Dr. Edwin Catmull, a computer scientist who made substantial contributions to the advancement of computer graphics, held the position of vice president within the Computer Division at Lucasfilm Ltd..
Alongside Alvy Ray Smith, he established Pixar in 1986. While at Pixar, Catmull played a vital role in the creation of the RenderMan rendering system, a system that was utilized in the production of films such as Toy Story and Finding Nemo.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored Catmull with his initial Academy Award in 1993, recognizing "the development of PhotoRealistic RenderMan software which produces images used in motion pictures from 3D computer descriptions of shape and appearance." He was again the recipient of an Academy Award in 1996 "for pioneering inventions in Digital Image Compositing". In 2001, he was once again awarded an Oscar "for significant advancements to the field of motion picture rendering as exemplified in Pixar's RenderMan."
Edwin Catmull joined Lucasfilm Ltd. in 1979, working for George Lucas. During his time there, he was instrumental in developing digital image compositing technology, enabling the seamless combination of multiple images.
- Edwin Catmull on Wikipedia
- Edwin Catmull at the Internet Movie Database
- Robert L. Cook , Loren Carpenter , and Edwin Catmull. "The Reyes image rendering architecture." Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH '87 Proceedings) , pp. 95–102.