Edwin+Catmull

Edwin Catmull Jordan Nicholson
 * 1) Born March 31, 1945
 * 2) Born in Parkersburg, WV
 * 3) Married Susan…
 * 4) Has 5 children
 * 5) Went to the University of Utah
 * 6) Office —Pixar Animation Studios, 1200 Park Ave., Emeryville, CA 94608
 * 7) Went to college for computer science
 * 8) He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
 * 9) Won many awards: Co–recipient, Academy Award for Scientific & Technical Engineering Achievement, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 1993 and 1996; co–recipient, Academy Award of Merit, Significant Advances in the Field of Motion Picture Rendering, 2001.
 * 10) Heads Pixar Animation Studios
 * 11) Pixar does digital animation for film
 * 12) Made many hit movies like Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Up, Cars, and Bugs Life
 * 13) Has 4 siblings
 * 14) Father was a school principal
 * 15) Since he was young he dreamed of a career with the Walt Disney Company
 * 16) Lacked artistic ability
 * 17) Finished college in 1974
 * 18) Steve Jobs bought a company that Catmull was running in 1986 for 10 million
 * 19) Moved west in 1979 to take a job with Lucasfilm Ltd. Located in northern California. Was the vice president
 * 20) B.S. (computer science) B.S. (physics) Ph.D. (computer science)


 * 1) President and co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios
 * 2) President of Walt Disney Animation Studios
 * 3) Has been honored with 5 academy awards, including Gordon E. Sawyer award
 * 4) Was awarded the Gordon E. Sawyer award because of his lifetime of technical contributions in the computer graphics field for the motion picture industry
 * 5) In 1993, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented Catmull with his first Academy Scientific and Technical Award "for the development of PhotoRealistic RenderMan software which produces images used in motion pictures from 3D computer descriptions of shape and appearance
 * 6) In 1995 he was inducted as a fellow of the Association for Computer Machinery managed development in the areas of computer graphics, video editing, video games and digital audio – LucasFilm Ltd.
 * 7) Received the ACM SIGGRAPH Steven A. Coons Award for his lifetime contributions in the computer graphics field and the animations industry’s for UB Iwerks Award for technical advancements in the art or industry of animation
 * 8) In high school Catmull realized he wasn’t good at drawing so he began to focus on computers
 * 9) He felt that the newly emerging field of computer graphics could be used to create a full-length animated film
 * 10) After a short stint at Boeing he came back to the University to get his doctoral degree
 * 11) His focus was computer graphics and 3-dimensional curves
 * 12) Invented texture mapping
 * 13) Where a two dimensional image can be applied to the surface of a three dimensional object
 * 14) He felt that the newly emerging field of computer graphics could be used to create a full-length animated film
 * 15) After receiving his Ph.D., Catmull took a programming job at a small CAD software company
 * 16) But he knew this was not what he was interested in
 * 17) short while later he was invited to become the head of the Computer Graphics Lab at the New York Institute of Technology
 * 18) Was founded by Alexander Schure
 * 19) In 1986, Steve Jobs bought ILM's digital division and founded Pixar, where Catmull became President and Chief Technical Office
 * 20) At Pixar, he was the key developer of the RenderMan rendering system used in all Pixar films


 * 1) Full name: Edwin Earl Catmull
 * 2) Served as president of pixar since Jan 2001
 * 3) Dr. Catmull served as a member of the Executive team and Chief Technical Officer of Pixar since the incorporation of Pixar
 * 4) Dr. Catmull managed four development efforts in the areas of computer graphics, video editing, video games and digital audio
 * 5) key developer of RenderMan, the program that creates realistic digital effects for computer graphics and animation
 * 6) The University of Utah presented him with an Honorary Doctoral Degree in Engineering in 2005
 * 7) Dr. Catmull brought his high-technology expertise ...to the film industry as Vice President of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm Ltd.
 * 8) an Oscar “for significant advancements to the field of motion picture rendering as exemplified in Pixar’s RenderMan
 * 9) Coons Award, which is the highest achievement in computer graphics, for his lifetime contributions
 * 10) Coons Award, which is the highest achievement in computer graphics, for his lifetime contributions
 * 11) member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Science and Technical Awards Committee
 * 12) As a computer scientist, Catmull has contributed to many important developments in computer graphics
 * 13) Instead of pursuing a career in the movie industry, he used his talent in math and studied physics and computer science
 * 14) Made bicubic patches in college
 * 15) invented algorithms for anti-aliasing and refining subdivision surfaces
 * 16) discovered Z-buffering, even though it had already been described 8 months before, by Wolfgang Straber in his PhD thesis
 * 17) In 1974, Catmull graduated again and was hired by a company called Applicon . However, by November the same year he had been 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.
 * 18) working on a project with an animated feature called Tubby the Tuba
 * 19) Was frustrated due to slow progress, he looked for tools that could speed up the process
 * 20) turned out to be the computer graphic facilities at the University of Utah


 * 1) Has lived in Kentfield, CA, Mill Valley, CA, San Rafael, CA, Sherman Oaks, CA, and currently Emeryville, CA
 * 2) Edwin has worked for Pixar, Up, Bolt, and Toy Story
 * 3) For decades, Ed's driving ambition was to help create the first full-length computer-animated feature film
 * 4) After Disney acquired Pixar in January 2006, Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger put Catmull and John Lasseter in charge of reinvigorating the Disney animation studios in Burbank
 * 5) At Lucasfilm he helped develop digital image compositing technology used to combine multiple images in a convincing way
 * 6) Later, in 1986, Steve Jobs bought Lucasfilm's digital division and founded Pixar, where Catmull became the Chief Technical Officer
 * 7) At Pixar, he was a key developer of the RenderMan rendering system used in films such as Toy Story and Finding Nemo.
 * 8) Catmull formed a talented research group working with 2D animation
 * 9) Mostly focusing on tools who could assist the animators in their work
 * 10) Among the inventions was a paint program simply called Paint which could be seen as an early version of Disney's CAPS
 * 11) Catmull and his team eventually left 2D animation and started to concentrate on 3D computer graphics
 * 12) Moved into the field of motion picture production
 * 13) By the late 70s, the computer graphics lab was starting to struggle
 * 14) In 2005, the University of Utah presented him with an Honorary Doctoral Degree in Engineering.
 * 15) Previously, Dr. Catmull was vice president of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm Ltd., where he managed development in the areas of computer graphics, video editing, video games and digital audio.
 * 16) Granite High School, Salt Lake City
 * 17) Religion: Mormon
 * 18) Scholar: New York Institute of Technology (1974-79)
 * 19) Known as Ed
 * 20) His parents were un married and were not able to care for him, so they put him up for adoption

Steve Jobs Biography - Life, Children, Parents, Name, Story, History, School, Book, Old, Information, Born, Drugs." //Encyclopedia of World Biography//. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. [].

"List of Private Companies Worldwide - BusinessWeek." //Investing & Stock Research by Company and Industry - BusinessWeek//. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. [].

"Edwin E. Catmull Biography - Life, Children, Name, Story, History, School, Son, Born, Siblings, House, Time - Newsmakers Cumulation." //Encyclopedia of World Biography//. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. [].

"Edwin Catmull." //ACM SIGGRAPH News — Siggraph.org//. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. .