Ignacio Castaño Aguado

Graphics Programmer

Objective

To obtain a full time position as a technology and tools programmer

Qualifications

• Strong math skills and solid programming foundation.
• C++, C#, Lua. CUDA. OpenGL and DirectX. Assembly and high level shading languages.
• Windows, Unix, X-Box and Xenon platforms and development environments.

Experience

Developer Technology Engineer, NVIDIA, Corp., September 2006 / Present

• Created the new NVIDIA Texture Tools a collection of image processing and texture manipulation tools.
• Developed new DXT compression algorithms, and CUDA accelerated implementations.
• Edited the rendering section of GPU Gems 3.
• More details upon request.

3D Tool Engineer, NVIDIA, Corp., April 2005 / August 2006

• Maintained nvidia image and mesh processing tools and provided developer support.
• Participated in the design and development of FX Composer 2 using C#, Managed C++ and C++/CLI.
• Wrote various FX Composer 2 plugins, including the OpenGL/Cg and PS3 rendering backends, custom DG nodes, manipulators, undoable commands and many UI components, as well as some custom draw controls.
• Added serialization of scenes and assets using Collada and worked with Sony in the design of Collada FX.

Game Programmer, Oddworld Inhabitants, Inc., November 2004 / March 2005

• Shipped Stranger's Wrath.
• Maintained our Maya plugins and improved the robustness of our mesh processing tools.
• Computed ambient occlusion and bent normal maps using a KD-Tree for spatial acceleration and precomputed ray traversals for efficient Montecarlo integration.
• Wrote X-Box shaders for rendering using those maps, optimized the existing shaders and added additional special effects.
• Explored different normal map compression techniques.
• Wrote miscellaneous game code related to the inventory, user interface and weapons.

Graphics Programmer, Relic Entertainment, Inc. June 2004 / November 2004

• Worked closely with artists in the design of a special effects compositing tool.
• Developed an outstanding FX engine for PC and Xenon and its supporting tools and integrated it on their engine and content pipeline.
• Supervised the work of a specialized user interface programmer.
• Assisted the artists in the migration of the existing assets to the new effect system and wrote tools to facilitate this task.
• Wrote HLSL shaders to accelerate effects animations.
• Supported the artists with problems that arose on our content production pipeline and added new features like compressed textures and support for normal maps.
• Prototyped a b-spline fitting method to reduce the size of the animations.

Graphics Programmer, Nebula Technologies, SA., 2003

• Developed an interactive fire, water and smoke simulator for a firefighters game.
• Learned Direct3D9, assembly and HLSL pixel shaders.
• Wrote miscellaneous code for culling, rendering, game logic, UI and scripting.

Lead/Graphics Programmer, Crytek, GmbH., 2000

• Led a group of three programmers. All the work was done at home, working with colleagues through mail, irc and icq.
• Wrote a full game framework, OpenGL rendering engine and tools for an action/adventure first person shooter.
• Implemented BSP collision detection and response, skeletal animation, subdivision of Bezier surfaces, procedural shaders, flares, environment mapping and volumetric fog effects.

Other Experience

• I have special interest in digital mesh processing algorithms, that include: mesh cleanup, parametrization, segmentation, simplification, and attribute extraction algorithms. I've developed all those algorithms as part of my mesh processing library.
• More recently I've also developed image filtering and compression algorithms.
• I also have experience writing complex Cg shaders, rendering engines, and lighting systems using stencil shadow volumes.
• You can find additional information about me, including source code examples and demos on my website: http://castano.ludicon.com

Education

Qualifications

• I have a 5 year degree in Computer Science and Engineering by the University of Seville, Spain. (1999-2004)
• I have Honor Degrees in Graph Theory and Computational Geometry.

Conference Presentations

• 3d Engine Design, SEISS IV - Nov 2003.
• Hands on: SDL and OpenGL, SEISS IV - Nov 2003.
• Mesh Parametrization using Convex Combination Maps, Discreet Maths Encounters III - Sep 2003.
• Mathematics for Computer Graphics, Imaginática II - Apr 2003.
• Hands on: OpenGL, Imaginática II - Apr 2003.

Publications

• Mesh Parametrization using Convex Combination Maps (spanish paper), Discreet Maths Encounters III - Sep 2003.
• Automatic Parameterizations In The Cube. Graphics Programming Methods, Charles River Media - 2003.
• Filling Holes Using The Euclidean Distance Map. Graphics Programming Methods, Charles River Media - 2003.

Languages

• Spanish, English, German and some notions of Portuguese.
• I have got the second language diploma of the German 'Kultus-Minister-Konferenz' (KMK).

Visa Status

• I currently have a H-1 visa that will be valid until March 2008.

I can provide references upon request.