Edwin Catmull

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Edwin Catmull after receiving a medal at SIGGRAPH 2001.
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Edwin Catmull after receiving a medal at SIGGRAPH 2001.

Edwin Catmull, Ph.D. (born 1945 in West Virginia) is a computer scientist and current president of the animation studio, Pixar. As a computer scientist, Catmull has contributed to many important developments in computer graphics.

Early in life, Catmull found inspiration in Disney movies such as Peter Pan and Pinocchio and dreamed of becoming a feature film animator. However, he assessed his chances realistically and decided that his talents lay elsewhere. Instead of pursuing a career in the movie industry, he enrolled in the physics and computer science programs at the University of Utah. It was there that he made three fundamental computer graphics discoveries: Z-buffering, texture mapping and bicubic patches. While at the university, he invented algorithms for anti-aliasing and rendering subdivision surfaces and created, in 1974, his earliest contribution to the film industry, an animated version of his left hand for Futureworld, the science fiction sequel to the film Westworld and the first film to use 3D computer graphics.

After leaving the university, Catmull founded the Computer Graphics Lab at the New York Institute of Technology. In 1979 he went to work for George Lucas at Lucasfilm. It was at Lucasfilm that he helped develop digital image compositing technology used to combine multiple images in a convincing way. Later, in 1986, Catmull founded Pixar with Alvy Ray Smith.[citation needed] At Pixar, Catmull was a key developer of the RenderMan rendering system used in films such as Toy Story and Finding Nemo.

In 1993, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented Catmull with his first Academy Award "for the development of PhotoRealistic RenderMan software which produces images used in motion pictures from 3D computer descriptions of shape and appearance." In 1995 he was inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery. Again in 1996, he received an Academy Award "for pioneering inventions in Digital Image Compositing". Finally, in 2001, he received an Oscar "for significant advancements to the field of motion picture rendering as exemplified in Pixar's RenderMan."

After Disney acquired Pixar in January of 2006, Chief Executive Bob Iger had Catmull and John Lasseter in charge of reinvigorating the animation studios in Burbank. According to a Los Angeles Times article[1], part of this effort is to allow directors more creative control and collaboration on their projects, as well as giving them the creative freedom to use traditional animation techniques instead of computer animation, a reversal of a decision made by former CEO Michael Eisner to only do digital animation.

See also: Catmull-Rom spline, Catmull-Clark subdivision surface

Contents

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ Eller, Claudia (2006). Ed Catmull: Pixar 's Superhero, Shakes Up Disney (HTML). Retrieved on 2006-06-13.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] External links

[edit] Interviews

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