Loren C. Carpenter (born February 7, 1947) is a

computer graphics Computer graphics deals with generating images and art with the aid of computers. Computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, digital art, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. ...

researcher and developer.

Biography

He was a co-founder and chief scientist of

Pixar Animation Studios Pixar (), doing business as Pixar Animation Studios, is an American animation studio based in Emeryville, California, known for its critically and commercially successful computer-animated feature films. Pixar is a subsidiary of Walt Disney S ...

. He is the inventor of the

Reyes rendering Reyes rendering is a computer software architecture used in 3D computer graphics to render photo-realistic images. It was developed in the mid-1980s by Loren Carpenter and Robert L. Cook at Lucasfilm's Computer Graphics Research Group, which is ...

algorithm and is one of the authors of the PhotoRealistic RenderMan software which implements Reyes and renders all of Pixar's movies. Following

Disney's The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...

acquisition of Pixar, Carpenter became a senior research scientist at Disney Research. He retired in early 2014. In around 1967 Carpenter began work at Boeing Computer Services (a part of aircraft maker

Boeing The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...

) in

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is the List of municipalities in Washington, most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the List of Unit ...

. During his time there Carpenter studied for a B.S. in mathematics (1974) and an M.S. in Computer Science (1976), both from the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

. Some of his work concerned using computer technology to improve Boeing's mechanical design processes, which were still entirely done by hand on paper. On July 14, 1980, he gave a presentation at the

SIGGRAPH SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques) is an annual conference centered around computer graphics organized by ACM, starting in 1974 in Boulder, CO. The main conference has always been held in North ...

conference, in which he showed "Vol Libre", a 2-minute computer generated movie. This showcased his software for generating and rendering

fractal In mathematics, a fractal is a Shape, geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales, usually having a fractal dimension strictly exceeding the topological dimension. Many fractals appear similar at various scale ...

ly generated landscapes, and was met with a standing ovation, and (as Carpenter had hoped) he was immediately invited to work at

Lucasfilm Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC is an American film and television production company founded by filmmaker George Lucas in December 10, 1971 in San Rafael, California, and later moved to San Francisco in 2005. It is best known for creating and producing th ...

's Computer Division (which would become Pixar). There Carpenter worked on the "genesis effect" scene of '' Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan'', which featured an entire fractally-landscaped planet. He and his wife Rachel founded Cinematrix, a company that researches computer-assisted interactive audience participation. Carpenter invented the A-buffer

hidden surface determination In 3D computer graphics, hidden-surface determination (also known as shown-surface determination, hidden-surface removal (HSR), occlusion culling (OC) or visible-surface determination (VSD)) is the process of identifying what surfaces and parts o ...

algorithm. The PXR24 compression scheme used in

Industrial Light & Magic Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is an American Film, motion picture visual effects, computer animation and stereo conversion digital studio founded by George Lucas on May 26, 1975. It is a division of the film production company Lucasfilm, which Lu ...

's Open EXR file format is based on Carpenter's work. In 2006 made improvements to the popular

Mersenne Twister The Mersenne Twister is a general-purpose pseudorandom number generator (PRNG) developed in 1997 by and . Its name derives from the choice of a Mersenne prime as its period length. The Mersenne Twister was created specifically to address most of ...

random number generator. As of 2022 Carpenter is working wit
Ostrich Air Inc
an

as a Private Investor and Technical Consultant for their Fully Autonomous AI Driven Fire Fighting Drone Platform.

Computer animation

*'' Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan'' (1982) computer graphics:

*'' André and Wally B.'' (1984) 3D rendering *''

Tin Toy A tin toy, or tin lithograph toy, is a mechanical toy made out of tinplate and colorfully painted by chromolithography to resemble primarily a character or vehicle. History Tinplate was used in the manufacture of toys beginning in the mid-19th ...

'' (1988) elf *''

Toy Story ''Toy Story'' is a 1995 American animated adventure comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. It is the first installment in the Toy Story (franchise), ''Toy Story'' franchise and the Firsts in animation, firs ...

'' (1995) modeling & animation system development/modeling team/renderman software development/shader team *''

A Bug's Life ''A Bug's Life'' (stylized in all lowercase) is a 1998 American animated comedy film directed by John Lasseter from a screenplay written by Andrew Stanton, Donald McEnery, and Bob Shaw, and a story conceived by Lasseter, Stanton, and Joe Ran ...

