Group photos

Lab ski trip to Alpine Meadows, California, March 6, 1994.
From left to right: Greg Turk, Phil Lacroute, Dan Goldman, Brian Curless, Marc Levoy, Hua (Grace) Ge.

or maybe
Post-Siggraph '94 trip to Ocala National Forest, Florida, July 30, 1994.
From left to right: Eric Veach, Phil Lacroute, Lisa Forssell, Marc Levoy, Venkat Krishnamurthy.

Lab retreat at Westerbeke Ranch, Sonoma County, California, December 3, 1994.
Top row, left to right: Todd Smith, Mike Marr, Craig Kolb, Lisa Forssell, Venkat Krishnamurthy, Matt Pharr. Bottom row, left to right: Brian Freyburger, Hua (Grace) Ge, Eric Veach, Pat Hanrahan, Marc Levoy, Reid Gershbein, Phil Lacroute, Brian Curless.

Post-Siggraph '95 hiking trip to Mount San Jacinto, August 12, 1995.
Back row (left to right): Marc Levoy, Phil Lacroute, Venkat Krishnamurthy, Brian Curless.
Front row: Apostolos (Toli) Lerios and friend, James Kuffner.

The original plan for this trip was to take the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway to 8,500 feet, then hike to the summit at 10,800 - a moderate ascent of 2,300 feet. However, after driving for 2 hours from Los Angeles, we arrived in Palm Springs to find the tramway closed for maintenance. In an effort to salvage the day, we drove around the mountain to Idyllwild and began hiking to the summit on the Marion Mountain Trail. This route ascends 4,800 feet - a strenuous climb by any standards. Some people made it to the top (of San Jacinto), as the photograph attests, but not everybody did, and several people got sick from the altitude. As a result, this outing became known as Professor Levoy's Death March. Fortunately, students eventually graduate and leave, so six years later Levoy was able to recruit a fresh crop of students for another attack on the mountain. (Actually, James Davis was on both hikes, and made it to the summit both times, although he's missing from this photograph.) What happened on the hike in 2001? Check it out!

and maybe
Post-Siggraph '97 trip to Catalina Island, California, August 9, 1997 (post-Siggraph '97 field trip).
Left: Identities uncertain.
Right: Definitely Pat Hanrahan and Delle Maxwell.

Lab ski trip to Lake Tahoe, California, February 21-22, 1998.
Left: Alpine Meadows, 80-mph blizzard.
From left to right: Alex Roetter, Phil Lacroute, Kari Pulli, Marc Levoy.
2nd: Snow above the running boards of Phil's car.
3rd: The Truckee River after the storm.
4th: Dinner at the condominium.
Clockwise from left: Marc Levoy, John Owens, Milton Chen, James Davis, Kari Pulli, Kekoa Proudfoot, Lucas Pereira, Szymon Rusinkiewicz, Amy, Venkat Krishnamurthy, Alex Roetter, Olaf Hall-Holt, Phil Lacroute.
Holding Camera: Christy Hall-Holt.
5th: Squaw Valley, 18 inches of powder the next day.
From left to right: Kekoa Proudfoot, John Owens, Venkat Krishnamurthy, Kari Pulli, Marc Levoy, Milton Chen, Phil Lacroute, Alex Roetter.
Injured: Olaf Hall-Holt.
Missing: Christy Hall-Holt, Amy.
Slid off the road: Lucas Pereira, with Szymon Rusinkiewicz and James Davis
Right: Alex catches some major air. This picture is not a fake.
Click here for more pictures from this trip.

Digital Michelangelo Project team lunch, Il Fornaio, May 29, 1998.
From left to right: Marc Levoy, Szymon Rusinkiewicz, Sean Anderson, David Koller, Lucas Pereira, Alex Roetter, Jeremy Ginsberg, Matt Ginzton, Kari Pulli, John Gerth.
Click here for more group photos of the Digital Michelangelo Project team.

Timothy Verdon's Art History 112 class visits the attic of the Duomo, October 30, 1998.
The class includes several members of the Digital Michelangelo Project team.

