Wikipedia

Loren Carpenter

Loren C. Carpenter(born February 7, 1947) is acomputer graphicsresearcher and developer.

Loren Carpenter
Born(1947-02-07)February 7, 1947(age 77)[1]
Brighton, Michigan
EducationB.S. in mathematics,
M.S. in computer science[1]
Alma materUniversity of Washington[1]
OccupationComputer graphics scientist[1]
SpouseRachel[1]
Children1[1]

Biography

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He was a co-founder and chief scientist ofPixar Animation Studios.He is the inventor of theReyes renderingalgorithm and is one of the authors of thePhotoRealistic RenderMansoftware which implements Reyes and renders all of Pixar's movies. FollowingDisney'sacquisition of Pixar, Carpenter became a senior research scientist atDisney Research.[2]He retired in early 2014.[3]

In around 1967 Carpenter began work at Boeing Computer Services (a part of aircraft makerBoeing) inSeattle, Washington.[4]During his time there Carpenter studied for a B.S. in mathematics (1974) and an M.S. in Computer Science (1976), both from theUniversity of Washington.[5]Some of his work concerned using computer technology to improve Boeing's mechanical design processes, which were still entirely done by hand on paper.[4]

On July 14, 1980, he gave a presentation at theSIGGRAPHconference, in which he showed "Vol Libre", a 2-minute computer generated movie.[6]This showcased his software for generating and renderingfractallygenerated landscapes, and was met with a standing ovation, and (as Carpenter had hoped) he was immediately invited to work atLucasfilm's Computer Division (which would become Pixar).[4]There Carpenter worked on the "genesis effect" scene ofStar Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,which featured an entire fractally-landscaped planet.[4]

He and his wife Rachel founded Cinematrix, a company that researches computer-assisted interactive audience participation.[7]

Carpenter invented the A-bufferhidden surface determinationalgorithm.[1]

The PXR24 compression scheme used inIndustrial Light & Magic'sOpen EXRfile format is based on Carpenter's work.[8]

In 2006 made improvements to the popularMersenne Twisterrandom number generator.[9]

As of 2022 Carpenter is working withOstrich Air IncandFireBot Labs Incas a Private Investor and Technical Consultant for their Fully Autonomous AI Driven Fire Fighting Drone Platform.[10][11]

Computer animation

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Awards

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  • 1985,ACM SIGGRAPHAchievement 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 entryKinoetic Evolutionin the category Interactive Art.
  • 1995, Fellow of theAssociation for Computing Machinery.
  • 2000, Academy Award of Merit (Statuette).[12]
  • 2017,Cayman Islands International Film FestivalLifetime Achievement Award

Bibliography

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  • Loren Carpenter, "The A -buffer, an antialiased hidden surface method",ACM Siggraph Computer Graphics,vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 103–108, 1984
  • Robert L. Cook,Loren Carpenter, andEdwin Catmull."TheReyesimage rendering architecture. "Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH'87 Proceedings),pp. 95–102.
  • Robert L. Cook,Thomas K. Porter,Loren Carpenter, "Distributed ray tracing",ACM Siggraph Computer Graphics,vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 137–145, 1984

References

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  1. ^abcdefgPerry, Tekla (April 2, 2001)."And the Oscar Goes To... Loren Carpenter".IEEE Spectrum. Archived fromthe originalon January 14, 2014.RetrievedMarch 29,2014.
  2. ^ "Disney Research - People: Loren Carpenter".Disney Research. Archived fromthe originalon 2011-10-17.
  3. ^Amidi, Amid (January 11, 2014)."The Man Who Invented the Name Pixar Retired Yesterday".Cartoon Brew.RetrievedMarch 29,2013.
  4. ^abcd Michael Rubin (October 24, 2005).Droidmaker: George Lucas And the Digital Revolution.Triad Publishing Company.ISBN978-0-937404-67-6.
  5. ^ "UW CSE Alumnus and Pixar Co-Founder Loren Carpenter".Professor Ed Lazowska, University of Washington.
  6. ^kottke.org. 2009. Vol Libre, an amazing CG film from 1980. [online] Available at:http://kottke.org/09/07/vol-libre-an-amazing-cg-film-from-1980
  7. ^ "Cinematrix Founders".Cinematrix Inc.
  8. ^Florian Kainz, Rod Bogart (2009-02-18)."Technical Introduction to OpenEXR"(PDF).Industrial Light & Magic. Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 2011-07-17.Retrieved2011-05-25.
  9. ^ "Mersenne Twister in C, C++, C#".Professor Makoto Matsumoto, department of mathematics,Hiroshima University.
  10. ^"About".FIREBOT LABS.Retrieved2023-09-01.
  11. ^"About".OSTRICH AIR.Retrieved2023-09-01.
  12. ^ "Pixar's Catmull, Carpenter and Cook Receive Academy Award Of Merit".Pixar. March 5, 2001.
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