The Spline Doctors website has a a Podcast interview with wit Ed Catmull thats definitely worth hearing. To me, he's the father of CG Animation. Here are some of the things he has given us:
z_buffer
Texture mapping
bi cubic patches
algorithms for anti-aliasing
helped develop digital image compositing
a key developer of the RenderMan rendering system
PIXAR
You can download the podcast at the Spline Doctors Blog and while you are there, check out their other podcasts and articles as well. The Spline Doctors are a group of professional animators by day, teachers by night.
Ed also talks about their bringing back the art of hand drawn animation with the marriage of Disney and Pixar. It's invigorating to think that they will bring back to Disney Studios, the spirit and innovation of the days of Walt Disney and the Nine Old Men. I can't wait to see their first production!
16 Comments
Never was so much owed by so many to so few (this apply to all the other people like Blinn Bezier etc...)
i think you forgot a very big one
catmull-clark sub-division surfaces
I was about to ask the same thing.
What about Catmull-Clark subsurf?
Even though he didn't invent it single-handed, he should still be credited for it. ;)
Is he really a wit though?
(Hidden message: next time, don't rush so much when writing a news article)
if i remember right
catmull and clark both developed the same method at the same time
not together
the same is true of doo and sabin who developed doo-sabin seperate of each other at the same time
oops yes ed and jim developed it together,
doo-sabin was developed seperately
C'mon ppl, he wrote "Some of the things...", he didnt said "all the things", he didnt even mentioned, that this ones he mentioned were the most important, just a simple example!
What if he didnt posted this news ? or any others that you ppl read daily and criticize?
All the stuff that is written about Ed Catmull in this article comes from Wikipedia.org,....so the facts (for example :catmul-clarksubdivision) , that are missing in wikipedia are also missing in this article...SIMPLE!
If you don't like that some fact are missing you can correct it here:):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Catmull
@jahmaica:
Yeah, you're right jahmaica.
But i dont think anybody was being ungrateful, catmull-clark is just pretty important and shouldent be left out. ;)
sheesh, wtf is wrong with you 2, i just pointed out a big one that was missing
something that's actually named after the guy
if you guys have nothing better to do than bitch about me pointing this out for some that may have wondered if this is the same catmull, or those that didn't even know that the common sub-d method used in pretty much every sub-d app was even called catmull-clark
well then you should spend more time modeling or animating, or learning your app
ps: jaco you obviously didn't look at wiki very long
See also
* Catmull-Rom spline
* Catmull-Clark subdivision surface
The point of the article was to let you know about the podcast which I enjoyed, I thought the community wouldenjoy it too, It was not meant to be a history of accomplishments.
Very inspiring, thanks!
Those are what I call "words of wisdom"!
really inspiring!
And he is still a wit... how blind can people be :)
Thank you, thank you, Dr. Catmull. I'm very grateful.