Station 14
CH-1015 Lausanne
Switzerland
I am an associate professor leading the Realistic Graphics Lab at EPFL's School of Computer and Communication Sciences.
My research revolves around inverse graphics, appearance modeling and physically based rendering algorithms. The motivating idea is easily explained: if one could backpropagate derivatives through a rendering algorithm, then it should be possible to employ a variant of gradient descent to run a rendering algorithm “in reverse” and reconstruct the world from images or other kinds of data. This turns out to be harder than one would think, which makes it an interesting research topic. I also enjoy working on compilers + systems and tinkering with optical assemblies in our measurement lab. I would like to build a truly robust and general “PyTorch” for physically realistic inverse graphics and connect it to useful applications in different scientific domains.
I have received the ACM SIGGRAPH Significant Researcher award, the Eurographics Young Researcher Award, and an ERC Starting Grant. My group develops the Mitsuba renderer, a research-oriented rendering system, and I am one of the authors of the third and fourth editions of Physically Based Rendering: From Theory To Implementation. As part of my research, I have created widely used open source frameworks, including pybind11, Instant Meshes (SGP Software Award recipient), NanoGUI, nanobind, and Enoki.
See the following two videos for an overview of some of our ongoing work on Mitsuba 3 (the system), differentiable rendering (the algorithms) and material acquisition (optical measurments done at EPFL). You can also find me on Mastodon and Twitter.
Bio: I completed my Ph.D. at the Department of Computer Science at Cornell University, where I was advised by Steve Marschner. Before coming to EPFL, I was a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow at ETH Zürich's Interactive Geometry Lab working with Olga Sorkine-Hornung.
Peer-reviewing conflicts
Automatically generated from publications in the last two years: Xi Deng, Stephan Garbin, Diego Gutierrez, Adrian Jarabo, Jorge Madrid-Wolff, Steve Marschner, Christophe Moser, Baptiste Nicolet, Lovro Nuic, Nicolas Roussel, Korbinian Sager, Delio Vicini, Zichen Wang, Felix Wechsler, Sebastian Winberg, Ekrem Fatih Yilmazer, and Ziyi Zhang.
Teaching
Wenzel Jakob, Lovro Nuic, and Ekrem Fatih Yilmazer
Fall 2025
Wenzel Jakob, Ziyi Zhang, Ekrem Yilmazer, and Benjamin Chislett
Spring 2024
Wenzel Jakob, Miguel Crespo, Baptiste Nicolet, Ziyi Zhang, Ekrem Yilmazer, and Vishal Pani
Spring 2023
Wenzel Jakob, Miguel Crespo, Baptiste Nicolet, Ziyi Zhang, Andrei Atanov, and Dongqing Wang
Fall 2022
Wenzel Jakob, Miguel Crespo, Ziyi Zhang, and Baptiste Nicolet
Spring 2022
Wenzel Jakob, Baptiste Nicolet, Martin Nicolas Everaert, and Krzysztof Lis
Fall 2021
Wenzel Jakob, Delio Vicini, and Baptiste Nicolet
Spring 2021
Wenzel Jakob, Merlin Nimier-David, Delio Vicini, and Tizian Zeltner
Fall 2020
Wenzel Jakob, Delio Vicini, and Tizian Zeltner
Spring 2020
Wenzel Jakob
Spring 2020
Wenzel Jakob, Arash Pourhabibi, and Siddharth Gupta
Fall 2019
Wenzel Jakob, Merlin Nimier-David, and Delio Vicini
Spring 2019
Wenzel Jakob, Helge Rhodin, Merlin Nimier-David, Tizian Zeltner, and Delio Vicini
Fall 2018
Wenzel Jakob, Tizian Zeltner, and Merlin Nimier-David
Spring 2018
Wenzel Jakob, Tizian Zeltner, Jan Bednarík, and Sami Arpa
Fall 2017
Wenzel Jakob, Tizian Zeltner, Michalina Pacholska, and Leonardo Impett
Spring 2017
Wenzel Jakob
Spring 2017
Wenzel Jakob, Andreas Finke, Bugra Tekin, Julia Proskurnia, and Leonardo Impett
Fall 2016
Wenzel Jakob
Fall 2016
Wenzel Jakob
Spring 2016
Publications
Lovro Nuic, Ziyi Zhang, Korbinian Sager, and Wenzel Jakob
In Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2026)
Ziyi Zhang, Delio Vicini, Sebastian Winberg, Stephan Garbin, and Wenzel Jakob
In Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2026)
Ziyi Zhang, Nicolas Roussel, and Wenzel Jakob
In Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2025)
Baptiste Nicolet, Felix Wechsler, Jorge Madrid-Wolff, Christophe Moser, and Wenzel Jakob
In Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2024)
Ekrem Fatih Yilmazer, Delio Vicini, and Wenzel Jakob
In Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2024)
Zichen Wang, Xi Deng, Ziyi Zhang, Wenzel Jakob, and Steve Marschner
In Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2024)
Ziyi Zhang, Nicolas Roussel, and Wenzel Jakob
In Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2023)
Baptiste Nicolet, Fabrice Rousselle, Jan Novák, Alexander Keller, Wenzel Jakob, and Thomas Müller
In Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2023)
Wenzel Jakob, Sébastien Speierer, Nicolas Roussel, and Delio Vicini
In Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2022)
Delio Vicini, Sébastien Speierer, and Wenzel Jakob
In Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2022)
Merlin Nimier-David, Thomas Müller, Alexander Keller, and Wenzel Jakob
In Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2022)
Baptiste Nicolet, Alec Jacobson, and Wenzel Jakob
In ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2021)
Delio Vicini, Wenzel Jakob, and Anton Kaplanyan
In Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2021)
Tizian Zeltner, Sébastien Speierer, Iliyan Georgiev, and Wenzel Jakob
In Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2021)
Delio Vicini, Sébastien Speierer, and Wenzel Jakob
In Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2021)
Merlin Nimier-David, Zhao Dong, Wenzel Jakob, and Anton Kaplanyan
In Proceedings of Eurographics Symposium on Rendering (DL-only Track)
Guillaume Loubet, Tizian Zeltner, Nicolas Holzschuch, and Wenzel Jakob
In Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2020)
Ibón Guillén, Julio Marco, Diego Gutierrez, Wenzel Jakob, and Adrian Jarabo
In Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2020)
Merlin Nimier-David, Sébastien Speierer, Benoît Ruiz, and Wenzel Jakob
In Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2020)
Tizian Zeltner, Iliyan Georgiev, and Wenzel Jakob
In Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2020)
Seung-Hwan Baek, Tizian Zeltner, Hyun Jin Ku, Inseung Hwang, Xin Tong, Wenzel Jakob, and Min H. Kim
In Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2020)
Stavros Diolatzis, Adrien Gruson, Wenzel Jakob, Derek Nowrouzezahrai, and George Drettakis
In In Computer Graphics Forum (Proceedings of Eurographics Symposium on Rendering 2020)
Gilles Rainer, Abhijeet Ghosh, Wenzel Jakob, and Tim Weyrich
In Computer Graphics Forum (Proceedings of Eurographics 2020)
Merlin Nimier-David, Delio Vicini, Tizian Zeltner, and Wenzel Jakob
In Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2019)
Guillaume Loubet, Nicolas Holzschuch, and Wenzel Jakob
In Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2019)
Alisa Jung, Alexander Wilkie, Johannes Hanika, Wenzel Jakob, and Carsten Dachsbacher
In Computer Graphics Forum (Proceedings of Eurographics Symposium on Rendering 2019)
Delio Vicini, Vladlen Koltun, and Wenzel Jakob
In Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2019)
Wenzel Jakob and Johannes Hanika
In Computer Graphics Forum (Proceedings of Eurographics 2019)
Gilles Rainer, Wenzel Jakob, Abhijeet Ghosh, and Tim Weyrich
In Computer Graphics Forum (Proceedings of Eurographics 2019)
Jonathan Dupuy and Wenzel Jakob
In Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2018)
Tizian Zeltner and Wenzel Jakob
In Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2018)
David Körner, Jamie Portsmouth, and Wenzel Jakob
In Eurographics Symposium on Rendering (2018) - Experimental Ideas & Implementations
Sebastian Werner, Zdravko Velinov, Wenzel Jakob, and Matthias Hullin
In Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2017)
Benedikt Bitterli, Wenzel Jakob, Jan Novák, and Wojciech Jarosz
In ACM Transactions on Graphics (2017), presented at SIGGRAPH 2018
Xifeng Gao, Wenzel Jakob, Marco Tarini, and Daniele Panozzo
In ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2017)
Nico Schertler, Marco Tarini, Wenzel Jakob, Misha Kazhdan, Stefan Gumhold, and Daniele Panozzo
In ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2017)
Matt Pharr, Wenzel Jakob, and Greg Humphreys
Wenzel Jakob
Book chapter Monte Carlo and Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods (Springer Proceedings in Mathematics & Statistics)
Wenzel Jakob and Steve Marschner
In Communications of the ACM (November 2015)
Wenzel Jakob, Marco Tarini, Daniele Panozzo, and Olga Sorkine-Hornung
In ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2015)
Tzu-Mao Li, Jaakko Lehtinen, Ravi Ramamoorthi, Wenzel Jakob, and Frédo Durand
In ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2015)
Henning Zimmer, Fabrice Rousselle, Wenzel Jakob, Oliver Wang, David Adler, Wojciech Jarosz, Olga Sorkine-Hornung, and Alexander Sorkine-Hornung
In Computer Graphics Forum (Proceedings of Eurographics Symposium on Rendering 2015)
Shuang Zhao, Wenzel Jakob, Steve Marschner, and Kavita Bala
In Communications of the ACM (November 2014)
Wenzel Jakob, Eugene D'Eon, Otto Jakob, and Steve Marschner
In ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2014)
Wenzel Jakob, Miloš Hašan, Ling-Qi Yan, Jason Lawrence, Ravi Ramamoorthi, and Steve Marschner
In ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2014)
Ling-Qi Yan, Miloš Hašan, Wenzel Jakob, Jason Lawrence, Steve Marschner, and Ravi Ramamoorthi
In ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2014)
Wenzel Jakob and Steve Marschner
In ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2012)
Shuang Zhao, Wenzel Jakob, Steve Marschner, and Kavita Bala
In ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2012)
Shuang Zhao, Wenzel Jakob, Steve Marschner, and Kavita Bala
In ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2011)
Wenzel Jakob, Christian Regg, and Wojciech Jarosz
In Computer Graphics Forum (Proceedings of Eurographics Symposium on Rendering 2011)
Marios Papas, Wojciech Jarosz, Wenzel Jakob, Szymon Rusinkiewicz, Wojciech Matusik, and Tim Weyrich
In Computer Graphics Forum (Proceedings of Eurographics)
Wenzel Jakob, Jonathan T. Moon, Adam Arbree, Kavita Bala, and Steve Marschner
In ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2010)
Wenzel Jakob, Jonathan T. Moon, and Steve Marschner
In ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2009)