Wilmot Li

Principal Scientist

Creative Intelligence Lab, Seattle

I am a Principal Scientist in the Creative Intelligence Lab at Adobe Research. Before that, I earned my Ph.D. in computer science at the University of Washington, where I was a member of the Graphics and Imaging Laboratory (GRAIL) from 2000-2007. My thesis work presents new interactive visualization techniques that help users understand and explore complex 3D objects with many constituent parts (e.g., CAD models, anatomical datasets). I have also worked on interactive texture synthesis, adaptive document layout, and non-photorealistic rendering for virtual environments. From 1996-2000, I attended Princeton University, where I earned a BSE in computer science. I was born and raised in Toronto, Canada.

For an up-to-date list of publications, please visit my personal webpage here.

My Projects

Adobe Tutorial Player for Photoshop

Generating Photo Manipulation Tutorials and Macros by Demonstration

Interactive Illustrations for Visualizing Complex 3D Models

Painting with Texture

My Publications

Script-driven Performance Animation

Subramonyam, H., Li, W., Adar, E., Dontcheva, M. (Oct. 15, 2018)
ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST)

ToonSynth: Example-Based Synthesis of Hand-Colored Cartoon Animations

Dvorožňák, M., Li, W., Kim, V., Sýkora, D., Kim, K. (Aug. 1, 2018)
SIGGRAPH

Supporting In-Person Discussions around Iterations in User Interface Design

O'Leary, J., Winnemöller, H., Li, W., Dontcheva, M., Dixon, M. (Apr. 16, 2018)
Proceedings of ACM Conference on Human Factors and Computing Systems (SIGCHI)

Interface Design Assistance from Examples

Swearngin, A., Dontcheva, M., Li, W., Brandt, J., Dixon, M., Ko, A. (Apr. 16, 2018)
Proceedings of ACM Conference on Human Factors and Computing Systems (SIGCHI)

Transferring Image-based Edits for Multi-Channel Compositing

Hennessey, J., Li, W., Russell, B., Shechtman, E., Mitra, N. (Nov. 27, 2017)
ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proc. SIGGRAPH Asia'17)

Aesthetic Electronics: Designing, Sketching, and Fabricating Circuits through Digital Exploration

Lo, J., Torres, C., Yang, I., O'Leary, J., Kaufman, D., Li, W., Dontcheva, M., Paulos, E. (Oct. 17, 2016)
ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST)

Authoring Illustrations of Human Movements by Iterative Physical Demonstration

Chi, P., Vogel, D., Dontcheva, M., Li, W., Hartmann, B. (Oct. 17, 2016)
ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST)

Data-Driven Guides: Supporting Expressive Design for Information Graphics

Kim, N., Schweickart, E., Liu, L., Dontcheva, M., Li, W., Popović, J., Pfister, H. (Aug. 8, 2016)
IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (Volume: 23, Issue 1)

Motif: Supporting novice creativity through expert patterns

Kim, J., Dontcheva, M., Li, W., Bernstein, M., Steinsapir, D. (Apr. 18, 2015)
Proceedings of ACM Conference on Human Factors and Computing Systems (SIGCHI)

PortraitSketch: Face Sketching Assistance for Novices

Xie, J., Hertzmann, A., Li, W., Winnemoeller, H. (Jan. 1, 2014)
Proc. of UIST'14, pp. 407--417

Content-Based Tools for Editing Audio Stories

Rubin, S., Berthouzoz, F., Mysore, G., Li, W., Agrawala, M. (Oct. 1, 2013)
Proceedings of the 26th Annual ACM Symposium on User interface Software and Technology

DemoCut: Generating Concise Instructional Videos for Physical Demonstrations

Chi, P., Liu, J., Linder, J., Dontcheva, M., Li, W., Hartmann, B. (Oct. 1, 2013)
ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST), 141-150

Learning Part-based Templates from Large Collections of 3D Shapes

Kim, V., Li, W., Mitra, N., Chaudhuri, S., DiVerdi, S., Funkhouser, T. (Aug. 1, 2013)
SIGGRAPH

MixT: Automatic Generation of Step-by-Step Mixed Media Tutorials

Dontcheva, M., Li, W., Chi, P., Ahn, S., Ren, A., Hartmann, B. (Oct. 1, 2012)
ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST), 93-102

