Edwin Catmull, Ph.D. (born 1945 in Parkersburg, West Virginia) is an Academy Award winning computer scientist and current president of Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios. As a computer scientist, Catmull has contributed to many important developments in computer graphics. Year 1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar). ... Parkersburg is the county seat of Wood County6. ... Official language(s) English Capital Charleston Largest city Charleston Largest metro area Charleston metro area Area  Ranked 41st  - Total 24,244 sq mi (62,809 km²)  - Width 130 miles (210 km)  - Length 240 miles (385 km)  - % water 0. ... Although he never won an Oscar for any of his movie performances, the comedian Bob Hope received two honorary Oscars for his contributions to cinema. ... Computer science (informally: CS or compsci) is, in its most general sense, the study of computation and information processing, both in hardware and in software. ... Walt Disney Animation Studios is the animation studio that makes up a key element of The Walt Disney Company, and the oldest surviving animation studio in the world. ... Pixars logo and mascot Luxo, Jr. ... This article is about the scientific discipline of computer graphics. ...

Biography

Early in life, Catmull found inspiration in Disney movies such as Peter Pan and Pinocchio and dreamed of becoming a feature film animator. He even made primtive animation using so-called flip-books. However, he assessed his chances realistically and decided that his talents lay elsewhere. Instead of pursuing a career in the movie industry, he used his talent in math and studied physics and computer science at the University of Utah. After graduating, he worked as a computer programmer at The Boeing Company in Seattle for a short period of time, before returning to Utah to go to graduate school in fall of 1970. Old logo from 1985-2006 Walt Disney Pictures refers to several different entities associated with The Walt Disney Company: Walt Disney Pictures, the film banner, was established as a designation in 1983, prior to which Disney films since the death of Walt Disney were released under the name of the... Peter Pan is the fourteenth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. ... Pinocchio is the second animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. ... Incorrect shortening of Mathematics. ... A magnet levitating above a high-temperature superconductor demonstrates the Meissner effect. ... Computer science, or computing science, is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their implementation and application in computer systems. ... The University of Utah (also The U or the U of U or the UU), located in Salt Lake City, is the flagship public research university in the state of Utah, and one of 10 institutions that make up the Utah System of Higher Education. ... The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA) is a leading American aircraft and aerospace manufacturer, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, with its largest production facilities near Seattle, Washington. ... City nickname Emerald City City bird Great Blue Heron City flower Dahlia City mottos The City of Flowers The City of Goodwill City song Seattle, the Peerless City Mayor Greg Nickels County King County Area   - Total   - Land   - Water   - % water 369. ...

Back at the university he became one of Ivan Sutherland students, sharing class with Fred Parkes, Jim Clark, John Warnock and Alan Kay. Catmull saw Sutherland's computer drawing program Sketchpad and the new field of computer graphics in general as a major fundament in the future of animation, which combined his love for both technology and animation, and decided to be a part of the revolution from the beginning. During his time there he made three fundamental computer graphics discoveries: Z-buffering, texture mapping and bicubic patches, and invented algorithms for anti-aliasing and rendering subdivision surfaces and created. In 1973 he made his earliest contribution to the film industry, an animated version of his left hand who was eventually picked up by a Hollywood producer and incorporated in the 1976 movie Futureworld, the science fiction sequel to the film Westworld and the first film to use 3D computer graphics. Ivan Sutherland Ivan Sutherland, working at MIT (1963) Ivan Edward Sutherland (born 1938 in Hastings, Nebraska) is a computer programmer and Internet pioneer. ... This article is about the racing driver Jim Clark. ... John Warnock (b. ... Alan Curtis Kay (born May 17, 1940) is an American computer scientist, known for his early pioneering work on object-oriented programming and windowing graphical user interface design. ... Sketchpad was a revolutionary computer program written by Ivan Sutherland in 1963 in the course of his PhD thesis. ... This article is about the scientific discipline of computer graphics. ... This article is about the scientific discipline of computer graphics. ... Z-buffer data In computer graphics, z-buffering is the management of image depth coordinates in three-dimensional (3-D) graphics, usually done in hardware, sometimes in software. ... Spherical texture mapping Texture mapping is a method, pioneered by Edwin Catmull, of adding detail, surface texture, or colour to a computer-generated graphic or 3D model. ... In the mathematical subfield of numerical analysis a B-spline is a spline function which has minimal support with respect to a given degree, smoothness, and domain partition. ... Flowcharts are often used to graphically represent algorithms. ... In digital signal processing, anti-aliasing is the technique of minimizing the distortion artifacts known as aliasing when representing a high-resolution signal at a lower resolution. ... For the song by James Blunt, see 1973 (song). ... Futureworld was a 1976 sequel to the 1973 science fiction film Westworld. ... Westworld was a 1973 film written and directed by Michael Crichton. ... This article is about process of creating 3D computer graphics. ...

In 1974, Catmull graduated again and was hired by a company called Applicon. But already in November the same year he was contacted by the founder of New York Institute of Technology, Alexander Schure, who offered him the position as the director of the new Computer Graphics Lab at NYIT, an offer Catmull couldn't refuse. Also Schure had a great interest in animation, and was working on a project with an animated feature called Tubby the Tuba. Frustrated with the slow progress, he had been looking for tools that could help speed up the process, which turned out to be the computer graphic facilities at the University of Utah. There he also heard about the man he felt was the right man for the job, Ed Catmull. In his new position, Catmull formed a talented research group working with 2D animation, mostly focusing on tools who could assist the animators in their work. Among the inventions was a paint program simply called Paint which could be seen as en early version of Disney's CAPS, the commercial animation program Tween (used in the video called 3Measure for Measure2), inspired by an experimental computer animation system created by Nestor Burtnyk and Marcelli Wein, that automated the process of producing in-between frames, the animation program SoftCel and other software. Applicon was one of the first vendors of Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing (CAD/CAM) systems. ... The New York Institute of Technology (also known as NYIT and New York Tech) is a private, co-educational college in New York in the USA. The college has three New York campuses, two on Long Island and one on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, as well as global...