Stanford Immersive Television Project retreat, August 17-18, 1999.
Front row, left to right: Hiroyuki Segawa (Sony), Donald Tanguay, David Koller, Frank Crow (Interval), Gavin Miller (Interval), Brad Nelson, Philipp Slusallek, Pat Hanrahan, Bill Dally, Carlo Tomasi.
Middle row, left to right: Marc Levoy, Szymon Rusinkiewicz, Mark Perez, Scott Rixner, Ed Chang, Mark Horowitz, John Zhang, Daniel Russakoff, Li-Yi Wei, Cindy Chen, Kathy Pullen, Michal Smulski.
Back row, left to right: Kenichiro Nakamura (Sony), Bob Liang (Intel), Padma Sundaram, Lucas Pereira, Bill Mark, Chris Bregler, John Owens, Bennett Wilburn, Brad Johanson, James Davis, Milton Chen, Ben Mowery, Serge Rutman (Intel).

followed by
Lab raft trip on the South Fork of the American River, August 27, 1999.
Left: Waiting for the rafts to be inflated.
From left to right: Brad Johanson, James Davis, Pat Hanrahan, Homan Igehy, Sean Anderson, Delle Maxwell, John Owens, Francois Guimbretiere (rear), Rito Trevino (front), Marc Levoy (kneeling), Philipp Slusallek, Li-Yi Wei, Chris Stolte, Lucas Pereira, Bryn Forbes (rear), Milton Chen (front), Karen Butler, Danny Yang, Kekoa Proudfoot, Yelena Vileshina.
Missing: Terry Winograd, Bill Mark, Chris Bregler.
Right: One of the boats runs a class III+ rapid
From left to right: One of our UC Davis guides, Chris Bregler, Karen, James Davis, Danny Yang, Marc Levoy.

Lab ski trip to Lake Tahoe, January 29, 2000.
Left: Squaw Valley.
From left to right: Francois Guimbretiere, Ian Buck John Owens, Bill Mark, Nicolas Scapel, Brad Johanson, Milton Chen, Szymon Rusinkiewicz, James Davis, Xin Tong, Marc Levoy, Kekoa Proudfoot.
2nd: Dinner at the condominium in Tahoe City.
From left to right: Milton Chen, John Owens, Jingli Wang, Bill Mark, Nicolas Scapel, Xin Tong, Brad Johanson, Ian Buck, Kekoa Proudfoot. David Blythe, Francois Guimbretiere.
3rd: The overflow table.
Clockwise from lower-left: Henrik Wann Jensen, Sepideh Pashaie, Homan Igehy, James Davis, Susan Shepard.
4th: Susan Shepard skiing.
Right: Susan Shepard sleeping.
Click here for more pictures from this trip.
Missing: Pictures of the next day's 80-mph blizzard at Alpine Meadows.

Post-Siggraph 2000 trips around New Orleans, July 25, 2000.
Left: Bill Mark communes with an alligator on our swamp tour.
Right: Seated beneath one of the giant trees at Oak Alley Plantation.
Front row, left to right: Jessica, Cici Koenig, Marc Levoy, Pat Hanrahan.
Middle row, left to right: Erika Chuang, James Davis, Yelena Vileshina, Philipp Slusallek, Peter Schroeder, Brian Smits, Henrik Wann Jensen.
Back row, left to right: Blake Gentner, Heather Lindquist, Brad Johanson, Ravi Ramamoorthi, Sean Anderson, Olaf Hall-Holt, Maryann Simmons, Bill Mark.
Click here for more pictures from this trip.

Lab ski trip to Kirkwood, February 10-12, 2001.

1	2	3	4

This was a trip to remember. It snowed heavily all weekend. In fact, it was the storm of the decade, dumping 5 feet of snow in 3 days. 1: Posing in the blizzard is, from left to right, Katie, John Owens, Marc Levoy, Ian Buck, Danny Yang, Jeng Li, Milton Chen, and Kekoa Proudfoot. Brad Johanson took the picture. 2: Marc Levoy trying to plow through powder that's almost up to his tuchus. 3: Later, Marc led the gang into a narrow chute. Big mistake - the chute ended in a three-hundred-foot dropoff. Not knowing how to fly, the students climbed out, cursing Marc with every step. (Marc eventually climbed out too.) 4: Resting from their exertions are Ian Buck and John Owens.

5	6	7	8	9	10

Our shelter from the ferocious weather was a magnificent house decorated to the rafters with quirky antiques. 5: Cooking up a storm in the kitchen is, from left to right, Hidetaka Inada, Jing Li, Daniel Russel, and Marc Levoy. Many more people helped. 6: Matt Ginzton and his girlfriend Amanda baked two amazing peach pies. 7: Meanwhile, snoozing in the living room are Ian Buck and his girlfriend Katie, Takeshi Naemura and his wife Makiko, and John Owens and his girlfriend Shana. (They washed the dishes later.) 8: Serving themselves from the endless pot of spaghetti is Shana, Szymon Rusinkiewicz, Amanda, Takeshi, and Makiko. John Owens is visible in the background, and Katie watches from the right edge of the picture. 9: Chowing down is, clockwise from lower-left, Danny Yang, John and Shana, Amanda and Matt, Makiko and Takeshi, Katie and Ian. With their backs to the camera are Danny's girlfriend Kristina, and Natasha Gelfand. Daniel stands at right. 10: Tinkling the ivories after dinner is Makiko. The appreciative audience includes Natasha Gelfand, Daniel, and Marc.

