01 · A life in computing
The person behind the work
Ed Catmull helped build the mathematical and technical foundations of three-dimensional computer animation. His research at the University of Utah included methods for representing and displaying curved surfaces and images. He later co-founded Pixar, joining sustained technical development with the production of feature-length animated films. His contribution to the joint award encompasses both graphics innovations and the environment that allowed researchers and artists to turn them into filmmaking tools.
The contribution, explained
Ed Catmull and Pat Hanrahan made foundational contributions to three-dimensional computer graphics. Techniques for representing surfaces, rendering scenes and specifying how materials respond to light helped turn mathematical models into convincing images. Their work had a major impact on computer-generated filmmaking and other applications.
Why it matters
Rendering tools let artists work with complex visual worlds while reusable techniques manage much of the underlying computation.