Bio
I'm a Graphics Software Engineer at Intel working on the
oneAPI Rendering Toolkit.
My focus is on XPU ray tracing, distributed rendering, and scientific visualization
within OSPRay.
Outside of Intel, I work on
XPU ray tracing, GPU/WebGPU scientific visualization and rendering,
and other projects involving massive scientific data visualization across
computing platforms from HPC clusters to the web browser.
I completed my Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2021 at the
Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute at the
University of Utah, advised by
Valerio Pascucci.
Before joining the Ph.D. program at Utah I obtained a B.S. in
physics with a minor in computer science at the
University of California, Riverside in 2014.
My research interests cover a range of areas in scientific visualization and
computer graphics including: distributed rendering, virtual reality,
in situ visualization and ray tracing.
Publications
Adaptive Multiresolution Techniques for I/O, Data Layout, and Visualization of Massive Simulations
Will Usher. PhD Dissertation, University of Utah, 2021.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX
Adaptive Spatially Aware I/O for Multiresolution Particle Data Layouts
Will Usher, Xuan Huang, Steve Petruzza, Sidharth Kumar, Stuart R. Slattery, Sam T. Reeve, Feng Wang, Chris R. Johnson, and Valerio Pascucci. IEEE International Parallel & Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS) (To Appear), 2021.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX
Interactive Visualization of Terascale Data in the Browser: Fact or Fiction?
Will Usher and Valerio Pascucci. IEEE Symposium on Large Data Analysis and Visualization (LDAV), 2020.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
Honorable Mention
Improving the Usability of Virtual Reality Neuron Tracing with Topological Elements
Torin McDonald, Will Usher, Nate Morrical, Attila Gyulassy, Steve Petruzza, Frederick Federer, Alessandra Angelucci, and Valerio Pascucci. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2021.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
Ray Tracing Structured AMR Data Using ExaBricks
Ingo Wald, Stefan Zellmann, Will Usher, Nate Morrical, Ulrich Lang, and Valerio Pascucci. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2021.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
Accelerating Unstructured Mesh Point Location with RT Cores
Nate Morrical, Ingo Wald, Will Usher, Valerio Pascucci. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2020.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
Efficient and Flexible Hierarchical Data Layouts for a Unified Encoding of Scalar Field Precision and Resolution
Duong Hoang, Brian Summa, Harsh Bhatia, Peter Lindstrom, Pavol Klacansky, Will Usher, Peer-Timo Bremer and Valerio Pascucci. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2021.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
Using Hardware Ray Transforms to Accelerate Ray/Primitive Intersections for Long, Thin Primitive Types
Ingo Wald, Nate Morrical, Stefan Zellmann, Lei Ma, Will Usher, Tiejun Huang, Valerio Pascucci. Proceedings of the ACM on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (Proceedings of High Performance Graphics), 2020.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
CPU Ray Tracing of Tree-Based Adaptive Mesh Refinement Data
Feng Wang, Nathan Marshak, Will Usher, Carsten Burstedde, Aaron Knoll, Timo Heister, and Chris R. Johnson. Computer Graphics Forum, 2020.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
Scalable Ray Tracing Using the Distributed FrameBuffer
Will Usher, Ingo Wald, Jefferson Amstutz, Johannes Günther, Carson Brownlee, and Valerio Pascucci. Computer Graphics Forum (Proceedings of EuroVis), 2019.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
Efficient Space Skipping and Adaptive Sampling of Unstructured Volumes Using Hardware Accelerated Ray Tracing
Nate Morrical, Will Usher, Ingo Wald and Valerio Pascucci. IEEE VIS Short Papers, 2019.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
RTX Beyond Ray Tracing: Exploring the Use of Hardware Ray Tracing Cores for Tet-Mesh Point Location
Ingo Wald, Will Usher, Nate Morrical, Laura Lediaev, and Valerio Pascucci. High Performance Graphics Short Papers, 2019.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
Spatially-aware Parallel I/O for Particle Data
Sidharth Kumar, Steve Petruzza, Will Usher, and Valerio Pascucci. 48th International Conference on Parallel Processing (ICPP), 2019.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
CPU Isosurface Ray Tracing of Adaptive Mesh Refinement Data
Feng Wang, Ingo Wald, Qi Wu, Will Usher and Chris R. Johnson. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2019.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
A Virtual Reality Visualization Tool for Neuron Tracing