11	12

On Sunday afternoon, it was still snowing hard, and road conditions were awful. In fact, State Route 88 westbound was closed due to avalanche danger. The unlucky ones (with midterms and other responsibilities) drove east across Carson Pass, north to Lake Tahoe, then west - 8 hours or more - to get home. The rest stayed an extra night. 11: On Monday morning, even the stragglers had to dig out their cars. This is Natasha's Honda Civic. 12: Here's Marc's Volkswagen van. Click on this one for a QuickTimeVR-like panorama (requires Internet Explorer 5). Our house is to the left of the van.

There are many more pictures where these came from.
Click here for the complete set of Brad Johanson's pictures and here for Natasha Gelfand's.

Post-Siggraph '01 hiking trip to Mount San Jacinto, August 18, 2001.

This trip, a reprise of the ill-fated hike of 1995, was another trip to remember. This time, we made sure the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway was running on the day of the trip. At left is a panorama stitched together from pictures taken by Natasha Gelfand at Wellman's Divide, about halfway from the tram station to the summit. The elevation is 9,700 feet, and the view is looking south along the Pacific Crest Tail. Click here for a larger version of this panorama. At right is the mandatory summit snapshot (elevation 10,800 feet). Seated in front is (from left to right): Li-Yi Wei, Pat Hanrahan, Marc Levoy, and Natasha Gelfand. Seated behind them (left to right) is Brad Johanson, Marcus Magnor, and Philipp Slusallek. Standing behind is Pradeep Sen, Francois Guimbretiere, Yi-Ren Ng, Erika Chuang, and James Davis.

Does everybody in this picture look happy to you? Smiles can be deceptive. Click here for the real story of Death March II. As happened after the 1995 hike, students eventually graduate and leave, and oral histories eventually fade, so in 2005 Marc recruited a fresh crop of students and repeated the hike for a third time.

Lab ski trip to Kirkwood, February 9-10, 2002.

Unlike every ski trip we've taken since 1994, this one did not include an 80-mph blizzard. In fact, it was sunny and 55 degrees.
How boring.
Left image, front row, left to right: Billy Chen, Leslie Ikemoto, Vaibhav Vaish, Georg Petschnigg, Natasha Gelfand, Daniel Russel, Cindy Chen.
Back row, left to right: Kekoa Proudfoot, Kostadis Roussos, Ian Buck, Lorenzo Torresani, Brad Johanson, Irene Fondriest, Jingli Wang, Milton Chen, Cristina Pan, Danny Yang, Marc Levoy, Francois-Marie Lefevere, Bennett Wilburn, Jennifer Trimble.
Missing: Yi-Ren Ng, Jason Fan.
Right image: Professor Levoy proves that you are never too old to learn snowboarding. He also proves that it takes more than one day to learn. Note the (incorrect) backwards lean. Note the white patches on the seat of his pants.

Click here for Vaibhav Vaish's pictures of the trip.

Post-Siggraph '02 spelunking trip to Natural Bridges Caverns, July 27, 2002.

Siggraph was in San Antonio this year, and our original plan was to go inner tubing ("toobing") down the nearby Guadalupe River. Unfortunately, there were devastating floods throughout south Texas two weeks earlier, making the rivers temporarily unrunnable. Instead, a small but hardy subset of us took the "adventure tour" at Natural Bridges Caverns, a nearby limestone cave system.
Left image, front row, left to right: Natasha Gelfand, Marc Levoy, Vaibhav Vaish.
Back row, left to right: Leslie Ikemoto, Yi-Ren Ng, Billy Chen.
Right image: Leslie at the end of her rope.

Click here for Natasha Gelfand's web page about the trip.

To celebrate the end of the Summer, 2002 Computer Science Undergraduate Research InterShip (CURIS) program, the undergraduates who worked for Professor Levoy, together and their graduate student mentors, went hiking at Big Basin Redwoods State Park. The sign says "Berry Creek Falls, 6 hours round trip, strenuous hike." That's nonsense; it isn't a minute over 5 hours.
Left image, front row, left to right: Tricia Lee, Leslie Ikemoto, Kurt Berglund, Jason Anderson.
Back row, left to right: Kurt's friend, David Koller, Jon Berger, Marc Levoy, Francois-Marie Lefevere.
Right image: Leslie is replaced by Natasha Gelfand.

