24/07/2019

'IMPA's open environment enabled the creation of Visgraf'

Luiz Velho e Jonas Gomes, em 1995, no Visgraf: sonho realizado

Mathematician Jonas Gomes, from the Board of Directors of IMPA, recounts how he transformed his dream of becoming a scientist into reality with the creation of Visgraf , IMPA's Computer Graphics Laboratory, which emerged in 1989.

Being a scientist was a childhood dream, which I envisioned I could realize when I discovered that Brazilians could be scientists. Yes, a great discovery for a child born in a small town in the Northeast of Brazil, of humble origins, in the 1950s. Pursuing my dream, I found in Mathematics the fertile ground for my creative imagination, and at IMPA the ideal environment to develop my skills and competencies and become a scientist, more specifically, a mathematician.

My scientific curiosity led me to undertake a knowledge arbitration between pure mathematics, more specifically Differential Geometry, and technology. How to use the area of data and images to obtain simulations of the abstract universe of differential geometry? How to concretize and visualize models of non-Euclidean geometries? This was my initiative in 1984 when little was known about the subject in Brazil, and even internationally. This initiative enabled the completion of my doctorate at IMPA. However, the initiative took me far from the universe of pure mathematics, my original passion, to the universe of applied mathematics, mainly in problems related to computer graphics, computer vision, and image processing.

Seeing the limited activity of mathematical research centers in pursuing this path, I proposed to IMPA the creation of a group dedicated to the topic. This led to the creation of the Visgraf Laboratory, a center of excellence for the study of image synthesis and analysis from a mathematical perspective. Along with Visgraf came master's, doctoral, and postdoctoral programs in the field. IMPA became a major global center on the subject, publishing dozens of papers, training highly qualified personnel, developing cutting-edge technologies, and registering patents.

Being a scientist was a dream, but being an entrepreneurial scientist and creating a new research group goes far beyond that dream. Making this a reality was only possible thanks to the open and high-quality environment provided by IMPA.

I have been away from academic activities for about 20 years, and it is with great satisfaction that I see Visgraf celebrating its 30th anniversary. This continuity was only possible due to the high quality of the researchers who joined the project and assumed its leadership, especially Luiz Velho, a born entrepreneurial scientist, who always understood and embraced the Visgraf proposal, embodied the soul and heart of the group after my absence, and took on the difficult task of leading a research group in Brazil.

Congratulations to everyone who contributed to the longevity of Visgraf. It's not easy to do quality science, and it's even harder to do science of international quality in Brazil. Visgraf has been able to execute the vision that guided its creation: to create a group focused on research in computer graphics, computer vision, and image processing from the perspective of the mathematical models underlying these disciplines.