. This work is implemented in Houdini.

The Solar System - explains the structure, the composition, and formation of the solar system. The effects are created with the particle system and texture animation in MEL script.

Particle Glittering Effect - is an animation created with the particle system and texture animation in MEL script. The goal is to create a celestial and mysterious feeling.

Dancing Leaves - is an animation that depicts the motion of leaves in oil painting style. The main motions include the swirling of the leaves on the ground and the falling of the leaves from trees. See and read more ......

Snow Dent and Snow Trail - are two procedural animations. One creates a dent in snow when an object drops into snow pile. The other creates a scene that a moving object (such as a snowboard) leaves a trail on the snow covered ground.

Snow Accumulation - pictures the accumulation of falling snow in a boat (in MEL script).

Water and Fire - are the effects that originally designed to represent dancers in Forsythe project. They are created through the particle system and shaders in Maya.

Real-time animations in Houdini - includes three effects created in Houdini. The first illustrates an egg dropping on a hard surface. The next is one object hitting a second. The last is an exploding effect.

Crawling Baby - is an output of a 9-week long project to study character animation. The goal is to learn main techniques and to be aware of common mistakes and pitfalls in character animation. The major tasks include modeling, texturing, rigging, and keyframe animation.

Animation with Music - given a piece of music by John Cage, I was asked to create an animation. I thought the final work should be something abstract like the works of Oskar Fischinger, Len Lye, and Norman McLaren. The music brought to mind a tranquil scene of a pond full of joy and energy. Flowers were animated with blend shapes; tadpoles were animated with bend deformers; and background was animated through keyframing texture.

Keyframed Character Animation - depicts a primitive person perambulating including walking and sneaking.

Lighting Study - studied the principles of three point(key light, fill light and back light) principles and created four rendered still images of the same interior space. See and read more ......

Oil Painting Related Shaders - include two synthesied shaders: the canvas shader and the oil painting shader. The canvas shader was based on the build-in 2d cloth shading node (in Maya) and its parameters were adjusted. Fractal, bump, and other functions were applied, and then the original canvas was blended to generate double sided canvas. The brush stroke painting shader avoids the cut-out edges using a mask generated by fractal, ramp and samplerInfo nodes. See and read more ......