Dr. Matthias Specht is a co-founder and senior software engineer at the R&D labs of Procedural Inc, where he leads the development of the City Engine's grammar core.

His research interests include geometry processing, shape analysis, surface parameterization, audio synthesis and real-time multimedia systems. Matthias received a PhD from the University of Zurich's Morpholab and a MSc in computer science from the ETH Zurich.

During his PhD studies in the Computer-assisted Paleoanthropology team, he wrote his thesis called Spherical Surface Parameterization and its Application to Geometric Morphometric Analysis of the Braincase (→ abstract) and was the main author of MorphoTools, an application framework for interactive and explorative geometric morphometric analysis.

He is also a co-developer of Corebounce Association's multimedia engine Decklight and the multimedia system Soundium. The software was (and is) used for numerous dance club performances and art installations by the collective Scheinwerfer. As a member of both Corebounce and Scheinwerfer, Matthias co-authored a number of papers on technical and artistic aspects of live visuals performance.

Email:

• S. Müller Arisona, P. Müller, S. Schubiger-Banz and M. Specht. 2008. Computer-assisted Content Editing Techniques for Live Multimedia Performance. In: R. Adams, S. Gibson and S. Müller Arisona (eds.). Transdisciplinary Digital Art: Sound, Vision and the New Screen. Communications in Computer and Information Science (CCIS), Volume 7, Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

• M. Specht, R. Lebrun and C. Zollikofer. 2007. Visualizing Shape Transformation between Chimpanzee and Human Braincases. The Visual Computer, Springer Verlag, Vol. 23, No. 9-11, pages 743-751
  • The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com. →LINK
  • submitted version: →PDF

• P. Müller, S. Müller Arisona, S. Schubiger-Banz and M. Specht. 2007. Interactive Editing of Live Visuals. In: J. Braz, A. Ranchordas, H. Araújo and J. Jorge (eds), Advances in Computer Graphics and Computer Vision, Springer Verlag: 169-184
  • The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com. →LINK

• S. Müller Arisona, S. Schubiger-Banz and M. Specht. 2006. A Real-Time Multimedia Composition Layer. Proceedings of AMCMM, Workshop on Audio and Music Computing for Multimedia. ACM Multimedia 2006, Santa Barbara, October 23-27. → PDF

• P. Müller, S. Müller Arisona, S. Schubiger-Banz, and M. Specht (Corebounce Art Collective). 2006. Digital Marionette. In: Simplicity - The Art of Complexity. Ars Electronica 2006: 348 - 349.

• P. Müller, S. Müller Arisona, S. Schubiger-Banz and M. Specht. 2006. Soundium’s Design Tree: Supporting Multimedia Composition and Performance. Proceedings of Digital Art Weeks (DAW). → PDF

• P. Müller, S. Müller Arisona, S. Schubiger-Banz and M. Specht. 2006. Interactive Media and Design Editing for Live Visuals Applications. Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Applications, Setúbal (Portugal). → PDF

• Matthias Specht, 2000, Paralleler Software-Synthesizer - Cumulus, Diploma thesis in Computer Science, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich, Switzerland. german pdf

• Interactive Production of a Music Video Clip (SIBGRAPI 2006 Video Festival). → Movie