Stanford 3D computer graphics pioneer Pat Hanrahan wins $1M Turing Award | Computing - Stanford Report

Hanrahan splits the prize with one-time mentor and Pixar colleague Ed Catmull. The pair’s work continues to transform film, video games, virtual reality and more by Andrew Myers, associate director of communications at the Stanford University School of Engineering. 

Ed Catmull, left, and Pat Hanrahan were instrumental in the development of computer-generated imagery, known as C.G.I.
Photo: Pixar/Deborah Coleman (Catmull) - Andrew Brodhead/Stanford University

In recognition of his “revolutionary impact” on computer-generated animation, Stanford computer scientist and engineer Patrick M. “Pat” Hanrahan will share the 2019 Turing Award from the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) – often described as the “Nobel Prize” of computing.

“The announcement came totally out of the blue and I am very proud to accept the Turing Award,” said Hanrahan, who is the Canon Professor in the School of Engineering and a professor of computer science and of electrical engineering at Stanford University. “It is a great honor, but I must give credit to a generation of computer graphics researchers and practitioners whose work and ideas influenced me over the years.”
Hanrahan splits the award and its $1 million prize with one-time mentor and colleague Edward “Ed” Catmull, former president of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios. The pair’s recognition marks only the second time that the award has been given for computer graphics...

While at Stanford, Hanrahan pioneered many new techniques in computer graphics, including “physically based rendering,” a way of modeling light sources and materials and then simulating the process of light interacting with them in a virtual scene. Hanrahan has taught the course CS348b: Computer Image Synthesis, since his arrival at Stanford; this led to a book on the topic, titled Physically Based Rendering: From Theory to Implementation, written by his former graduate students Matt Pharr and Greg Humphreys. The book explains how to implement a ray tracer using “literate programming,” a technique invented by Donald Knuth, another Turing laureate from Stanford.
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Physically Based Rendering:
From Theory to Implementation

Source: Stanford Report