James F. Blinn

James F. Blinn

James "Jim" Frederick Blinn (* 1949 ) is an American computer scientist who did pioneering work in computer graphics .

Blinn received a bachelor's degree in physics and communications from the University of Michigan in 1970 , where he also earned a master's degree in engineering. In 1978 he received his PhD in computer science from the University of Utah . He then went to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory , where he created animations for the Voyager probes, worked at Caltech (during which time he was teaching early computer graphics classes at the College of Design in Pasadena ) and has been with Microsoft Research since 1995 .

Blinn developed Bump Mapping (1978) and was involved in the development of Reflection Mapping ( Blinn lighting model , Blinn Phong Shading 1977).

In wider circles he was also known for the early computer simulations for the Voyager missions (for which he received the NASA Exceptional Service Medal) and for the Cosmos documentary series by Carl Sagan at PBS . At Caltech he worked on animated projects for physics and mathematics education ( The Mechanical Universe , Project Mathematics! ).

From his column in the IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications Journal (for which he received the IEEE Outstanding Contribution Award in 1989) a series of books ( Jim Blinn's Corner ) also emerged.

In 1991 he became a MacArthur Fellow . In 1995 he received an honorary doctorate in fine arts from the Parsons School of Design. In 1983 he received the SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Achievement Award and in 1999 the Steven Anson Coons Award.

Fonts

• Jim Blinn's Corner: Dirty Pixels , Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., ISBN 1-55860-455-3
• Jim Blinn's Corner: A Trip Down The Graphics Pipeline , Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., ISBN 1-55860-387-5
• Jim Blinn's Corner: Notation, Notation , Notation, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., ISBN 1-55860-860-5
• Simulation of Wrinkled Surfaces , Computer Graphics, Volume 12, 1978, pp. 286-292 (Bump Mapping)
• Texture and Reflection In Computer Generated Images , Communications of the ACM, Volume 19, 1976, pp. 542-547
• Models of Light Reflection for Computer Synthesized Pictures , Computer Graphics, 1977, SIGGRAPH 77, pp. 192-198 (Blinn-Phong Shading).
• A Generalization of Algebraic Surface Drawing , ACM Transactions on Graphics, Volume 1, 1982, pp. 235-256 ( Metaball Algorithm).
• Light Reflection Functions for the Simulation of Clouds and Dusty Surfaces , Computer Graphics 1982, SIGGRAPH 82, pp. 21-29.

Web links

• MacArthur Fellow website