Frederic Ira Parke is an American computer graphics researcher and academic. He did early work on animated computer renderings of human faces. Parke graduated from the

University of Utah The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of ...

with a BS degree in physics in 1965. He was then a graduate student of the

University of Utah College of Engineering The College of Engineering at the University of Utah is an academic college of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah. The college offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering and computer science. History The College of Eng ...

where he received his MS (1972) and PhD (1974) in computer science. In 1972, in a project partially financed by

DARPA The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Adv ...

, Parke made the first

3D animation Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anim ...

of a

representation Representation may refer to: Law and politics * Representation (politics), political activities undertaken by elected representatives, as well as other theories ** Representative democracy, type of democracy in which elected officials represent a ...

of a human face, his wife's face. This animation used a wireframe geometry overlaid with

Gouraud shading Gouraud shading, named after Henri Gouraud, is an interpolation method used in computer graphics to produce continuous shading of surfaces represented by polygon meshes. In practice, Gouraud shading is most often used to achieve continuous l ...

that produces approximate renderings of curved surfaces. The technique was invented by Parke's Utah colleague Henri Gouraud.

A Computer Animated Face

In 1974, he created a more complex, parametric model of a human face, demonstrating various expressions and speech synchronization. Snippets of this animation, along with

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

's 1972 animation of his left hand, were used in the 1976 film ''

Futureworld ''Futureworld'' is a 1976 American science fiction thriller film directed by Richard T. Heffron and written by Mayo Simon and George Schenck. It is a sequel to the 1973 Michael Crichton film ''Westworld'', and is the second installment in the ...

''. Several of the faces also appeared in the music video of

Miley Cyrus Miley Ray Cyrus ( ; born Destiny Hope Cyrus on November 23, 1992) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Known for her distinctive raspy voice, her music spans across varied styles and genres, including pop, country, rock, hip ho ...

' 2013 song "

We Can't Stop "We Can't Stop" is a song by American singer Miley Cyrus, from her fourth studio album '' Bangerz'' (2013). It was released on June 3, 2013, by RCA Records as the lead single from the album. The song was written and produced by Mike Will Mad ...

". He has worked at the

New York Institute of Technology The New York Institute of Technology (NYIT or New York Tech) is a private research university founded in 1955. It has two main campuses in New York—one in Old Westbury, on Long Island, and one in Manhattan. Additionally, it has a cybersecur ...

Computer Graphics Laboratory. Parke teaches at

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public university, public, Land-grant university, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M Unive ...

in the Visualization Sciences program.

References

External links

Homepage
of Frederic I. Parke at Texas A&M University 1943 births Living people Computer graphics professionals Texas A&M University faculty University of Utah alumni New York Institute of Technology faculty Scientists from Salt Lake City {{US-academic-stub