VC AMU | AI, Synthetic Data & Simulation Lab
Generating images, data, and dynamic models through AI and formal simulation
       


I am a Professor at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, where I lead the Visual Computing (VC) AMU Lab — the AI, Synthetic Data & Simulation Lab. Our group develops methods at the intersection of simulation-informed AI, synthetic data generation, and formal modeling of complex systems. Prior to joining AMU, I received my PhD from the University of Calgary and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Sainsbury Laboratory, University of Cambridge.

Research Interests
  • Simulation-Informed AI and Generative Models
  • Synthetic Data Generation
  • Formal Modeling and Simulation of Complex Systems
  • Computational Biology of Plants
Teaching


Publications

M. J. Finck, S. P. Lücke, N. C. Koser, Y. Sun, J. B. Hövener, S. Pirk, W. Palubicki, Resource-efficient Fine-tuning of Stable Diffusion for Synthetic Hand Radiograph Generation, Bildverarbeitung für die Medizin (BVM), 2026
[Paper]
B. Li, N. A. Schwarz, W. Palubicki, S. Pirk, D. L. Michels, B. Benes, Stressful Tree Modeling: Breaking Branches with Strands, ACM SIGGRAPH Conference Paper Track, 2025
[Paper], [Website], [Video]
H. Wrede, A. R. Wagner, S. M. Mahfuz, W. Pałubicki, D. L. Michels, S. Pirk, Fire-X: Extinguishing Fire with Stoichiometric Heat Release, ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2025), Vol. 44, No. 6, Article 268
[Paper], [Website], [Video], [Two Minute Papers]
D. Liu, J. Klein, F. Rist, W. Palubicki, S. Pirk, D. L. Michels, FLAMEFORGE: Combustion Simulation of Wooden Structures, Proceedings of the ACM on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SCA 2025), Vol. 8, No. 4
[Paper], [Video]
J. A. Amador Herrera, J. Klein, D. T. Banuti, S. Pirk, W. Palubicki, D. L. Michels, Thunderstruck: Visually Simulating Electrical Storms, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, Vol. 31, No. 12, 2025
[Paper], [Video]
J. Szymkowiak, W. Jakubowska, D. Malarz, W. Smolak-Dyzewska, M. Zieba, P. Musialski, W. Pałubicki, P. Spurek, Neural Surface Priors for Editable Gaussian Splatting, International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN), 2025
[ArXiv], [Code]
J. Nazarenus, D. L. Michels, S. Kou, F.-L. Zhang, S. Pirk, W. Pałubicki, R. Koch, Gaussians on Fire: High-Frequency Reconstruction of Flames, arXiv preprint, 2025
[ArXiv]
A. Kokosza, H. Wrede, D. G. Esparza, M. Makowski, D. Liu, D. L. Michels, S. Pirk, W. Palubicki, Scintilla: Simulating Combustible Vegetation for Wildfires, ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2024), Vol. 43, No. 4, Article 70
[Preprint], [Website], [Video], [Two Minute Papers]
B. Li, N. A. Schwarz, W. Palubicki, S. Pirk, B. Benes, Interactive Invigoration: Volumetric Modeling of Trees with Strands, ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2024), Vol. 43, No. 4, Article 146
[Preprint], [Website], [Video]
J. A. Amador Herrera, J. Klein, D. Liu, W. Palubicki, S. Pirk, D. L. Michels, Cyclogenesis: Simulating Hurricanes and Tornadoes, ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2024), Vol. 43, No. 4, Article 71
[Preprint], [Website], [Video],
M. Cieslak, U. Govindarajan, A. Garcia, A. Chandrashekar, T. Hadrich, A. Mendoza-Drosik, D. Michels, S. Pirk, C.-C. Fu, W. Palubicki, Generating Diverse Agricultural Data for Vision-Based Farming Applications, 2024 IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshops (CVPRW).
[Website], [Paper],
J. Kaluzny, Y. Schreckenberg, K. Cyganik, P. Annighöfer, S. Pirk, D. Michels, M. Cieslak, F. Assaad, B. Benes, W. Palubicki, LAESI: Leaf Area Estimation with Synthetic Imagery, 2024 IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshops (CVPRW).
[Website], [Paper],
M. Na, J. Klein, B. Zhang, W. Palubicki, S. Pirk, D. L. Michels, A Lennard-Jones Layer for Distribution Normalization, Transactions on Machine Learning Research (TMLR), 2024
[Preprint], [ArXiv], [Video]
J. Deng, S. Marri, J. Klein, W. Palubicki, S. Pirk, G. Chowdhary, D. L. Michels, Gazebo Plants: Simulating Plant-Robot Interaction with Cosserat Rods, under submission, 2024
[Preprint], [ArXiv], [Video]
C. Su, A. Kokosza, X. Xie, A. Pencák, Y. Zhang, P. Raumonen, X. Shi, S. Muranen, M. Kucukoglu Topcu, J. Immanen, R. Hagqvist, O. Safronov, J. Alonso-Serra, G. Eswaran, M. Pavicic Venegas, K. Ljung, S. Ward, A. P. Mähönen, K. Himanen, J. Salojärvi, A. R. Fernie, O. Novák, O. Leyser, W. Palubicki, Y. Helariutta, K. Nieminen, Tree architecture: A strigolactone-deficient mutant reveals a connection between branching order and auxin gradient along the tree stem, PNAS, 2023 Nov 28;120(48):e2308587120.
[Website], [Paper],
F. Maggioli, J. Klein, T. Hädrich, E. Rodolà, W. Palubicki, S. Pirk, D. L. Michels, A Physically-inspired Approach to the Simulation of Plant Wilting, ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2023), Vol. 42, No. 6
