[comp.graphics] Patent On Jittered Sampling

gessel@cs.swarthmore.edu (Daniel Mark Gessel) (08/27/90)

It was recently posted that Jittered Sampling is patented by Pixar.

Can somebody verify this and/or explain exactly what Jittered Sampling
means in terms of it's patent (or tell me how to get a hold of a copy of
the patent, if it exists).

Thanks,

Dan

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larry@csccat.UUCP (Larry Spence) (08/28/90)

In article <LGKPSWD@cs.swarthmore.edu> gessel@cs.swarthmore.edu (Daniel Mark Gessel) writes:
>It was recently posted that Jittered Sampling is patented by Pixar.

Is this true?  I have the latest issue of BYTE sitting before me. In their
"BYTE Summit," Alvy Ray Smith says,

    "One of things I see holding us up is software patent issues,
     a monster that's raised its head in the past year or two....
     I'm very afraid that the patent issues are going to stifle the
     innovation we currently enjoy in the software industry."

Smith is the cofounder and executive VP of Pixar.  Are you _sure_ Pixar
has patented distributed sampling?

-- 
Larry Spence
larry@csccat
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jan@prisma.cv.ruu.nl (Jan Buitenhuis) (08/28/90)

I wouldn't be that surprised. Pixar already has a patent on Imaging Volume
Data.(Volumetric compositing)

Patent nr. 4,835,712
date of patent: May 30, 1989.
Inventors: Robert A. Drebin, Loren C. Carpenter.
Assignee: PIXAR, San Rafael, Calif.
Filed: Aug. 15, 1986.

Sinc. J.Buitenhuis