Thomas Albert "Tom" DeFanti (born September 18, 1948) is an American

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 pioneer. His work has ranged from early

computer animation Computer animation is the process used for digitally generating animations. The more general term computer-generated imagery (CGI) encompasses both static scenes (still images) and dynamic images (moving images), while computer animation refe ...

, to

scientific visualization Scientific visualization ( also spelled scientific visualisation) is an interdisciplinary branch of science concerned with the visualization of scientific phenomena.Michael Friendly (2008)"Milestones in the history of thematic cartography, stat ...

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), educ ...

, and

grid computing Grid computing is the use of widely distributed computer resources to reach a common goal. A computing grid can be thought of as a distributed system with non-interactive workloads that involve many files. Grid computing is distinguished from co ...

. He is a distinguished professor of Computer Science at the

University of Illinois at Chicago The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a Public university, public research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its campus is in the Near West Side, Chicago, Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus esta ...

, and a research scientist at the

California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology The California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2, previously Cal(IT)2), also referred to as the Qualcomm Institute (QI) at its San Diego branch, is a $400 million academic research institution jointly run by the ...

(Calit2).

Education and early life

Born September 18, 1948 in

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

, New York City, New York and attended

Stuyvesant High School Stuyvesant High School (pronounced ), commonly referred to among its students as Stuy (pronounced ), is a State school, public university-preparatory school, college-preparatory, Specialized high schools in New York City, specialized high school ...

. In 1969, DeFanti received a B.A. in Mathematics from

Queens College Queens College (QC) is a public college in the Queens borough of New York City. It is part of the City University of New York system. Its 80-acre campus is primarily located in Flushing, Queens. It has a student body representing more than 170 ...

, and in 1970 he received a M.S. in Computer Information Science from Ohio State University. In 1973 he received a Ph.D. in Computer Information Science from Ohio State University, studying under

Charles Csuri Charles Csuri (July 4, 1922 – February 27, 2022), better known as Chuck Csuri, was an American artist and computer art pioneer, described by the '' Smithsonian'' magazine as the "father of digital art and computer animation." Biography Digital ...

in the Computer Graphics Research Group. For his dissertation, he created the

GRASS programming language GRASS (''GRAphics Symbiosis System'') is a programming language created to script 2D vector graphics animations. GRASS was similar to BASIC in syntax, but added numerous instructions for specifying 2D object animation, including scaling, translati ...

, a three-dimensional, real-time animation system usable by computer novices.

Work

In 1973, he joined the faculty of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and with Daniel J. Sandin, he founded the Circle Graphics Habitat, now known as the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL). At UIC, DeFanti further developed the GRASS language, and later created an improved version, ZGRASS, implemented on the low-cost Datamax UV-1. The GRASS and ZGRASS languages have been used by a number of computer artists, including

Larry Cuba Larry Cuba (born 1950) is a computer-animation artist who became active in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Born in 1950 in Atlanta, Georgia, he received A.B. from Washington University in St. Louis in 1972 and his Master's Degree from California In ...

, in his film ''3/78'' and the animated Death Star sequence for

Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...

. Later significant work done at EVL includes development of the graphics system for the Bally Technologies home computer, invention of the first

data glove A wired glove (also called a dataglove or cyberglove) is an input device for human–computer interaction worn like a glove. Various sensor technologies are used to capture physical data such as bending of fingers. Often a motion tracker, such ...

, co-editing the 1987

NSF NSF may stand for: Political organizations *National Socialist Front, a Swedish National Socialist party *NS-Frauenschaft, the women's wing of the former German Nazi party *National Students Federation, a leftist Pakistani students' political gr ...

-sponsored report ''Visualization in Scientific Computing'' that outlined the emerging discipline of scientific visualization, invention of PHSColograms, and invention of the CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment. DeFanti's current work includes heading the TransLight/StarLight international multi-gigabit networking project and co-directing the OptIPuter optical networking and visualization project. DeFanti contributed greatly to the growth of the

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 ...

organization and conference. He co-organized early film and video presentations (which became the Electronic Theatre) beginning in 1973, started the SIGGRAPH Video Review archive of computer graphics research in 1979, and served as Chair of the group from 1981 to 1985. DeFanti is a 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 member ...

. He has received the 1988 ACM Outstanding Contribution Award, the 2000

Outstanding Service Award, and the UIC Inventor of the Year Award. In 2018 DeFanti's work and contribution were included in the Chicago New Media 1973-1992 exhibition, curated by jonCates.

Publications

Select books

Select articles and papers

* * * * * * Cruz-Neira, Caroline; Sandin, Daniel; DeFanti, Thomas; R.V. Kenyon and J.C. Hart, "The CAVE: Audio Visual Experience Automatic Virtual Environment," Communications of the ACM, Vol. 35, No. 6, pp. 65–72, June, 1992. * *

References

External links

Thomas A. DeFanti
website at uic.edu {{DEFAULTSORT:Defanti, Tom Computer graphics professionals Virtual reality pioneers Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery University of Illinois Chicago faculty Living people People from Queens, New York Ohio State University College of Engineering alumni Stuyvesant High School alumni Queens College, City University of New York alumni 1948 births