As a child, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Catmull">Edwin Catmull </a>was fascinated with Disney cartoons, especially the animated feature films. He wanted to be an animator when he grew up, but found no path to the profession in the 1960s, so he went to college and studied physics and computer science. Catmull became interested in computer imaging. In 1972, he collaborated with another University of Utah College of Engineering PhD candidate named <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_Parke">Fred Parke</a> to make what is believed to be the first computer animation. They made a model of Catmull's hand and rendered it digitally. They later made a model of Parke's wife's face and did the same. The footage was used in the 1976 film Futureworld.

Yes, the film is very low quality, but imagine pointing an affordable movie camera at a computer screen in 1972. They were working with a grant from ARPA, which may imply a bottomless well, but those funds were distributed among a great many computer scientists. In 1977, Catmull went to work as an animator for George Lucas' company Industrial Light and Magic, which spun off in 1986 into a new company called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixar">Pixar</a> with Catmull as its president. When Disney bought Pixar in 2006, Catmull got the additional title of President of Walt Disney Animation Studios, which he held until his retirement in 2018.#CGI #computer #computeranimation #EdwinCatmull&nbsp;&nbsp;