Misplaced Pages

#542457

34-769: Edwin Earl Catmull (born March 31, 1945) is an American computer scientist and animator who served as the co-founder of Pixar and the President of Walt Disney Animation Studios . He has been honored for his contributions to 3D computer graphics , including the 2019 ACM Turing Award . Edwin Catmull was born on March 31, 1945, in Parkersburg, West Virginia . His family later moved to Salt Lake City , Utah , where his father first served as principal of Granite High School and then of Taylorsville High School . Born in

68-652: A PhD , M.S. , Bachelor's degree in computer science, or other similar fields like Information and Computer Science (CIS), or a closely related discipline such as mathematics or physics . Computer scientists are often hired by software publishing firms, scientific research and development organizations where they develop the theories and computer model that allow new technologies to be developed. Computer scientists are also employed by educational institutions such as universities . Computer scientists can follow more practical applications of their knowledge, doing things such as software engineering. They can also be found in

102-607: A deposition , saying: "While I have responsibility for the payroll, I have responsibility for the long term also." Disney and its subsidiaries, including Pixar, ultimately paid $ 100 million in settlement compensation. In November 2014, the general managers of Disney Animation and Pixar were both promoted to president, but both continued to report to Catmull, who retained the title of president of Walt Disney and Pixar. On October 23, 2018, Catmull announced his plans to retire from Pixar and Disney Animation, staying on as an adviser through July 2019. In March 2022, Thatgamecompany announced

136-567: A Mormon family, Catmull was the eldest of five brothers and, as a young man, served as a missionary in the New York City area of the 1960s. Early in his life, Catmull found inspiration in Disney movies, including Peter Pan and Pinocchio , and wanted to be an animator; however, after finishing high school, he had no idea how to get there as there were no animation schools around that time. Because he also liked math and physics, he chose

170-419: A catchier name and came up with "Pixer", which after a meeting was changed to "Pixar". Smith and Catmull co-founded Pixar in 1986 with financing from Steve Jobs . After the spinout from Lucasfilm of Pixar, he served on the board of directors and was executive vice president. According to Jeffrey Young and William Simon's Jobs biography, iCon , Alvy Ray quit Pixar in 1991 after a heated argument with Jobs over

204-487: A dissertation on cellular automata theory jointly supervised by Michael A. Arbib , Edward J. McCluskey , and Bernard Widrow . His first art show was at the Stanford Coffeehouse. From 1969 to 1973, he was an associate professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at New York University , under chairman Herbert Freeman , one of the earliest computer graphics researchers. He taught briefly at

238-519: A division of Disney Animation housed in a separate facility in Glendale. As president and chief creative officer, respectively, they have supervised three separate studios for Disney, each with its own production pipeline: Pixar, Disney Animation, and Disneytoon. While Disney Animation and Disneytoon are located in the Los Angeles area, Pixar is located over 350 miles (563 kilometers) northwest in

272-820: A plaque in the Circle of Honor at New Mexico State University. In 2013, Smith was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science . Smith has been the recipient of several grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts during his career. In May 2022, Smith received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from New York Institute of Technology (where he co-founded

306-466: A scientific career instead. He also made animation using flip-books . Catmull graduated in 1969, with a B.S. in physics and computer science from the University of Utah . Initially interested in designing programming languages , Catmull encountered Ivan Sutherland , who had designed the computer drawing program Sketchpad , and changed his interest to digital imaging . As a student of Sutherland, he

340-507: Is the theoretical study of computing from which these other fields derive. A primary goal of computer scientists is to develop or validate models, often mathematical, to describe the properties of computational systems ( processors , programs, computers interacting with people, computers interacting with other computers, etc.) with an overall objective of discovering designs that yield useful benefits (faster, smaller, cheaper, more precise, etc.). Most computer scientists are required to possess

374-722: The Library of Congress in December 2011. In 1974, Catmull earned his doctorate in computer science , and was hired by a company called Applicon . By November of that year, he had been contacted by Alexander Schure , the founder of the New York Institute of Technology , who offered him the position as the director of the institute's new Computer Graphics Lab . In that position, in 1977, he invented Tween, software for 2D animation that automatically produced frames of motion in between two frames. However, Catmull's team lacked