Will Usher, Pavol Klacansky, Frederick Federer, Peer-Timo Bremer, Aaron Knoll, Jeff Yarch, Alessandra Angelucci, and Valerio Pascucci. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2018.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
libIS: A Lightweight Library for Flexible In Transit Visualization
Will Usher, Silvio Rizzi, Ingo Wald, Jefferson Amstutz, Joseph Insley, Venkatram Vishwanath, Nicola Ferrier, Michael E. Papka, and Valerio Pascucci. ISAV: In Situ Infrastructures for Enabling Extreme-Scale Analysis and Visualization (ISAV '18), 2018.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
VisIt-OSPRay: Toward an Exascale Volume Visualization System
Qi Wu, Will Usher, Steve Petruzza, Sidharth Kumar, Feng Wang, Ingo Wald, Valerio Pascucci, and Charles D. Hansen. Eurographics Symposium on Parallel Graphics and Visualization, 2018.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
CPU Volume Rendering of Adaptive Mesh Refinement Data
Ingo Wald, Carson Brownlee, Will Usher, and Aaron Knoll. SIGGRAPH Asia 2017 Symposium on Visualization, 2017.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
CPU Ray Tracing Large Particle Data with Balanced P-k-d Trees
Ingo Wald, Aaron Knoll, Gregory P. Johnson, Will Usher, Valerio Pasucci, and Michael E. Papka. IEEE Vis (conference), 2015.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
Adaptive Multiresolution Techniques for I/O, Data Layout, and Visualization of Massive Simulations
Will Usher. PhD Dissertation, University of Utah, 2021.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX
Adaptive Spatially Aware I/O for Multiresolution Particle Data Layouts
Will Usher, Xuan Huang, Steve Petruzza, Sidharth Kumar, Stuart R. Slattery, Sam T. Reeve, Feng Wang, Chris R. Johnson, and Valerio Pascucci. IEEE International Parallel & Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS) (To Appear), 2021.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX
Interactive Visualization of Terascale Data in the Browser: Fact or Fiction?
Will Usher and Valerio Pascucci. IEEE Symposium on Large Data Analysis and Visualization (LDAV), 2020.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
Honorable Mention
Improving the Usability of Virtual Reality Neuron Tracing with Topological Elements
Torin McDonald, Will Usher, Nate Morrical, Attila Gyulassy, Steve Petruzza, Frederick Federer, Alessandra Angelucci, and Valerio Pascucci. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2021.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
Ray Tracing Structured AMR Data Using ExaBricks
Ingo Wald, Stefan Zellmann, Will Usher, Nate Morrical, Ulrich Lang, and Valerio Pascucci. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2021.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
Accelerating Unstructured Mesh Point Location with RT Cores
Nate Morrical, Ingo Wald, Will Usher, Valerio Pascucci. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2020.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
Efficient and Flexible Hierarchical Data Layouts for a Unified Encoding of Scalar Field Precision and Resolution
Duong Hoang, Brian Summa, Harsh Bhatia, Peter Lindstrom, Pavol Klacansky, Will Usher, Peer-Timo Bremer and Valerio Pascucci. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2021.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
A Virtual Frame Buffer Abstraction for Parallel Rendering of Large Tiled Display Walls
Mengjiao Han, Ingo Wald, Will Usher, Nate Morrical, Aaron Knoll, Valerio Pascucci and Chris R. Johnson. IEEE VIS Short Papers, 2020.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
A Terminology for In Situ Visualization and Analysis Systems
Hank Childs, Sean D. Ahern, James Ahrens, Andrew C. Bauer, Janine Bennett, E. Wes Bethel, Peer-Timo Bremer, Eric Brugger, Joseph Cottam, Matthieu Dorier, Soumya Dutta, Jean M. Favre, Thomas Fogal, Steffen Frey, Christoph Garth, Berk Geveci, William F. Godoy, Charles D. Hansen, Cyrus Harrison, Bernd Hentschel, Joseph Insley, Chris R. Johnson, Scott Klasky, Aaron Knoll, James Kress, Matthew Larsen, Jay Lofstead, Kwan-Liu Ma, Preeti Malakar, Jeremy Meredith, Kenneth Moreland, Paul Navrátil, Patrick O'Leary, Manish Parashar, Valerio Pascucci, John Patchett, Tom Peterka, Steve Petruzza, Norbert Podhorszki, David Pugmire, Michel Rasquin, Silvio Rizzi, David H. Rogers, Sudhanshu Sane, Franz Sauer, Robert Sisneros, Han-Wei Shen, Will Usher, Rhonda Vickery, Venkatram Vishwanath, Ingo Wald, Ruonan Wang, Gunther H. Weber, Brad Whitlock, Matthew Wolf, Hongfeng Yu, Sean B. Ziegeler. The International Journal of High Performance Computing Applications, 2020.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
Using Hardware Ray Transforms to Accelerate Ray/Primitive Intersections for Long, Thin Primitive Types
Ingo Wald, Nate Morrical, Stefan Zellmann, Lei Ma, Will Usher, Tiejun Huang, Valerio Pascucci. Proceedings of the ACM on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (Proceedings of High Performance Graphics), 2020.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
