Abstract
We are witnessing a historic inflection point in visual computing. For decades, progress has come from separately advancing optics, graphics, and algorithms. Cameras captured, computers processed, and displays rendered. But in the age of AI, these silos are dissolving. Learning-based models now blur the line between sensing and inference, between display and perception, and between physical optics and digital computation. As AI becomes an inseparable part of how we capture, compute, and experience visual information, we must reimagine visual computing not as a stack of components, but as a unified system that is adaptive, perception-aware, and ultimately, human-centered.
In this talk, I will share a vision for rethinking visual computing systems when AI is not just an add-on, but a first-class design principle. I will highlight examples from our research where this shift is already transforming the landscape: holographic displays that adapt to human perception, metasurface optics designed in tandem with neural solvers, and multimodal sensor fusion that captures reality at unprecedented speed and fidelity. These case studies point toward a future where the entire pipeline—from photons to pixels to perception—is co-designed with intelligence at its core.
Biography
Praneeth Chakravarthula is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research lies at the intersection of graphics, vision, optics, and AI, and has been recognized with multiple best paper awards at SIGGRAPH, IEEE VR, and IEEE ISMAR, as well as the IEEE VR Best Dissertation Award and DARPA Disruptive Idea Award. Before joining UNC, Praneeth completed postdoctoral research at Princeton University, earned his PhD and MS at UNC, and B.Tech and M.Tech degrees in Electrical Engineering from IIT Madras.