Catmull and his team eventually left 2D animation and started to concentrate on 3D computer graphics, moving into the field of motion picture production. By the end of the 70's, the Computer Graphics Lab was starting to struggle for several reasons and felt there was a lack of actual progress despite the technological development, but it had attracted the attention of George Lucas at Lucasfilm, who wanted to create his own computer group. Like Schure before him, Lucas contacted Catmull in 1979 and gave him an offer he couldn't resist. He now had an oppertunity to work with computer animation in the movie industry, as the Vice President at the computer graphics division at Lucasfilm. George Walton Lucas, Jr. ... Lucasfilm Ltd. ...

At Lucasfilm he helped develop digital image compositing technology used to combine multiple images in a convincing way. Later, in 1986, Steve Jobs bought Lucasfilm's digital division and founded Pixar, where Catmull became the Chief Technical Officer. At Pixar, he was a key developer of the RenderMan rendering system used in films such as Toy Story and Finding Nemo. Digital compositing is the process of digitally assembling multiple images to make a final image, typically for print, motion pictures or screen display. ... Year 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar). ... Pixars studio lot in Emeryville Pixar Animation Studios is an American computer animation studio based in Emeryville, California (USA) notable for its seven Academy Awards. ... The name RenderMan can cause confusion because it has been used to refer to different things developed by Pixar: The RenderMan Interface Specification (RISpec), Pixars technical specification for a standard communications protocol (or interface) between 3D computer graphics programs and rendering programs. ... Toy Story is an Academy-award-winning CGI animated feature film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution in the United States on November 22, 1995, and Australia on December 7, 1995, as well as in the United Kingdom on 22 March... Finding Nemo is an Academy Award-winning computer-animated film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released to theaters by Walt Disney Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution. ...

After Disney acquired Pixar in January of 2006, Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger put Catmull and John Lasseter in charge of reinvigorating the Disney animation studios in Burbank. According to a Los Angeles Times article,^[1] part of this effort was to allow directors more creative control as collaborators on their projects and to give them the creative freedom to use traditional animation techniques — a reversal of former CEO Michael Eisner's decision that Disney would do only digital animation. Disney may refer to: The Walt Disney Company and its divisions, including Walt Disney Pictures. ... Robert Bob Iger is the President and COO of the Walt Disney Company and Michael Eisners hand_picked successor as CEO. Previously he served as President and COO of Capital Cities/ABC until that companys merger with Disney. ... John Alan Lasseter (born January 12, 1957) is an Academy Award-winning American animator and the chief creative officer at Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. ... Founded May 1, 1887 Incorporated July 8, 1911 General Information County Los Angeles County, California Latitude Longitude 34°1049 N 118°1942 W Area  - Total  - Water 45 km² (17. ... This just IN !!!:paris hiltons new dog. ... Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is the job of having the ultimate executive responsibility or authority within an organization or corporation. ... Michael Dammann Eisner (born March 7, 1942) was CEO of The Walt Disney Company from September 22, 1984 to September 30, 2005. ...

Catmull is a Latter-day Saint.^[2]

Awards

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." Year 1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1993 Gregorian calendar). ... Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study in Hollywood, California Founded on May 11, 1927 in California, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures. ... Academy Award The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are the most prominent and most watched film awards ceremony in the world. ... RenderMan is the name of a rendering software package developed by Pixar Animation Studios; it implements Pixars photorealistic 3D description standard, the RenderMan Interface Specification. ... Year 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday. ... The Association for Computing Machinery, or ACM, was founded in 1947 as the worlds first scientific and educational computing society. ... Year 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar). ... Year 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 2001 Gregorian calendar). ...

See also

• Catmull-Rom spline
• Catmull-Clark subdivision surface

In mathematics, a Catmull-Rom spline is a cardinal spline with a tension of 0. ... First three steps of Catmull-Clark subdivision of a cube with subdivision surface below The Catmull-Clark algorithm is used in subdivision surface modeling to create smooth surfaces. ...

Notes and references

Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 164th day of the year (165th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

Bibliography

• Robert L. Cook, Loren Carpenter, and Edwin Catmull. "The Reyes image rendering architecture." Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH '87 Proceedings), pp. 95–102.
• Michael Rubin, "Droidmaker: George Lucas and the Digital Revolution" (2005), ISBN 0937404675

Robert L. Cook (December 10, 1952) is a computer graphics researcher and developer, and the co-creator of the RenderMan rendering software. ... Loren Carpenter (born 1947) is a computer graphics researcher and developer. ... Reyes rendering pipeline Reyes rendering is a method used in 3D computer graphics to render an image. ... SIGGRAPH 2005 official logo SIGGRAPH (short for Special Interest Group in Graphics) is the name of the annual conference on computer graphics convened by the ACM SIGGRAPH organization. ...

External links

• Ed Catmull at the Internet Movie Database
• Ed Catmull's visit to CalArts' Character Animation Program (Fall '04)
• Ed Catmull: Pixar 's Superhero Shakes Up Disney

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is an online database of information about movies, actors, television shows, production crew personnel, and video games. ...

Interviews

• Networker magazine interviews Ed Catmull
• Fantastic Voyage: Guardian Unlimited interviews Ed Catmull, president of Pixar
• SIGGRAPH Interviews Edwin Catmull
• Stanford business school students of the iinnovate blog interview Ed Catmull
• The Spline Doctors interview Ed Catmull