Click here for Natasha Gelfand's web page with more photos.

Click here for Leslie Ikemoto's and Pat Hanrahan's web pages with more photos.

Lab ski trip to Kirkwood, February 1-2, 2003.

A bit of snow, a bit of sun, a bit of ice, and a marvelous Italian dinner prepared by our international visitor, Claudia Cecamore.
Left to right: Cristina Pan, Mike Houston, Claudia Cecamore, Guillaume Poncin, Kekoa Proudfoot, Natasha Gelfand, Danny Yang, Erika Chuang, James Davis, Dan Russel, Afra Zomordian, Marc Levoy.
Missing: Frank Losasso, Jeff Klingner, Leslie Ikemoto, Bennett Sampson Wilburn, Ian Buck, Neel Joshi, Francois-Marie Lefevere, Meredith Ringel, Ron Yeh, Ren Ng.

Click here for Erika Chuang's pictures of the trip, and here for Frank Losasso's, and here for Natasha Gelfand's, and here for Francois-Marie Lefevere's.

Another splendid weekend at the famed Iron Mountain House.
Seated at table, left to right: Frank Losasso (hanging off the left side), Dan Morris, Meredith Ringel, Kayvon Fatahalian, Jen A, Guillaume Poncin, Neel Joshi, Kris Hauser, Unnur Gretarsdottir.
Behind, left to right: Augusto Roman, Doantam Phan, Jeff Klingner, Ron Yeh, Marc Levoy.
Taking the picture: Dan Maynes-Aminzade.
Missing: Ren Ng, Ian Buck, Susan Taing.

Click here for Dan Maynes-Aminzade's pictures of the trip.

Post-Siggraph '04 trip to Catalina Island, California, August 21, 2004 (a reprise of our post-Siggraph '97 field trip).
From left to right: Mike Cammarano, Unnur Gretarsdottir, Vaibhav Vaish, Marc Levoy, Jeff Klingner, Hendrik Lensch, Gaurav Garg, Augusto Roman.

Click here for Augusto Roman's pictures of the trip.

Yet another splendid weekend at the Iron Mountain House. The weather was sunny, and there was tons of snow, as you can see from the pictures. We didn't get a group shot of all 19 people, but we did manage to capture the first shift of dinner eaters, with from left to right: Ling Xiao, Geoffrey Irving (with Weronika Patena to his right), Dan Maynes-Aminzade, ???, Andrew Adams (with Elena Williams to his right), Tania Treis, and Bennett Wilburn with his back to us. The last picture shows Jeff Klingner - our master chef, with Bjoern Hartmann behind him. Professor Levoy made the garlic bread, but he burnt one of the loaves, so he doesn't get his picture in the album this year.

The students lead a panel discussion in the outdoor amphitheater. The topic was conferences in graphics and HCI; what's good, what's bad, what to fix, and how to do it. Everyone looks happy. Present but not visible: equally many happy mosquitos.
First image: Pat Hanrahan and Marc Levoy (front row) share a joke while the panel warms up. On the panel are (from left to right) Geoffrey Irving, Niloy Mitra, Ren Ng, Jeffrey Klingner (chair), Wendy Ju.
Second image: Front row, left to right: Stuart Card (our distinguished visitor, from Xerox PARC), Marc Levoy, Pat Hanrahan, Scott Klemmer, Rachel Weinstein, Meredith Morris, Gaurav Garg, Terry Winograd. Second row: Mike Cammmarano, Ron Yeh, Doantam Phan, Manu Kumar, Emilio Antunez, Mike Houston, Tamar Shinar, Andrew Selle, David Koller, Hendrik Lensch, Eddy Talvala, Andrew Adams, Augusto Roman, Jed Crosby. Third row: Eran Guendelman, Heidy Maldonado, Bjoern Hartmann, Yasunobu Yamauchi. Missing: Daniel Horn, Leo Guibas, Kayvon Fatahalian, Eftychios Sifakis, Natasha Gelfand (the photography).
Third image: Closeup of Rachel to Terry (front row), and Andrew to Jed (second row).
Fourth image: Ren compares Siggraph to an annual sporting event, while Niloy (left) and Jeff (right) listen in amusement.
Fifth image: Looking towards Monterey Bay from atop a ridge in the Forest of Nisene Marks, near the conference center.