CPU Ray Tracing of Tree-Based Adaptive Mesh Refinement Data
Feng Wang, Nathan Marshak, Will Usher, Carsten Burstedde, Aaron Knoll, Timo Heister, and Chris R. Johnson. Computer Graphics Forum, 2020.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
A Comparison of Rendering Techniques for 3D Line Sets with Transparency
Michael Kern, Christoph Neuhauser, Torben Maack, Mengjiao Han, Will Usher, and Rüdiger Westermann. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2020.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
Scalable Ray Tracing Using the Distributed FrameBuffer
Will Usher, Ingo Wald, Jefferson Amstutz, Johannes Günther, Carson Brownlee, and Valerio Pascucci. Computer Graphics Forum (Proceedings of EuroVis), 2019.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
Ray Tracing Generalized Tube Primitives: Method and Applications
Mengjiao Han, Ingo Wald, Will Usher, Qi Wu, Feng Wang, Valerio Pascucci, Charles D. Hansen, and Chris R. Johnson. Computer Graphics Forum (Proceedings of EuroVis), 2019.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
Efficient Space Skipping and Adaptive Sampling of Unstructured Volumes Using Hardware Accelerated Ray Tracing
Nate Morrical, Will Usher, Ingo Wald and Valerio Pascucci. IEEE VIS Short Papers, 2019.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
RTX Beyond Ray Tracing: Exploring the Use of Hardware Ray Tracing Cores for Tet-Mesh Point Location
Ingo Wald, Will Usher, Nate Morrical, Laura Lediaev, and Valerio Pascucci. High Performance Graphics Short Papers, 2019.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
Spatially-aware Parallel I/O for Particle Data
Sidharth Kumar, Steve Petruzza, Will Usher, and Valerio Pascucci. 48th International Conference on Parallel Processing (ICPP), 2019.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
CPU Isosurface Ray Tracing of Adaptive Mesh Refinement Data
Feng Wang, Ingo Wald, Qi Wu, Will Usher and Chris R. Johnson. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2019.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
A Virtual Reality Visualization Tool for Neuron Tracing
Will Usher, Pavol Klacansky, Frederick Federer, Peer-Timo Bremer, Aaron Knoll, Jeff Yarch, Alessandra Angelucci, and Valerio Pascucci. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2018.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
libIS: A Lightweight Library for Flexible In Transit Visualization
Will Usher, Silvio Rizzi, Ingo Wald, Jefferson Amstutz, Joseph Insley, Venkatram Vishwanath, Nicola Ferrier, Michael E. Papka, and Valerio Pascucci. ISAV: In Situ Infrastructures for Enabling Extreme-Scale Analysis and Visualization (ISAV '18), 2018.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
VisIt-OSPRay: Toward an Exascale Volume Visualization System
Qi Wu, Will Usher, Steve Petruzza, Sidharth Kumar, Feng Wang, Ingo Wald, Valerio Pascucci, and Charles D. Hansen. Eurographics Symposium on Parallel Graphics and Visualization, 2018.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
Scalable Data Management of the Uintah Simulation Framework for Next-Generation Engineering Problems with Radiation
Sidharth Kumar, Alan Humphrey, Will Usher, Steve Petruzza, Brad Peterson, John A. Schmidt, Derek Harris, Ben Isaac, Jeremy Thornock, Todd Harman, Valerio Pascucci, and Martin Berzins. Supercomputing Frontiers, 2018.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
CPU Volume Rendering of Adaptive Mesh Refinement Data
Ingo Wald, Carson Brownlee, Will Usher, and Aaron Knoll. SIGGRAPH Asia 2017 Symposium on Visualization, 2017.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
Progressive CPU Volume Rendering with Sample Accumulation
Will Usher, Jefferson Amstutz, Carson Brownlee, Aaron Knoll, and Ingo Wald. Eurographics Symposium on Parallel Graphics and Visualization, 2017.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
In Situ Exploration of Particle Simulations with CPU Ray Tracing
Will Usher, Ingo Wald, Aaron Knoll, Michael E. Papka, and Valerio Pascucci. Supercomputing Frontiers and Innovations, 2016.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
VTK-m: Accelerating the Visualization Toolkit for Massively Threaded Architectures
Kenneth Moreland, Christopher Sewell, William Usher, Li-ta Lo, Jeremy Meredith, David Pugmire, James Kress, Hendrik Schroots, Kwan-Liu Ma, Hank Childs, Matthew Larsen, Chun-Ming Chen, Robert Maynard, and Berk Geveci. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 2016.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
CPU Ray Tracing Large Particle Data with Balanced P-k-d Trees
Ingo Wald, Aaron Knoll, Gregory P. Johnson, Will Usher, Valerio Pasucci, and Michael E. Papka. IEEE Vis (conference), 2015.Project Page PDF Copy BibTeX Publisher's Version
