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Tom Duff, Loren Carpenter, and Rob Cook

Description:
This will be a delightful evening of stories from three of the pioneers of Pixar R&D.

Bios:
Tom Duff was educated at the universities of Waterloo and Toronto
and has worked at the NYIT Computer Graphics Lab, the Lucasfilm
computer division, Bell Labs, and Pixar. His main research interest is computer graphics and animation, but he has also published in operating systems, polymer physics, wireless networking, mathematics and computer security. He and Bill Reeves developed Pixar's powerful and animator-friendly character animation system, and co-developed the widely-used Duff-Porter compositing methodology. He developed special effects in Star Trek II, Return of the Jedi and A Bugs Life, a full-scale radio-controlled Walle and a light-field movie camera. He has a dozen patents and two Academy Awards® for contributions to motion picture science and technology. Since retirement, he has mostly been playing with grandchildren, drawing things with computer-controlled pen plotters, and giving experimental music concerts.

Loren Carpenter revolutionized the entire film industry through inventing rendering and modeling algorithms for image synthesis and visual effects. In 2001 he and 2 colleagues were awarded the only Oscar statuettes ever given for computer science. He recently transitioned from his position as Senior Research Scientist in Disney/Pixar’s research division to that of an IONS visiting scholar.
His groundbreaking work began at the Boeing Company where, while pursuing his master’s degree in computer science at the University of Washington, he started experimenting with computer animation as part of an effort to improve the company’s computer-aided design and modeling tools. That work inspired and led to his creation of the world’s first fractally-generated animation piece, a short film titled Vol Libre, which is available on Vimeo.
In 1980 he presented the two-minute film at the SIGGRAPH Conference, and his film career took off when the Lucasfilm Computer Division immediately offered him a job. There he further perfected his software to create the fractal planet for the Genesis sequence of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, a visual effect that worked so well it was used in the next three Star Trek movies. His division at Lucasfilm eventually grew into Pixar Animation Studios, where he became the studio’s first Senior Scientist, and where his software algorithms still beat in the heart of every Pixar movie.

Rob Cook was one of the two original co-creators of Pixar’s RenderMan software, which creates photo-realistic computer images for animation, effects, and design. In 2001, he and two colleagues received Oscars for their contributions, the first ever given for software. He has received numerous other awards including the ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Achievement Award and the ACM SIGGRAPH Stephen A. Coons Award, and he has been elected to both the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.
Cook holds a B.S. in physics from Duke and an M.S in computer graphics from Cornell. At Lucasfilm/Pixar, he developed the first programmable shader, now an essential part of GPUs and game engines as well as high-end renderers. He was the first to use Monte Carlo techniques in computer graphics, which were essential for simulation of complex, realistic lights and camera effects such as motion blur and depth of field.
Cook also has over 25 years of experience as a business leader, including being VP of Software Development at Pixar, running two successful startup companies, serving on corporate and non-profit boards, consulting at several leading companies in Silicon Valley, and serving as the Commissioner of GSA’s Technology Transformation Service under President Obama.

Zoom link available after registering
Video will also be streamed on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/qg5cyohyD2M

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