Charlotte undergraduate presents collaborative AI research at world leading SIGGRAPH Asia Conference

Andrei Vince, a third-year computer engineering major, traveled to Hong Kong to present collaborative research at SIGGRAPH Asia, Dec. 15-18. One of the world’s top conferences for computer graphics and interactive technology, SIGGRAPH Asia 2025 featured presenters from Pixar, NVIDIA, Adobe and universities across the globe.

The project — led by Sabri Gökmen, assistant professor of architecture — was developed with contributions from Vince and co author Aidan Oh. The research grew out of the Office of Undergraduate Research Summer Research Program, which gave Vince the opportunity to work on the technical side of the system during the summer term.

“Presenting at SIGGRAPH Asia was a significant milestone for me. Our poster sessions drew questions from industry practitioners and researchers actively working on architectural AI systems, which reinforced that our cellular automata framework addresses real-world production challenges, not just academic theory. The international exposure showed me how quickly synthetic training data research is moving from labs into practice.”

Andrei Vince

Data to Fuel Architecture’s AI Future

The team presented an AI-powered framework that generates large datasets to train and evaluate future AI models for architectural applications. The framework has coded more than 50,000 architectural variations — storing them with geometry, final image and detailed text descriptions — that serve as tightly linked examples that will fuel research and experimentation on AI-driven design tools. 

“Professor Gökmen defined the overall direction and core structure of the system, and the OUR program gave me the chance to help engineer the pipeline and push it to scale,” Vince said. “Working at the point where cellular automata, diffusion models and language models all connect has been a unique learning experience.”

Undergraduate presentations at this conference are uncommon, and the acceptance highlights Charlotte’s growing strength in student supported research and cross college collaboration.

“It is an honor to represent our team and UNC Charlotte on an international stage,” Vince said.