Dark Star Systems®

Gary Oberbrunner is a problem solver at all levels. He is an Emmy Award-winning experienced technology executive with over 30 years of hands-on technical development, architecture, and management expertise. Gary has expert-level knowledge of graphics, high-performance computing, GPU programming, parallel architectures, image processing, video, and visual effects. He cares deeply about quality, craftsmanship, the development process, and the people who create software. Gary has served as technical lead on two successful exits and multiple acquisitions.

Dark Star Systems, Arlington MA — CEO and Founder

October 2017–Present

Founded Dark Star Systems to help scientists create beautiful visualizations of their data. Also open to consulting in areas of expertise:

  • GPU programming in CUDA
  • Image processing and visual effects
  • High-performance computing
  • Video
  • Cloud computing
  • Software process improvement
  • Technology strategy

Boris FX, Boston MA — CTO

September 2016–October 2017

Moved to Boris FX as part of acquisition of GenArts.

  • Managed complex merger of R&D groups
  • Managed technical staff of over 30 people, including distributed teams in UK and Russia
  • Continued hands-on development of Sapphire, leading to successful launch of Sapphire 11 in October ‘17
  • Drove convergence of R&D processes to improve productivity, communications and engagement
  • Delivered multiple products with high quality on time, while managing significant resource constraints

Vivoom, Cambridge MA — Co-founder, Technical Advisor

February 2014–September 2016

  • Spun out Vivoom from GenArts to bring cloud-based visual effects to mobile video creators
  • Pivoted to become a mobile video ad services platform
  • Managed initial development and rollout: iOS, Amazon AWS, Ruby on Rails
  • Hands-on development and management of 3&endash;6 technical staff

GenArts, Cambrige MA — VP Engineering, CTO

June 1997–September 2016

Joined GenArts with Karl Sims, MacArthur Fellow and computer artist, to bring the power of high-performance computing to serve artists around the world who create video and film.

  • Co-developed Sapphire Plug-ins, a visual effects suite for TV and movies. Led technology development through 10 releases over 20 years
  • Won a 2019 Engineering Emmy Award, with Karl, for developing Sapphire
  • Created a lasting, solid, elegant technical architecture and development processes that enabled GenArts to be highly profitable and well-respected over a 20 year period, with a very small, tight-knit, highly productive and engaged technical team
  • Managed technical integration of several acquisitions
  • Also managed IT and back-office systems including custom Ruby on Rails CRM

Advanced Visual Systems, Waltham, MA — Chief Architect

June 1993–June 1997

Developed high-end scientific visualization and visual programming software on workstations, PCs, and massively parallel supercomputers.

Thinking Machines, Cambridge MA — Visualization Software Developer

1989–1993

Developed massively parallel graphics and visualization software on the Connection Machine: CM-2 and CM-5.

MASSCOMP, Westford MA — Hardware Engineer

1984–1989

Designed and developed digital I/O hardware and A/D converters for real-time Unix-based data acquisition systems.

EDUCATION

MIT, Cambridge, MA — BSEE
1980–1984

SOFTWARE EXPERTISE

  • C/C++, CUDA, Javascript/Typescript, Python, OpenGL
  • High-level system architecture, parallel algorithms, cloud computing, multithreading
  • Image and signal processing: visual effects, FFT, image analysis
  • Graphics: 3D & 2D
  • User experience design

Some tools I like: SCons, git/github, Vue.js, Google Firebase, Trello, Amazon AWS, and Emacs.

PATENTS

  • 8,935,611: Network-based rendering and steering of visual effects
  • 8,412,729 and 8,667,016: Sharing of presets for visual effects or other computer-implemented effects

COMMUNITY PROJECTS

SCons — Developer, Co-maintainer

1998–present

SCons is an open source cross-platform software build tool written in python. https://www.scons.org. I’ve been contributing to it since its inception.

OFX Association — Association Director

2009–present

The OFX Association oversees the Open Effects standard for visual effects plug-ins. https://www.openeffects.org. I helped start the Association in 2009 and have been a director since then.

OUTSIDE INTERESTS

Music (jazz bass player), sailing, playing Go, and travel.