Behind the Turing Award: An Oscar for Everything, a Company Sold for 16 Billion
ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) announced today that Patrick M. Hanrahan and Edwin E. Catmull have been honored with the 2019 ACM AM Turing Award.
Turing Award officially announced, Google joins the party
ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) announced today that Patrick M. Hanrahan and Edwin E. Catmull have been honored with the 2019 ACM AM Turing Award.
In recognition of their contributions to 3D computer graphics and their revolutionary impact on applications such as filmmaking and computer-generated imagery (CGI).
The two winners will also jointly receive a $1 million prize from Google.
Edwin Catmull: Turing Award winner with 16 statuettes
Edwin Catmull is a famous computer scientist and former president of Disney Animation and Pixar Studios (resigned at the end of 2018). He participated in the founding of the NYIT Computer Graphics Laboratory, the originator of modern visual effects. The laboratory still provides special effects services to companies such as Disney, IBM, HBO, and ESPN.
From computer school to Hollywood
After receiving his Ph.D. in computer technology from the University of Utah, Edwin Catmull was hired by George Lucas (director of the Star Wars series) in 1979 to lead the computer department of Lucasfilm.
Then in 1986, Edwin Catmull, with the help of Jobs, acquired the computer division of Lucasfilm and co-founded Pixar Studios.
In 1995, Pixar released its first work, "Toy Story", which was also the world's first computer animation work. A total of 21 animated films have been released, and two more will be released in 2020.
7.4 billion US dollars to continue the animation dream
In 2006, Disney acquired Pixar Studios for US$7.4 billion and he was appointed president of Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Studios.
To date, these films have won a total of 16 Academy Awards and have grossed over $13 billion worldwide.
Until 2018, when 72-year-old Edwin Catmull announced his retirement, he said:
“I went from George Lucas’s request to bring technology to the film industry to Steve Jobs’ vision and with the support of Disney, we animated in the most incredible way.
It’s with mixed emotions that I leave behind a group of people I love, but at the same time, I’m grateful to have worked with such a dedicated and creative group of people at Pixar and Disney Animation.”
Patrick Hanrahan: The billionaire who stays true to his roots
Patrick Hanrahan is a founding member of Pixar Animation Studios and a professor at Stanford University's Computer Graphics Laboratory.
When Pixar Studios was founded in 1986, Patrick Hanrahan joined as an early employee and served as chief architect.
The originator of Hollywood special effects
Based on Edwin Catmull's research, he led his team to develop a special effects rendering standard with epoch-making significance - RenderMan, which is used to render three-dimensional models into digital images. In layman's terms, RenderMan is the most classic renderer in the film special effects industry.
While working at Pixar, Hanrahan also developed volume rendering technology, which produces two-dimensional images based on three-dimensional scalar data. The core of the technology is to show the details of objects, such as smoke and explosions.
RenderMan has now become a standard tool in Hollywood. Among the 47 films nominated for the Academy Award for Special Effects, 44 used RenderMan. Even if there are other tools that can compete with RenderMan, it cannot shake its status and historical significance.
The founder of CUDA
In 1989, Patrick Hanrahan left Pixar and returned to Stanford University.
Hanrahan left Pixar in 1989 to hold academic positions at Princeton University and Stanford University.
Since then, he and his research team have continued to expand RenderMan to make it work in real time on more powerful GPUs. The GPU programming language developed by Hanrahan and his students has also promoted the development of commercial versions (including OpenGL).
They introduced a language for GPUs: Brook, which eventually gave rise to NVIDIA's CUDA.
Started a business with students and was acquired for $16 billion
In 2003, Patrick Hanrahan co-founded the data analysis company Tableau with his student Chris Stolte, which was acquired by Salesforce for approximately $16 billion in 2019.
Today, he is a professor at Stanford University's Computer Graphics Laboratory and is still active in the field of computer graphics.
Ideal situation: Awards in June
In addition, ACM also announced that it will officially present awards to Edwin Catmull and Patrick Hanrahan at the ACM Annual Awards Banquet to be held in San Francisco, California, USA on Saturday, June 20, 2020, without mentioning whether it will be affected by the epidemic.
A $1 million prize sponsored by Google will also be awarded to the two winners at the awards banquet.
However, the companies of these two winners were acquired by Disney for US$7.4 billion and Salesforce for US$16 billion respectively.
This person's $500,000 prize can be put into his bank account as a small amount.
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