This trip, a reprise of the ill-fated death marches of 1995 and 2001, was not a "death march". We had fine weather (a thunderstorm rumbled in the distance, but didn't reach us), a great hike (although not everyone took Professor Levoy's off-trail boulder scrambling option), and no mishaps (injuries or altitude sickness). Pictured in the summit shot at left are (from left to right): Kayvon Fatahalian, Xing Tong (of Microsoft/Asia), Billy Chen, Andrew Adams, Emilio Antunez (above him), Jeff Klingner, Augusto Roman, Mike Cammarano, Marc Levoy, David Akers, Eddy Talvala, and Vaibhav Vaish. At right, Professor Levoy helps the students through a difficult section of the route by rolling an obstructing rock out of the way.

Click here for Kayvon Fatahalian's pictures of the trip.

Our annual blow-off-steam-after-the-SIGGRAPH-deadline ski weekend at the Iron Mountain House. The weather was mixed, the snow conditions were mixed, and the pasta sauce was (very well) mixed by Jeff Klingner. At left above are some of the dinner eaters, from left to right: Michael Wand, Mike Houston, Andrew Adams and his wife Ellie, Geoffrey Irving and his wife Weronika, Kayvon Fatahalian, Rachel Weinstein, Frank Losasso, Primoz Skraba, Meredith Ringel, and behind them (left to right) Andrew Selle and Jeff Klingner. The real story of the weekend was Professor Sebastian Thrun's unexpected plunge off a 20-foot cliff (due to icy conditions above it). His approach, brief flight, and subsequent tumble are diagrammed over the cell phone photograph at right. Fortunately he survived, although with a minor back injury. (He took this picture, which includes skiing partner Geoffrey Irving.) He compliments us on running a "high-impact" retreat. We suggest he employ additional sensors to stay on course, and recommend that he look at the excellent work done recently in this area by the Stanford Racing Team.

Siggraph was in Boston this year, and our post-conference field trip consisted of taking the fast ferry to Provincetown, on the tip of Cape Cod. Not content with a sedate cruise, we rented bicycles in Provincetown and did a loop on the bicycle path that extends into the Province Lands sand dunes, part of Cape Cod National Seashore. The group shot at left above was taken on the beach at the far end of the loop. From left to right: Natasha Gelfand, Mike Cammarano, Robert Strzodka, Michael Wand, Marc Levoy, Kayvon Fatahalian, Zhengyun Zhang. While in the dunes, Kayvon caught some major air. Students seem to enjoy being airborne; compare this to the picture of Alex Roetter from our 1998 ski trip to Lake Tahoe. Not content with an easy bike ride, we parked our bikes at Bennett Pond midway through the loop and circled the pond on foot. Not content with mere hiking, when the trail ended partway around the pond, Professor Levoy insisted on bushwacking the rest of the way. He claimed to be looking for cranberry bogs. What he found was thorn bushes, as evidenced by the shot of his leg at right above. Students interested in adventure-free field trips should seek other trip leaders.

Click here for Natasha Gelfand's pictures of the trip.

Yet another blow-off-steam-after-the-SIGGRAPH-deadline ski weekend at the Iron Mountain House. Snow was sparse this year. In fact, it hadn't snowed for 3 weeks. To avoid the mediocre downhill conditions, some people decided to cross-country ski instead. The snow was excellent, the woods quiet, and and the air clear and warm (55 degrees!). At left above is Marc Levoy, Ron Yeh, Kayvon Fatahalian and friend Alyson Brooks, and Jeff Klingner. Jeff and Marc reached Coyote Pass, where Marc shot a 180-degree panorama, shown above. Note the patches of grass around each tree. Did I mention that the snow was sparse this year? Dinner was not sparse, however. Once again Jeff Klinger (above at right) provided a sumptous repast, this time a selection of curry dishes.

Despite the time gap in this web page, we continue to take post-SIGGRAPH-deadline ski weekends at the Iron Mountain House at Kirkwood. This year the snow was legendary - 7 feet fell the previous week. All but the last photograph were taken by Fredo Durand of MIT, who spent his sabbatical at Stanford in order to be on this trip. Not really. At left is the house at night. Next is Zhengyun Zhang, tinkling the ivories. You can see that the house is a veritable museum of antiques, collected by the owners Leo and Nina Smith. Yes that's a chairlift hanging from the rafters. Zhang also cooks, as seen in this fisheye shot. If the lighting is bad, Fredo cleverly converts the picture to black & white, as shown in this next shot of Katherine Breeden. Or maybe you would prefer this more interesting (but less flattering) picture of Katherine. Next is a very flattering picture of Andrew Adams. And after that is a shot of Fredo himself. The last two show Marc Levoy in fine form on his very straight, very old skis, and Jennifer Dolson cross-country skiing for the first time. For more pictures by the talented Fredo Durand, click here.