James F. Blinn (born 1949) is an American computer scientist who first became widely known for his work as a computer graphics expert at

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in the City of La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States. Founded in the 1930s by Caltech researchers, JPL is owned by NASA an ...

(JPL), particularly his work on the pre-encounter animations for the Voyager project, his work on the 1980

Carl Sagan Carl Edward Sagan (; ; November 9, 1934December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, planetary scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is research on ext ...

documentary series ''

Cosmos The cosmos (, ) is another name for the Universe. Using the word ''cosmos'' implies viewing the universe as a complex and orderly system or entity. The cosmos, and understandings of the reasons for its existence and significance, are studied in ...

'', and the research of the Blinn–Phong shading model. In 2000, Blinn was elected a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy ...

for contributions to the technology of educational use of computer graphics and for expository articles. He is credited with formulating Blinn's Law, which asserts that rendering time tends to remain constant, even as computers get faster. Animators prefer to improve quality, rendering more complex scenes with more sophisticated algorithms, rather than using less time to do the same work as before.

Biography

In 1970, he received his bachelor's degree in physics and communications science, and later a master's degree in engineering from the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

. In 1978 he received a Ph.D. in

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

from the

College of Engineering Engineering education is the activity of teaching knowledge and principles to the professional practice of engineering. It includes an initial education ( bachelor's and/or master's degree), and any advanced education and specializations tha ...

at 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 De ...

. Blinn devised new methods to represent how objects and light interact in a three-dimensional virtual world, like

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

and

bump mapping Bump mapping is a texture mapping technique in computer graphics for simulating bumps and wrinkles on the surface of an object. This is achieved by perturbing the surface normals of the object and using the perturbed normal during lighting cal ...

. He is well known for creating animation for three television series:

's '' Cosmos: A Personal Voyage''; '' Project MATHEMATICS!''; and the pioneering instructional graphics in ''

The Mechanical Universe ''The Mechanical Universe...And Beyond'' is a 52-part telecourse, filmed at the California Institute of Technology, that introduces university level physics, covering topics from Copernicus to quantum mechanics. The 1985-86 series was produced by ...

''. His simulations of the Voyager spacecraft visiting

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and

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...

have been seen widely. Blinn was affiliated with the

at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

until 1995. Thereafter, he joined

Microsoft Research Microsoft Research (MSR) is the research subsidiary of Microsoft. It was created in 1991 by Richard Rashid, Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold with the intent to advance state-of-the-art computing and solve difficult world problems through technologi ...

, where he was a graphics fellow until his retirement in 2009. Blinn also 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 cybersecu ...

during the summer of 1976.

Jim Blinn's Corner

From 1987 to 2007, Blinn wrote a column for '' IEEE Computer Graphics & Applications'' called "Jim Blinn's Corner". He wrote a total of 83 columns, most of which were reprinted in these books: * Blinn, James F.: ''Jim Blinn's Corner: Dirty Pixels'', Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., * Blinn, James F.: ''Jim Blinn's Corner: A Trip Down The Graphics Pipeline'', Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., * Blinn, James F.: ''Jim Blinn's Corner: Notation, Notation, Notation'', Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc.,

Select Publications

* Blinn, James F.: ''Simulation of Wrinkled Surfaces'', Computer Graphics, Vol. 12 (3), pp. 286–292 SIGGRAPH-ACM (August 1978) * Blinn, James F.: ''Texture and Reflection In Computer Generated Images'', CACM, 19(10), October 1976, pp 542–547. * Blinn, James F.: ''Models of Light Reflection for Computer Synthesized Pictures'', SIGGRAPH 77, pp 192–198. * Blinn, James F.: ''A Generalization of Algebraic Surface Drawing'',

ACM Transactions on Graphics ''ACM Transactions on Graphics'' (TOG) is a bimonthly peer-reviewed scientific journal that covers the field of computer graphics. It was established in 1982 and is published by the Association for Computing Machinery. TOG publishes two special ...

, 1(3), July 1982, pp 235–256. * Blinn, James F.: ''Light Reflection Functions for the Simulation of Clouds and Dusty Surfaces'', SIGGRAPH 82, pp 21–29.

Awards

* 1983, NASA Exceptional Service medal for Voyager Fly-by animation. * 1983,

SIGGRAPH SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques) is an annual conference on computer graphics (CG) organized by the ACM SIGGRAPH, starting in 1974. The main conference is held in North America; SIGGRAPH Asia ...

Computer Graphics Achievement Award. * 1989, IEEE Outstanding Contribution Award for ''Jim Blinn's Corner''. * 1991,

MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to ...

in recognition of and to allow continuation of his work in educational animation. * 1995, Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the

Parsons School of Design Parsons School of Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is a private art and design college located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhatt ...

for contributions to computer graphics. * 1999,

Steven A. Coons Award 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 f ...

for Outstanding Creative Contributions to Computer Graphics. * 2000, Elected to the

References

External links