Matt Pharr is a

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 applications. A great de ...

researcher and author, and one of the primary originators of the

physically based rendering Physically based rendering (PBR) is a computer graphics approach that seeks to render images in a way that models the flow of light in the real world. Many PBR pipelines aim to achieve photorealism. Feasible and quick approximations of the b ...

process. His research focuses on rendering

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specificat ...

graphics processing unit A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobi ...

s, as well as

scientific illustration An illustration is a decoration, interpretation or visual explanation of a text, concept or process, designed for integration in print and digital published media, such as posters, Flyer (pamphlet), flyers, magazines, books, teaching materials, ...

and

visualization Visualization or visualisation may refer to: *Visualization (graphics), the physical or imagining creation of images, diagrams, or animations to communicate a message * Data visualization, the graphic representation of data * Information visualiz ...

Education and academic work

Pharr graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science from

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

. He then went on to receive his Ph.D. from the

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

Graphics Lab, working under the supervision of

Pat Hanrahan Patrick M. Hanrahan (born 1954) is an American computer graphics researcher, the Canon USA Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering in the Computer Graphics Laboratory at Stanford University. His research focuses on rendering algo ...

on rendering algorithms and systems. He has taught graduate level classes at Stanford, including

Image Synthesis Rendering or image synthesis is the process of generating a photorealistic or non-photorealistic image from a 2D or 3D model by means of a computer program. The resulting image is referred to as the render. Multiple models can be defined ...

Professional career

Pharr joined

Pixar Pixar Animation Studios (commonly known as Pixar () and stylized as P I X A R) is an American computer animation studio known for its critically and commercially successful computer animated feature films. It is based in Emeryville, Californi ...

's Rendering R&D group, working on the

RenderMan Interface Specification The RenderMan Interface Specification, or RISpec in short, is an open API developed by Pixar Animation Studios to describe three-dimensional scenes and turn them into digital photorealistic images. It includes the RenderMan Shading Language. As ...

and the

RenderMan Shading Language Renderman Shading Language (abbreviated RSL) is a component of the RenderMan Interface Specification, and is used to define shaders. The language syntax is C-like. A shader written in RSL can be used without changes on any RenderMan-compliant rend ...

. While at Pixar he was a Rendering Software Engineer for the films

A Bug's Life ''A Bug's Life'' is a 1998 American computer-animated comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. It was the second feature-length film produced by Pixar. Directed by John Lasseter and co-directed by Andrew Stant ...

and

Toy Story 2 ''Toy Story 2'' is a 1999 American computer-animated film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. The second installment in the Toy Story (franchise), ''Toy Story'' franchise and the sequel to ''Toy Story'' (1995), it wa ...

. He then became a co-founder of Exluna, whose flagship product was Entropy, a

RenderMan The name RenderMan can cause confusion because it has been used to refer to different things developed by Pixar Animation Studios: * RenderMan Interface Specification (RISpec), an open API (technical specification) developed by Pixar for a standard ...

renderer based on BMRT. When

Nvidia Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...

acquired Exluna and Entropy in early 2002, he worked in their Software Architecture group. Pharr was the founder and the CEO of Neoptica, which worked on new programming models for graphics on heterogeneous CPU+GPU computer systems. Neoptica was acquired by

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

in 2007. That acquisition led him to the newly formed Advanced Rendering Technology group at Intel, where he wrote the

SPMD In computing, single program, multiple data (SPMD) is a technique employed to achieve parallelism; it is a subcategory of MIMD. Tasks are split up and run simultaneously on multiple processors with different input in order to obtain results fast ...

compiler, originally targeting Larrabee. In March 2013 he joined

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

, and in May 2018 he moved back to Nvidia to work on

real-time rendering Real-time computer graphics or real-time rendering is the sub-field of computer graphics focused on producing and analyzing images in real time. The term can refer to anything from rendering an application's graphical user interface ( GUI) to ...

using Ray tracing and

neural nets Artificial neural networks (ANNs), usually simply called neural networks (NNs) or neural nets, are computing systems inspired by the biological neural networks that constitute animal brains. An ANN is based on a collection of connected units ...

Publications and awards

Pharr has received an Academy Award for his work in rendering and computer graphics. He was awarded in 2014, along with Pat Hanrahan and Greg Humphreys, a Technical Achievement

Oscar Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People * Oscar (given name), an Irish- and English-language name also used in other languages; the article includes the names Oskar, Oskari, Oszkár, Óscar, and other forms. * Oscar (Irish mythology), ...

for their formalization and reference implementation of the concepts behind physically based rendering, as shared in their book ''Physically Based Rendering: From Theory To Implementation''. This is the first time this award has been given for a book. He also co-authored ''GPU Gems 2: Programming Techniques for High-Performance Graphics and General-Purpose Computation'' during his time at Nvidia.

References

External links

Matt Pharr's academic home page

Official website for ''Physically Based Rendering: From Theory To Implementation''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pharr, Matt Living people Computer graphics professionals Stanford University School of Engineering faculty Academy Award for Technical Achievement winners Year of birth missing (living people)