Franklin C. Crow
Encyclopedia
Franklin C. Crow or Frank Crow is a computer scientist who has made important contributions to computer graphics
, including some of the first practical anti-aliasing
techniques. Crow also proposed the shadow volume
technique for generating geometrically accurate shadows. Interactive shadow volume rendering was popularized by the Doom 3
computer game.
Crow studied electrical engineering
at the University of Utah
College of Engineering
under Ivan Sutherland
, a pioneer in computer graphics.
He taught at the University of Texas and Ohio State University
and was involved with research at Xerox
PARC
, Apple Computer
's Advanced Technology Group
, and Interval Research.
From 2001 to 2008, he worked for NVIDIA
as a GPU architect designing rasterization algorithms.
Computer graphics
Computer graphics are graphics created using computers and, more generally, the representation and manipulation of image data by a computer with help from specialized software and hardware....
, including some of the first practical anti-aliasing
Anti-aliasing
In digital signal processing, spatial anti-aliasing is the technique of minimizing the distortion artifacts known as aliasing when representing a high-resolution image at a lower resolution...
techniques. Crow also proposed the shadow volume
Shadow volume
Shadow volume is a technique used in 3D computer graphics to add shadows to a rendered scene. They were first proposed by Frank Crow in 1977 as the geometry describing the 3D shape of the region occluded from a light source...
technique for generating geometrically accurate shadows. Interactive shadow volume rendering was popularized by the Doom 3
Doom 3
Doom 3 is a science fiction horror video game developed by id Software and published by Activision. An example of the first-person shooter genre, Doom 3 was first released for Microsoft Windows on August 3, 2004. The game was later adapted for Linux, as well as being ported by Aspyr Media for Mac...
computer game.
Crow studied electrical engineering
Electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...
at the University of Utah
University of Utah
The University of Utah, also known as the U or the U of U, is a public, coeducational research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The university was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret by the General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret, making it Utah's oldest...
College of Engineering
University of Utah College of Engineering
The University of Utah College of Engineering 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:...
under Ivan Sutherland
Ivan Sutherland
Ivan Edward Sutherland is an American computer scientist and Internet pioneer. He received the Turing Award from the Association for Computing Machinery in 1988 for the invention of Sketchpad, an early predecessor to the sort of graphical user interface that has become ubiquitous in personal...
, a pioneer in computer graphics.
He taught at the University of Texas and Ohio State University
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...
and was involved with research at Xerox
Xerox
Xerox Corporation is an American multinational document management corporation that produced and sells a range of color and black-and-white printers, multifunction systems, photo copiers, digital production printing presses, and related consulting services and supplies...
PARC
PARC
PARC or Parc may refer to:* PARC , the Palo Alto Research Center * PARC Management, a theme park and entertainment venue operator...
, Apple Computer
Apple Computer
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...
's Advanced Technology Group
Advanced Technology Group
The Advanced Technology Group was a corporate research laboratory at Apple Computer from 1986 to 1997. ATG was started by Larry Tesler in October 1986 to study long term research into future technologies that were beyond the time frame or organizational scope of any individual product group. Over...
, and Interval Research.
From 2001 to 2008, he worked for NVIDIA
NVIDIA
Nvidia is an American global technology company based in Santa Clara, California. Nvidia is best known for its graphics processors . Nvidia and chief rival AMD Graphics Techonologies have dominated the high performance GPU market, pushing other manufacturers to smaller, niche roles...
as a GPU architect designing rasterization algorithms.
Publications
- "Parallel Computing for Graphics." Advances in Computer Graphics, 1990:113-140.
- "Parallelism in rendering algorithms." in Graphics Interface 88, June 6–10, 1988, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. p. 87-96
- "Advanced Image Synthesis - Anti-Aliasing." Advances in Computer Graphics, 1985:419-440.
- "Advanced Image Synthesis - Surfaces." Advances in Computer Graphics, 1985:457-467.
- "Computational Issues in Rendering Anti-Aliased Detail." COMPCON, 1982:238-244.
- "Toward more complicated computer imagery." Computers & Graphics, 5(2-4):61-69 (1980).
- "The Aliasing Problem in Computer-Generated Shaded Images." Commun. ACM, 20(11):799-805 (1977).
- "Shadow Algorithms for Computer Graphics", Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH '77 Proceedings), vol. 11, no. 2, 242-248.