Hi! I am Santiago, a PhD candidate in Computer Science at the Graphics and Imaging Lab at
University of Zaragoza (Spain), working under the supervision of Prof. Ana Serrano and
Prof. Belen Masia. Previously, I obtained a BSc degree in Computer Science at
University of Zaragoza, and a MSc in Robotics, Graphics and Computer Vision at the same University.
My research interests span in the intersection between Computer Graphics and Machine Learning, with a special focus in human perception.
My non-academic interests include practicing sports and learning new skills!
Eurographics Symposium on Rendering (EGSR) 2025
We present a method that computes an interpretable representation of material appearance within a highly compact, disentangled latent space. We train our model with a carefully designed unlabeled dataset, avoiding possible biases induced by human-generated labels. Our model demonstrates strong disentanglement and interpretability by effectively encoding material appearance and illumination, despite the absence of explicit supervision. We leverage it for two proof-of-concept applications: image-based appearance transfer and editing, by conditioning a diffusion pipeline. This approach offers fine-grained control over the generated results: thanks to the well-structured compact latent space, users can intuitively manipulate attributes such as hue or glossiness in image space to achieve the desired final appearance.
Supervised by Prof. Ana Serrano and Prof. Belen Masia
in the
Graphics & Imaging Lab
Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain
Thesis titled Perceptually-informed Material Appearance Modeling and Editing
Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain
Master thesis, titled Learning Interpretable Representations of Material appearance, funded by a competitive scholarship from the Aragon Institute for Engineering Research (I3A), and graded with a 9.5/10 with honors
Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain
Final degree project, titled Audiovisual Saliency Prediction in 360º Content, graded with a 9.6/10, and awarded by the Santander Bank as the third best in the field of engineering and architecture
Castiglione della Pescaia, Tuscany, Italy
Graphics and Imaging Lab, Zaragoza, Spain
Graphics and Imaging Lab, Zaragoza, Spain
Ming Tao Ye - BSc in Computer Science
BSc Thesis graded 9.7/10 with honors
It was a pleasure to present our paper A Controllable Appearance Representation for Flexible Transfer and Editing at Eurographics Symposium on Rendering 2025 (EGSR 2025). It was a great first step in my research career, and fantastic opportunity to share our findings with the rendering community, receive valuable feedback and engage in inspiring discussions with other researchers.
I had the great chance to participate in ACDL 2025 (8th Advanced Course on Data Science & Machine Learning) summer school. It was a wonderful experience to learn from leading researchers in the field and to exchange ideas with participants from all over the world. The lectures and discussions covered a wide range of exciting topics, offering valuable insights into current trends and challenges in AI.
I had the great chance to participate in the European Researchers' Night alongside my colleagues from the Graphics and Imaging Lab. During this public event, we shared our research with people of all ages, explaining the exciting work carried out by different research groups at the university. In our case, we explored topics such as visual illusions and computer-generated imagery. It was a great experience to bring research closer to the public and spark curiosity about these topics!
During the Young Researchers' Day at the Aragon Institute for Engineering Research (I3A), I presented my poster on Aprendizaje no Supervisado de Representaciones Interpretables y Desenredadas de la Apariencia de Materiales. Sharing opinions and discussing with fellow researchers with great experience in their fields allowed me to gain a new perspective about my work!
I received the third prize for Best BSc Thesis (TFG) in Engineering and Architecture, awarded by Santander Bank — a meaningful recognition of the effort and work behind my bachelor's project. Full text is available (in Spanish) here
