News

From June 23 to 26, 2025, the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research IGD became the epicenter of international research on intelligent environments. The 21st International Conference on Intelligent Environments (IE’25) brought together academia, industry, and society with an inspiring program full of technological visions, stimulating discussions, and personal encounters.

Following a successful debut last year, the Manufacturing and Mobility division of the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research IGD once again opened its doors to the public. The event built on the positive feedback from the Open Door Day held on November 6, 2024, which was organized in cooperation with the Automotive Cluster RheinMainNeckar. While the format has proven successful, this year it was expanded to target a broader audience – including participants from mechanical engineering, automotive manufacturing, the supplier industry, and software development.

As of May 1, 2025, only digital biometric passport photos are permitted for ID documents in Germany. This new regulation aims to make forgery more difficult and enhance security. However, despite this important measure, one major challenge remains: face morphing—the blending of two faces into a deceptively real-looking biometric image.

As every year, the brightest minds in Visual Computing were sought during the Computer Graphics Night. The jury, consisting of scientists from Fraunhofer IGD and associated university chairs, selected this year's award winners. Once again, we warmly congratulate them and extend our heartfelt thanks to the many guests who made the 26th edition a wonderful winter evening.

Congratulations on your doctorate! Alex Ulmer, researcher in the department of "Information Visualization and Visual Analytics", successfully defended his dissertation "Progressive Visual Analytics for Temporal Data". The thesis was supervised by Dr.-Ing. Jörn Kohlhammer (TU Darmstadt), Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dieter W. Fellner (TU Darmstadt/Fraunhofer IGD) und Dr. habil. Jean-Daniel Fekete (Université Paris-Saclay).

On November 6, 2024, the Automotive Cluster RheinMainNeckar met at the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research in Darmstadt to learn about the latest developments in visual computing.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research IGD and the House of Digital Transformation (HoDT) are working together to promote digital transformation in Hessian municipalities. A central component of this initiative is the implementation of AI solutions in administration.

Digital technologies are fundamentally transforming the bioeconomy, and Fraunhofer IGD is actively shaping this transformation.

Fraunhofer IGD congratulates Dr. Michel Krämer and Paul Hermann on winning the prize for the best lecture for their course "Verteilte Geometrieverarbeitung" ("Distributed Geometry Processing"). Additionally, four new professors, including Prof. Dr. Arjan Kuijper, introduced themselves at the summer colloquium of the Department of Computer Science at the Technical University of Darmstadt.

Congratulations on your doctorate! Pascal Bormann, researcher in "Spatial Information Management" successfully defended his dissertation "Improving the Efficiency of Point Cloud Data Management" on Mai 5th, 2024. The thesis was supervised by Prof. Dr. Alexander Reiterer (University of Freiburg/Fraunhofer IPM) and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dieter W. Fellner (TU Darmstadt/Fraunhofer IGD).