Chicago, Ill. - ACM SIGGRAPH has announced Ed Catmull, a pioneer in the entertainment and film industry and co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios, as one of the featured speakers at SIGGRAPH 2008, the 35th International Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques.
Catmull, president of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios, has played a major role throughout the past 30 years in the invention of some of today's most fundamental computer graphics practices used widely across the motion picture industry.
He is one of the original architects of the RenderMan rendering software system, which has been used to create blockbuster animated hits such as Toy Story and Finding Nemo, as well as 44 of the last 47 Visual Effects nominations to the Academy Awards.
"Dr. Catmull's innovations and leadership encompass his true passion for the computer graphics industry," states Jacquelyn Martino, SIGGRAPH 2008 Conference Chair from IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. "A great deal of what is done today with animation and computer graphics in motion pictures would not be possible without his inventions and contributions. Given that SIGGRAPH is celebrating its 35th conference, we could think of no one individual that could represent the evolution of the industry better than Dr. Catmull."
Catmull has been honored with numerous industry awards for his contributions including four Academy Awards; one in Technical Achievement, two in Scientific and Engineering, as well as one Academy Award of Merit. He is a Fellow of ACM, and has been involved with SIGGRAPH conferences for more than 30 years serving as chair of the Papers, Awards, and Technical Program committees.
In 1993, he was awarded ACM's Steven A. Coons Award honoring his lifetime contributions to the computer graphics industry. In addition to his own professional achievements, Catmull founded three of the most renowned computer graphics research centers, including the computer graphics laboratory at the New York Institute of Technology and the computer division of both Lucasfilm, Ltd. and Pixar Animation Studios.