Tutorial-based Interfaces for Cloud-enabled Applications

Laput, G., Adar, E., Dontcheva, M., Li, W. (Oct. 1, 2012)
ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST), 113-122

UnderScore: Musical Underlays for Audio Stories

Rubin, S., Berthouzoz, F., Mysore, G., Li, W., Agrawala, M. (Oct. 1, 2012)
Proceedings of the 25th annual ACM Symposium on User interface Software and Technology

Exploring Collections of 3D Models using Fuzzy Correspondences

Kim, V., Li, W., Mitra, N., DiVerdi, S., Funkhouser, T. (Aug. 31, 2012)
SIGGRAPH

Tools for Placing Cuts and Transitions in Interview Video

Berthouzoz, F., Li, W., Agrawala, M. (Aug. 1, 2012)
ACM Transactions on Graphics, 31(4)

A Framework for Content-adaptive Photo Manipulation Macros: Application to Face, Landscape, and Global Manipulations

Berthouzoz, F., Li, W., Dontcheva, M., Agrawala, M. (Oct. 1, 2011)
ACM Transactions on Graphics, 30(5)

Exploration of Continuous Variability in Collections of 3D Shapes

Ovsjanikov, M., Li, W., Guibas, L., Mitra, N. (Aug. 7, 2011)
SIGGRAPH 2011 – International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques , Aug. 7 - 11

Design Principles for Visual Communication

Agarwala, M., Li, W., Berthouzoz, F. (Feb. 1, 2011)
Communications of the ACM , 54(4)

Pause-and-play: Automatically Linking Screencast Video Tutorials with Applications

Pongnumkul, S., Dontcheva, M., Li, W., Bourdev, L., Avidan, S., Wang, J., Cohen, M. (Jan. 30, 2011)
In ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST 2011)

Creating Collections with Automatic Suggestions and Example-Based Refinement

Secord, A., Winnemöller, H., Li, W., Dontcheva, M. (Feb. 1, 2010)
ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST)

Exploded View Diagrams of Mathematical Surfaces

Karpenko, O., Li, W., Mitra, N., Agrawala, M. (Feb. 1, 2010)
In IEEE Vis 2010

Illustrating How Mechanical Assemblies Work

Mitra, N., Yang, Y., Yan, D., Li, W., Agrawala, M. (Feb. 1, 2010)
ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proc. SIGGRAPH) , 29(4), 58

Review of Automatic Document Formatting

Hurst, N., Li, W., Marriott, K. (Feb. 26, 2009)
In DocEng 2009

Generating Photo Manipulation Tutorials By Demonstration

Grabler, F., Agrawala, M., Li, W., Dontcheva, M., Igarashi, T. (Feb. 1, 2009)
ACM Transactions on Graphics, 28(3)

Interactive Illustrations for Visualizing Complex 3D Objects

Li, W. (Sep. 18, 2007)
PhD Thesis, University of Washington

Interactive Cutaway Illustrations of Complex 3D Models

Li, W., Ritter, L., Agrawala, M., Curless, B., Salesin, D. (Aug. 28, 2007)
ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proc. SIGGRAPH) , 26(3), 31:1–31:11

Painting with texture

Ritter, L., Li, W., Curless, B., Agrawala, M., Salesin, D. (Apr. 25, 2006)
In Rendering Techniques 2006: 17th Eurographics Workshop on Rendering , 371–376

Adaptive document layout

Jacobs, C., Li, W., Schrier, E., Bargeron, D., Salesin, D. (Feb. 1, 2004)
Communications of the ACM , 47(8), 60–66

Interactive image-based exploded view diagrams

Li, W., Agrawala, M., Salesin, D. (Feb. 1, 2004)
In Graphics Interface 2004 , 203–212

Adaptive grid-based document layout

Jacobs, C., Li, W., Schrier, E., Bargeron, D., Salesin, D. (Feb. 15, 2003)
ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proc. SIGGRAPH) , 22(3), 838–847

Adaptive document layout via manifold content

Jacobs, C., Li, W., Salesin, D. (Feb. 1, 2003)
In Proc. Workshop on Web Document Analysis

Non-photorealistic virtual environments

Klein, A., Li, W., Kazhdan, M., Correa, W., Finkelstein, A., Funkhouser, T. (Feb. 1, 2000)
In Proc. ACM SIGGRAPH 2000 , 527–534