[Website], [Preprint], [Video],
B. Li, J. Klein, D. L. Michels, B. Benes, S. Pirk, W. Pałubicki, Rhizomorph: The Coordinated Function of Shoots and Roots, ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2023), Vol. 42, No. 4
[Website], [Preprint], [YouTube], [Two Minute Papers], [Bibtex]
N. Kalbfuß, A. Strohmayr, M. Kegel, L. Le, F. Grosseholz, B. Brunschweiger, K. Stöckl, C. Wiese, C. Franke, C. Schiestl, S. Prem, S. Sha, K. Franz-Oberdorf, J. Hafermann, M. Thiemé, E. Facher, W. Palubicki, C. Bolle, F. F. Assaad, A Role for Brassinosteroid Signaling in Decision-Making Processes, PLOS Genetics, 2024
[Website], [Paper],
J. Klein, R. E. Waller, S. Pirk, W. Pałubicki, M. Tester, and D. L. Michels, Synthetic Data at Scale: A Development Model to Efficiently Leverage Machine Learning in Agriculture, Frontiers in Plant Science, 2024
[Website]
W. Pałubicki, M. Makowski, W. Gajda, T. Hädrich, D. L. Michels, S. Pirk, Ecoclimates: Climate-Response Modeling of Vegetation, ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2022), Vol. 41, No. 4
[Website], [Preprint], [YouTube], [Two Minute Papers], [Bibtex]
W. Raateland, T. Hädrich, J. A. Herrera, D. Banuti, W. Pałubicki, S. Pirk, K. Hildebrandt, D. L. Michels DCGrid: An Adaptive Grid Structure for Memory-Constrained Fluid Simulation on the GPU, ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games, 2022
[Website], [Preprint], [DOI], [Supplementary Material], [Code], [YouTube], [Bibtex]
H. Shao, T. Kugelstadt, T. Hädrich, W. Pałubicki, J. Bender, S. Pirk, D. L. Michels, Accurately Solving Rod Dynamics with Graph Learning, Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS), 2021
[Website], [Preprint], [ArXiv], [Supplementary Material], [YouTube], [Bibtex]
J. A. Amador Herrera, T. Hädrich, W. Pałubicki, D. T. Banuti, S. Pirk, D. L. Michels, Weatherscapes: Nowcasting Heat Transfer and Water Continuity, ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2021), Vol. 40, No. 6
[Website], [Preprint], [Video], [Technical Papers Trailer], [Bibtex]
B. Li, J. Kałużny, J. Klein, D.L. Michels, W. Pałubicki, B. Benes, S. Pirk, Learning to Reconstruct Botanical Trees from Single Images, ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2021), Vol. 40, No. 6
[Website], [Preprint], [YouTube], [Technical Papers Trailer], [Bibtex]
T. Hädrich, D. T. Banuti, W. Pałubicki, S. Pirk, D. L. Michels, Fire in Paradise: Mesoscale Simulation of Wildfires, ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2021), Vol. 40, No. 4
[Website], [Preprint], [YouTube], [Talk], [Two Minute Papers], [Bibtex]
T. Hädrich, M. Makowski, W. Pałubicki, D. T. Banuti, S. Pirk, D. L. Michels, Stormscapes: Simulating Cloud Dynamics in the Now, ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2020), Vol. 39, No. 6
[Website], [Preprint], [Technical Papers Trailer], [Bibtex]
T. Hädrich, J. Scheffczyk, W. Pałubicki, S. Pirk, D. L. Michels, Interactive Wood Fracture,
Eurographics / ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Computer Animation - Posters, 2020
[Website], [Preprint], [Video], [Bibtex]
M. Makowski, T. Hädrich, J. Scheffczyk, D. L. Michels, S. Pirk, W. Pałubicki, Synthetic Silviculture: Multi-scale Modeling of Plant Ecosystems, ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2019), Vol. 38, No. 4
[Website], [Preprint], [YouTube], [Technical Papers Trailer], [Two Minute Papers], [Bibtex]
Wojtek Palubicki, Andrzej Kokosza, Agata Burian Formal description of plant morphogenesis, Journal of Experimental Botany, Volume 70, Issue 14, 1 July 2019, Pages 3601–3613
[PDF], [Website]
S. Pirk, M. Jarząbek, T. Hädrich, D. L. Michels, W. Palubicki, Interactive Wood Combustion for Botanical Tree Models, ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2017), Vol. 36, No. 6
[Website], [Preprint], [YouTube], [Technical Papers Trailer], [Two Minute Papers], [Bibtex]
Y. Coudert, W. Palubicki, K. Ljung, O. Novak, O. Leyser, C. J. Harrison, Three ancient hormonal cues co-ordinate shoot branching in a moss, Elife, 2015 Mar 25;4:e06808
[Website], [Paper],
Wojciech Palubicki, Kipp Horel, Steven Longay, Adam Runions, Brendan Lane, Radomír Mech, Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz Self-organizing tree models for image synthesis, ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2009), Vol. 28, No. 3, Article 58
[PDF], [Website]




Academic Career

2015 – Present Professor, Department of Artificial Intelligence, Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
2012 – 2015 Postdoctoral Research Scientist, Sainsbury Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK
2008 – 2012 PhD Student, Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary, Canada
2007 – 2008 Software Developer, Vizrt Austria GmbH, Schwaz, Austria
2013 PhD in Computer Science, University of Calgary, Canada
Advisor: Prof. Dr. Przemysław Prusinkiewicz.
2007 Diploma of Computer Science, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland