Zike (Kevin) XU

Junior Undergraduate in Computer Science and Technology

About

Hi! I am a third-year undergraduate studying Computer Science at ShanghaiTech University. I’m currently on an exchange at University of California, Berkeley.

I specialize in Computer Graphics, with particular interests in the research fields of Rendering, Simulation and Robotics, e.g. light transport simulation, fluid simulation, simulation system for robotics, inverse rendering. I am currently conducting research at FLARE lab, under the guidance of Prof. Xiaopei Liu.

Download my resume here.

Experience

Computer Graphics Research Assistant

FLARE Lab@ShanghaiTech University, Advisor: Prof. Xiaopei Liu

Feb. 2022 - Jun. 2022

  • Improved high-performance volume rendering in smoke with high variance in density presented in NanoVDB.
  • Enhancing the render result by implementing weighted environment lighting on GPU and extensive correctness testing.
  • Implemented liquid rendering in this renderer with extremely intricate geometry and volume under OptiX 7.

Computer Graphics and Robotics Research Assistant

Advisor: Prof. Xiaopei Liu and Prof. Yang Wang

Aug. 2022 - Present

  • Improved current RL simulation system (gym) with an interactive and CFD-level fluid simulation system by FLARE for the UAV training.
  • Accelerated training simulation with hierarchical simulation resolution.
  • Implemented the reference empirical simulation program for rapid experiment and comparison.

Projects

A small renderer to practice my mathematics and implementations

  • Improved convergence rate with Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods and integrated OpenImageDenoise, Embree3, and ISPC compiler to meet actual need.
  • Implemented modern volume rendering techniques like Delta-Tracking and transmittance estimation with Ratio-Tracking.

An experimental BVH system with mesh pre-processing, fast tree building, traversal and intersection

  • Improved robustness of tree building methods and memory efficiency by pre-processing mesh with different mesh partition methods.
  • Improved intersection throughput with vectorized triangle intersection.

Education

ShanghaiTech University

Bachelor of Engineering Candidate in Computer Science and Technology

Aug. 2020 - Jun. 2024 (expected)

University of California, Berkeley

Exchange student in Computer Science and Technology

Jan. 2023 - May 2023 (expected)