Rendering of Kuen Surface Wins Visualization Challenge

March 25, 2010

A mathematician and graphic designer teamed up for a winning interpretation of Kuen Surface. The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced the winners of the International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge last month.

Richard Palais (University of California, Irvine) and graphic designer Luc Benard submitted Kuen's Surface: A Meditation on Euclid, Lobachevsky, and Quantum Fields. The illustration shows sketches of Kuen's surface and the expression that generates it.

"We wanted to talk about these equations in a way that non-mathematicians could understand," Palais said. "So we took a symbolic approach: The surface itself stands as a symbol for that equation."

Benard used more than 200 hours of computer time to render the surface.

According to a UC Irvine press release, this is the second time that Palais and Benard have won this prize; the first time was in 2006.

The winning entries were featured in the February 19 issue of Science (available free with registration). About 130 entries from 14 countries were submitted this year. To learn more about the contest, visit NSF's website.

Source: National Science Foundation Press Release (Feb. 18, 2010)