'' (1998) modeling artist *''

Toy Story 2 ''Toy Story 2'' is a 1999 American animated adventure comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios, and the first sequel to Toy Story. It is the second installment in the Toy Story (franchise), ''Toy Story'' franchise and was directed by J ...

'' (1999) rendering software engineer *''

Monsters, Inc. ''Monsters, Inc.'' (also known as ''Monsters, Incorporated'') is a 2001 American animated comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. Featuring the voices of John Goodman, Billy Crystal, Steve Buscemi, James Cobu ...

'' (2001) additional effects developer *''

Finding Nemo ''Finding Nemo'' is a 2003 American animated comedy-drama adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. The film was directed by Andrew Stanton, co-directed by Lee Unkrich, and produced by Graham Walters, from ...

'' (2003) studio tools research and development *''

The Incredibles ''The Incredibles'' is a 2004 American animated superhero film written and directed by Brad Bird. Produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures, the film stars the voices of Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell, Spencer ...

'' (2004) software engineering *''

Cars A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people rather than cargo. There are around one billio ...

'' (2006) development team: Renderman *''

Ratatouille Ratatouille ( , ; ) is a French Provençal dish of stewed vegetables that originated in Nice and is sometimes referred to as ''ratatouille niçoise'' (). Recipes and cooking times differ widely, but common ingredients include tomato, garlic ...

'' (2007) renderman development *''

WALL-E ''WALL-E'' (stylized with an interpunct as ''WALL·E'') is a 2008 American animated Romance film, romantic science fiction film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. The film was directed by Andrew Stanton, produced b ...

'' (2008): (theme parks: Pixar studio team *'' Up'' (2009) theme parks and 360: Pixar studio team *''

Toy Story 3 ''Toy Story 3'' is a 2010 American animated comedy-drama film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. The third installment in the Toy Story (franchise), ''Toy Story'' series, it was directed by Lee Unkrich, the editor ...

'' (2010) 360 group: Pixar studio team *''

Cars 2 ''Cars 2'' is a 2011 American animated spy comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. It is the sequel to '' Cars'' (2006), the second film in the ''Cars'' franchise, and the 12th animated film from the studio ...

'' (2011) 360 group: Pixar studio team *'' Brave'' (2012) 360 group: Pixar studio team *''

Monsters University ''Monsters University'' is a 2013 American animated Coming-of-age film, coming-of-age comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. A prequel to ''Monsters, Inc.'' (2001), it was directed by Dan Scanlon (in his fea ...

'' (2013) researcher: software research and development, Pixar Studio Team

Awards

* 1985,

ACM SIGGRAPH ACM SIGGRAPH is the international Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques based in New York. It was founded in 1969 by Andy van Dam (its direct predecessor, ACM SICGRAPH was ...

Achievement Award. * 1992, Scientific and Technical Academy Award (Plaque) for his contributions to the motion picture industry through the invention and development of the RenderMan software. * 1994, Distinction by the Prix Ars Electronica jury for his entry ''Kinoetic Evolution'' in the category Interactive Art. * 1995, Fellow of the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional membe ...

. * 2000, Academy Award of Merit (Statuette). * 2017, Cayman Islands International Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award

Bibliography

* Loren Carpenter, "The A -buffer, an antialiased hidden surface method", ''ACM Siggraph Computer Graphics'', vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 103–108, 1984 * Robert L. Cook, Loren Carpenter, and

Edwin Catmull Edwin Earl Catmull (born March 31, 1945) is an American computer scientist and animator who served as the co-founder of Pixar and the President of Walt Disney Animation Studios. He has been honored for his contributions to 3D computer graphics, ...

. "The Reyes image rendering architecture." ''Computer Graphics (

'87 Proceedings)'', pp. 95–102. * Robert L. Cook, Thomas K. Porter, Loren Carpenter, "Distributed ray tracing", ''ACM Siggraph Computer Graphics'', vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 137–145, 1984

References

External links

Cinematrix
from Kevin Kelly's book '' Out of Control'' about Carpenter's Vol Libre animation.
Vol Libre
{{DEFAULTSORT:Carpenter, Loren University of Washington College of Arts and Sciences alumni Computer graphics professionals 1995 fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery 1947 births Living people Pixar people People from Brighton, Michigan Disney Research people Recipients of the Scientific and Technical Academy Award of Merit