Dinesh Manocha is an Indian-American computer scientist and academic whose research focuses on computer graphics, computational geometry, robotics, virtual and augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and high-performance computing. He is a Distinguished University Professor and the Paul Chrisman Iribe Professor of Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is also affiliated with the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies, the Institute for Systems Research, and the Maryland Robotics Center. AAAS Members Elected as Fellows , American Association for the Advancement of Science, December 2010. Accessed 15 July 2011
Early life and education Manocha received a Bachelor of Technology degree in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi in 1987. He subsequently attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he received an M.S. in computer science in 1990 and a Ph.D. in computer science in 1992. His doctoral adviser was John Canny.
Academic career Manocha joined the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1992. During his time at UNC, he held the Matthew Mason/Phi Delta Theta Distinguished Professorship in Computer Science and led research in computer graphics, geometric computing, robotics, and virtual environments. He was also a visiting researcher at Intel in 1998 and 1999 and at Microsoft in 2008.
In 2018, Manocha joined the University of Maryland as the Paul Chrisman Iribe Professor of Computer Science. He subsequently received a joint appointment in electrical and computer engineering and became affiliated with the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies and other interdisciplinary research centers. In 2020, he was named a Distinguished University Professor, one of the university's highest academic honors.
At Maryland, Manocha has co-led the GAMMA research group, which works on geometric algorithms, simulation, computer graphics, robotics, and virtual environments. His research has included collaborations with government laboratories, universities, and technology companies.
Research Manocha's research combines algorithms, computational geometry, simulation, and machine learning with applications in computer graphics and robotics. His work has covered both fundamental algorithms and systems intended for interactive or real-time computation.
Computational geometry and geometric computing Manocha's research also focuses on geometric computing, particularly algorithms for processing and reasoning about geometric objects. His work has addressed computational geometry, algebraic methods, geometric modeling, and algorithms for computer-aided design.
His early research focuses on development of algorithms for detecting collisions between geometric objects. Collision detection is required in applications such as physically based simulation, computer-aided design, robotics, virtual environments, and interactive computer games. Manocha and his collaborators developed algorithms for testing interactions between complex geometric models and for accelerating these calculations on computer hardware.
His research group also developed methods for geometric modeling and triangulation, including algorithms for manipulating complex three-dimensional models. These methods were applied to computer-aided design, visualization, simulation, and virtual prototyping.
Physically based simulation Manocha has worked extensively on physically based modeling and simulation, which seeks to reproduce the behavior of physical systems through computational models. His research has included algorithms for rigid-body dynamics, deformable objects, geometric interactions, and simulation environments. The work has been applied to computer graphics and virtual environments, where physically based simulation can be used to model interactions between objects and environments. His group developed software packages for physics-based simulation and virtual prototyping that were subsequently incorporated into commercial software systems.
Graphics processing units Another area of Manocha's research has been the use of graphics processing units (GPUs) for general-purpose computation. His work investigated methods for mapping geometric, simulation, and visualization algorithms onto parallel processors.The research addressed problems such as collision detection, geometric computation, physical simulation, and visualization. GPU-based algorithms can perform many operations concurrently, allowing computationally intensive graphics and simulation tasks to be carried out at interactive rates.
Virtual and augmented reality Manocha's research has also focused on virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). His work has addressed the algorithms required to construct and simulate interactive virtual environments, including geometric modeling, physics-based simulation, navigation, and audio.
He has investigated computational methods for real-time interaction within virtual environments and has applied geometric and simulation techniques to VR systems. In 2024, he was inducted into the IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality Academy for contributions to computer graphics and computational geometry for virtual reality.
Robotics and autonomous systems Manocha's research in robotics has focused on planning, navigation, simulation, and interaction among multiple autonomous agents. His work applies computational geometry and simulation to problems in which robots must navigate through environments containing obstacles or other moving agents.
His research has included robot motion planning, multi-agent navigation, and algorithms for coordinating the movements of multiple agents. These methods can be used in robotics, virtual environments, autonomous vehicles, and simulation-based training.
His more recent research interests include autonomous driving.
Multi-agent simulation Manocha's research includes multi-agent simulation, with a focus on computational models of pedestrian and crowd movement. His work has developed navigation algorithms for collision-free movement and has been applied to computer games, virtual environments, architectural simulation, evacuation analysis, and robotics. His group's navigation technologies have also been integrated into game engines and simulation systems.
Acoustic simulation and sound rendering Manocha's research also includes acoustic simulation, focusing on computational models of sound propagation and interaction with physical environments. His work has applications in virtual environments, architectural acoustics, and environmental noise. He co-founded Impulsonic, whose physics-based audio technology was acquired by Valve in 2016 and incorporated into its Steam Audio software development kit.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning Manocha's research includes artificial intelligence and machine learning, with applications in computer graphics, robotics, simulation, and autonomous systems. His work has included machine-learning methods for multi-agent systems, autonomous navigation, perception, and simulation, as well as applications in virtual environments and autonomous systems.
His research also includes high-performance and scientific computing, combining machine-learning methods with parallel algorithms and specialized computing hardware.
Software and technology transfer A recurring part of Manocha's research has been the development of software implementations of algorithms produced by his research group. These include software for collision detection, triangulation, GPU computing, multi-agent simulation, texture compression, solid modeling, robotics, and audio large language models.
His research has received support from the National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Army Research Office, NASA, National Institutes of Health, Naval Research Laboratory, and industry partners.
Publications and academic service Manocha has published in computer graphics, computational geometry, robotics, virtual reality, high-performance computing, databases, and related fields, with more than 900 papers, and 11 books and monographs. He has received 22 best paper or test of time awards.
Entrepreneurship Manocha has participated in the commercialization of research originating from his academic groups. He was a co-founder of Impulsonic, which developed physics-based audio simulation technology and was acquired by Valve in 2016. The resulting technology was incorporated into Steam Audio. He is also a co-founder of Inception Robotics.
Personal life Manocha is married to his frequent collaborator and UMD faculty colleague, Ming C. Lin.
Awards
IBM Fellowship, 1992 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, 1995 National Science Foundation CAREER Award, 1995 Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, 1996 Honda Research Initiation Award,1997 Phillip and Ruth Hettleman Prize for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement, 1998 ACM IndySort co-winner, 2006 ACM Fellow, 2009 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2011 IEEE Fellow, 2012 AAAI Fellow, 2018 Member, ACM SIGGRAPH Academy, 2019 Distinguished Career in Computer Science Award, Washington Academy of Sciences, 2019 Pierre Bézier Award, Solid Modeling Association, 2020 Distinguished University Professor, University of Maryland, 2020 Jimmy H. C. Lin Award for Innovation and Invention, University of Maryland, 2024 Member, IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality Academy, 2024 Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, 2023 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation Most Influential Paper Award, 2026 NVIDIA Research Award, 2026
References
External links Dinesh Manocha home page at the Department of Computer Science, University of Maryland