wm (06/25/82)
This letter is in response to Tom Duff's message. I apologize for implying that Jim Blinn worked on STII. Taken out of context, I can see how someone would think that I was saying that. My message was a hastily drafted flame that was entered in response to someone else's message in net.movies that implied that Lucasfilm was almost completely responsible for the current state of the art in computer graphics (I think one of their statements was something like "... using techniques developed at Lucasfilm"). You are correct, Ed Catmull did pioneer texture mapping (but again, this work was not done at Lucasfilm). I mentioned Blinn because of the outstanding work he has done in the area, but I did not mean to imply that he had anything to do with STII. My message was about who had developed certain algorithms, not who had done the work on STII. I have nothing but respect for the people at Lucas and IL&M, and their fine work. Thank you very much for setting the record straight about who had done what on the movie. I should have known better, though. In his review of Siggraph '81 in Creative Computing, Ted Nelson credited our lab for some images produced elsewhere, including one by Loren Carpenter. Where he got his information, I don't know (certainly not from us), but after trying to straighten that out, you would think that I would think long and hard before I go and credit someone for some work. I did show the message to one other graphics person here before sending it out, and he didn't catch the Blinn/Catmull switch either. *sigh* Wm Leler decvax!duke!unc!wm p.s. Does this mean I can't get a job with you after all?