SECTION 10

#1732766301543

408-742: The San Francisco Bay Area , where Catmull and Lasseter both live. Accordingly, they appointed a general manager for each studio to handle day-to-day affairs on their behalf, then began regularly commuting each week to both Pixar and Disney Animation and spending at least two days per week (usually Tuesdays and Wednesdays) at Disney Animation. While at Pixar, Catmull was implicated in the High-Tech Employee Antitrust scandal, in which Bay Area technology companies allegedly agreed, among other things, not to cold-call recruit from one another. Catmull defended his actions in

442-589: The University of California, Berkeley in 1974. While at Xerox PARC in 1974, Smith worked with Richard Shoup on SuperPaint , one of the first computer raster graphics editor , or 'paint', programs. Smith's major contribution to this software was the creation of the HSV color space . He created his first computer animations on the SuperPaint system. In 1975, Smith joined the new Computer Graphics Laboratory at New York Institute of Technology (NYIT), where he

476-604: The University of California, Berkeley . With his collaborators, Smith has twice been recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his scientific and engineering contributions to digital image compositing (1996 award) and digital paint systems (1998 award). In 1990, Smith and Richard Shoup received the ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Achievement Award for their development of paint programs. Smith presented

510-555: The Computer Graphics Project, Smith created and directed the "Genesis Demo" in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , and conceived and directed the short animated film The Adventures of André & Wally B. , animated by John Lasseter . At some point in the 1980s, a designer suggested naming a new digital compositing computer the "Picture Maker". Smith thought that the laser-based device needed

544-748: The Forsythe Lecture in 1997 at Stanford University, where he received his PhD in 1970. His undergraduate alma mater New Mexico State University awarded him an honorary doctorate in December 1999. He was inducted into the CRN Industry Hall of Fame at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA in 2004. In 2006, Smith was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering . In 2010, Smith

578-559: The University of Utah. This short sequence was eventually picked up by a Hollywood producer and incorporated in the 1976 film Futureworld , which was the first film to use 3D computer graphics and a science-fiction sequel to the 1973 film Westworld , itself being the first to use a pixelated image generated by a computer. A Computer Animated Hand was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of

612-446: The ability to tell a story effectively via film, harming the effort to produce a motion picture via a computer. Catmull and his partner, Alvy Ray Smith , attempted to reach out to studios to alleviate this issue, but were generally unsuccessful until they attracted the attention of George Lucas at Lucasfilm . Lucas approached Catmull in 1979 and asked him to lead a group to bring computer graphics, video editing, and digital audio into

646-505: The addition of Catmull as principal adviser on creative culture and strategic growth. As of 2006, Catmull lives in Marin County, California , with his wife, Susan Anderson, and their three children. Catmull has an inability to form mental imagery within his head, a condition known as aphantasia . In 1993, Catmull received his first Academy Scientific and Technical Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences "for

680-742: The collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Smith worked at NYIT until 1979 and then briefly at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory with Jim Blinn on the Carl Sagan Cosmos: A Personal Voyage television series. Smith was a founding member, with Ed Catmull, of the Lucasfilm Computer Division, which developed computer graphics software including early renderer technology. As director of

714-563: The development of PhotoRealistic RenderMan software which produces images used in motion pictures from 3D computer descriptions of shape and appearance". He shared this award with Tom Porter . In 1995, he was inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery . Again in 1996, he received an Academy Scientific and Technical Award "for pioneering inventions in Digital Image Compositing". In 2000, Catmull

SECTION 20

#1732766301543

748-663: The entertainment field. Lucas had already made a deal with a computer company called Triple-I , and asked them to create a digital model of an X-wing fighter from Star Wars , which they did. In 1979, Catmull became the Vice President at Industrial Light & Magic computer graphics division at Lucasfilm. In 1986, Steve Jobs bought Lucasfilm's digital division and founded Pixar , where Catmull would work. Pixar would be acquired by Disney in 2006. In June 2007, Catmull and long-time Pixar digital animator and director John Lasseter were given control of Disneytoon Studios ,

782-463: The field of information technology consulting , and may be seen as a type of mathematician, given how much of the field depends on mathematics. Computer scientists employed in industry may eventually advance into managerial or project leadership positions. Employment prospects for computer scientists are said to be excellent. Such prospects seem to be attributed, in part, to very rapid growth in computer systems design and related services industry, and

816-593: The field of computer graphics in modeling, animation and rendering. At the 81st Academy Awards (2008, presented in February 2009), Catmull was awarded the Gordon E. Sawyer Award , which honors "an individual in the motion picture industry whose technological contributions have brought credit to the industry". In 2013, the Computer History Museum named him a Museum Fellow "for his pioneering work in computer graphics, animation and filmmaking". His book Creativity, Inc.

