Loren Carpenter

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Loren C. Carpenter (born 1947) is a computer graphics researcher and developer. Co-founder and Chief Scientist of Pixar Animation Studios. One of his many inventions is the A-buffer hidden surface algorithm.

In 1980 when he was working at The Boeing Company he presented at SIGGRAPH a two-minute animation showing a very complicated landscape called Vol Libre, then he was hired to work at Lucasfilm's Computer Division. He is also co-founder of Cinematrix, a very well known company among assistants to SIGGRAPH convention.

Recently he also made improvements to the popular Mersenne Twister random number generator.

Loren is also a grandnephew of Charles Schmidt, the creator of Sgt. Pat of Radio Patrol, a nationally syndicated police comic strip which ran in the 30s and 40s.

1 Education
2 Awards
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Education

B.S.in Mathematics from the University of Washington in 1974.
M.S from the Department of Computer Science & Engineering in 1976.

[edit] Awards

1985, ACM SIGGRAPH Achievement Award.
1992, Scientific and Technical Academy Award (Plaque) for his contributions to the motion picture industry through the invention and development of the RenderMan software.
1994, Distinction by the Prix Ars Electronica jury for his entry Kinoetic Evolution in the category Interactive Art.
1995, Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery.
2000, Academy Award of Merit (Statuette).

[edit] References

Robert L. Cook., Loren Carpenter, and Edwin Catmull. "The Reyes image rendering architecture." Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH '87 Proceedings), pp. 95–102.