850-452: The idea for subdivision surfaces came from mathematical structures in his mind when he applied B-splines to non-four sided objects. He also independently discovered Z-buffering , which had been described eight months before by Wolfgang Straßer in his PhD thesis. In 1972, Catmull made his earliest contribution to the film industry: a one-minute animated version of his left hand, titled A Computer Animated Hand , created with Fred Parke at

884-405: The software publishing industry, which are projected to be among the fastest growing industries in the U.S. economy. Alvy Ray Smith In 1965, Alvy Smith received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from New Mexico State University (NMSU). He created his first computer graphic in 1965 at NMSU. In 1970, he received a Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University , with

918-465: The theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on specific areas (such as algorithm and data structure development and design, software engineering , information theory , database theory , theoretical computer science , numerical analysis , programming language theory , compiler , computer graphics , computer vision , robotics , computer architecture , operating system ), their foundation

952-568: The use of a whiteboard. Feeling bullied by Jobs, Smith decided to publicly break the unwritten rule that no one else could use Jobs's whiteboard; they ended up screaming at each-other. Despite Smith's role as co-founder of Pixar, Young and Simon claim that the company has largely written him out of its corporate history: for example, there is no mention of Smith on the Pixar website. Pixar released Toy Story in 1995 and then went public, and Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997. From 1988–1992, Smith

986-897: Was a member of the board of regents of the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland , where he was instrumental in inaugurating the Visible Human Project . After leaving Pixar in 1991, Smith cofounded Altamira Software with Eric Lyons and Nicholas Clay. Altamira was acquired by Microsoft in 1994, and Smith became the first Graphics Fellow at Microsoft. Smith retired from Microsoft in 1999 to spend his time giving talks, making digital photographs, doing scholarly genealogy, and researching technical history. He lives in Seattle , Washington. In 2010, Smith married Alison Gopnik , author and Professor of Psychology at

1020-879: Was elected a Fellow of the American Society of Genealogists and presented the Washington Award in Chicago for advancing "the welfare of humankind". In 2011, Smith was awarded the Special Award at Mundos Digitales in La Coruna, Spain, for lifetime achievement in computer graphics. In 2012, Smith was awarded the Digital Media Symposium Lifetime Achievement Award in Boulder, Colorado, and was awarded

1054-504: Was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for leadership in the creation of digital imagery, leading to the introduction of fully synthetic visual effects and motion pictures. In 2001, he received an Oscar "for significant advancements to the field of motion picture rendering as exemplified in Pixar's RenderMan". In 2006, he was awarded the IEEE John von Neumann All-Medal Crown Of Trophies for pioneering contributions to

Edwin Catmull - Misplaced Pages Continue

1088-456: Was given the job title "Information Quanta". There, working alongside a traditional cel animation studio, he met Ed Catmull and several core personnel of Pixar. Smith worked on a series of newer paint programs, including Paint3 , the first true-color raster graphics editor. As part of this work he co-invented the concept of the alpha channel . He was also the programmer and collaborator on Ed Emshwiller 's animation Sunstone , included in

1122-440: Was part of the university's DARPA program, sharing classes with James H. Clark , John Warnock and Alan Kay . From that point, his main goal and ambition were to make digitally realistic films. During his time at the university, he made two new fundamental computer-graphics discoveries: texture mapping and bicubic patches ; and invented algorithms for spatial anti-aliasing and refining subdivision surfaces . Catmull says

1156-633: Was shortlisted for the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award (2014), and was a selection for Mark Zuckerberg book club in March 2015. Catmull shared the 2019 Turing Award with Pat Hanrahan for their pioneering work on computer-generated imagery. Computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science . Computer scientists typically work on

#542457