James (Jim) F. Blinn
Most Recent Affiliation(s):
- Microsoft Research
Other Affiliation(s):
- California Institute of Technology
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory
- University of Utah
Website:
Bio:
Excerpt from Jim Blinn’s Web Corner:
Jim Blinn made his first computer generated pictures in 1968 while an undergraduate at the University of Michigan. From 1974 to 1977 he was a graduate student at the University of Utah where he did research in realistic rendering. The results of this research have become standard techniques in today’s computer animation systems. They include realistic specular lighting models, bump mapping and environment/reflection mapping. In 1977 he received a Ph.D. and moved to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he produced computer graphics animations for various space missions to Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. These animations were shown on many news broadcasts as part of the press coverage of the missions and were the first exposure to computer animation for many people in the industry today. Also at JPL he produced animation for the PBS series COSMOS and for the Annenberg/CPB funded project “The Mechanical Universe”, a 52 part telecourse to teach college level physics. During these productions he developed several other standard computer graphics techniques including work in cloud simulation and a modeling technique variously called blobbies or metaballs. From 1989 to 1995 he worked at Caltech producing animations to teach High School mathematics for “Project Mathematics!” From 1987 to 2007 he had a regular column called Jim Blinn’s Corner in the IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications journal where he described mathematical techniques used in computer graphics. These have been collected into three books. From 1995 to 2009 he worked at Microsoft Research as a Graphics Fellow developing a new mathematical notation scheme that greatly simplifies the algebraic description and manipulation of curves and surfaces. He is currently retired.
- 1970 B.S. University of Michigan, Physics and Communications Science
- 1972 M.S.E University of Michigan, Computer, Information and Control Engineering
- 1978 Ph.D. University of Utah, Computer Science
SIGGRAPH 1993
Jim is a professor at the California Institute of Technology and prominent contributor to Computer Graphics. His many papers have greatly influenced Computer Graphics and are amongst the most Cited works in the field. Jim is a recent recipient of a prestigious MacArthur Foundation grant for his work in educational computer graphics animation.
Course Organizer:
- SIGGRAPH 1983, "Advanced Image Synthesis"
- SIGGRAPH 1979, "Advanced Image Synthesis"
- SIGGRAPH 1981, "State-of-the-Art in Image Synthesis"
- SIGGRAPH 1987, "The Mechanical Universe an Integrated View of a Large Scale Animation Project"
- SIGGRAPH 1994, "Animation Tricks"
- SIGGRAPH 1978, "Introduction to Raster Graphics Tutorial"
- SIGGRAPH 2001, "Using Tensor Diagrams to Represent and Solve Geometric Problems"
- SIGGRAPH 2002, "Using Tensor Diagrams to Represent and Solve Geometric Problems"
Experience Jury Member:
Award(s):
- SIGGRAPH 1983 Computer Graphics Achievement Award: Blinn
- SIGGRAPH 1999 Steven Anson Coons Award: Blinn
Artwork(s):
Learning Presentation(s):

Type: [Panels]
History Of The JPL Computer Graphics Lab
Presenter(s): [Gomez] [Blinn] [Em] [Rueff]
Entry No.: [08]
[SIGGRAPH 2017]

Type: [Courses]
Using Tensor Diagrams to Represent and Solve Geometric Problems
Organizer(s): [Blinn]
Presenter(s): [Blinn]
Entry No.: [25]
[SIGGRAPH 2002]

Type: [Courses]
How to Give a Great SIGGRAPH Talk
Organizer(s): [Poynton]
Presenter(s): [Poynton] [Blinn] [Glassner] [Morris]
Entry No.: [41]
[SIGGRAPH 2001]

Type: [Courses]
Using Tensor Diagrams to Represent and Solve Geometric Problems
Organizer(s): [Blinn]
Presenter(s): [Blinn]
Entry No.: [18]
[SIGGRAPH 2001]

Type: [Courses]
Visualizing Mathematics
Organizer(s): [Banks]
Presenter(s): [Banks] [Blinn] [Kim] [Max] [Munzner]
Entry No.: [29]
[SIGGRAPH 1995]

Type: [Courses]
Animation Tricks
Organizer(s): [Blinn]
Presenter(s): [Blinn] [Henne] [Lasseter] [Perlin] [Wedge]
Entry No.: [01]
[SIGGRAPH 1994]

Type: [Courses]
Modeling, Visualizing, and Animating Implicit Surfaces
Organizer(s): [Bloomenthal] [Wyvill]
Presenter(s): [Bloomenthal] [Wyvill] [Bajaj] [Beier] [Blinn] [Hart] [Wyvill]
Entry No.: [25]
[SIGGRAPH 1993]

Type: [Panels]
Beyond Scientific Visualization: Mapping Information
Organizer(s): [Cox]
Presenter(s): [Blinn] [Ellson] [Leonardt Hendricks]
Entry No.: [05]
[SIGGRAPH 1990]

Type: [Courses]
Modeling and Animating With Implicit Surfaces
Organizer(s): [Wyvill] [Bloomenthal]
Presenter(s): [Bloomenthal] [Wyvill] [Beier] [Blinn] [Rockwood] [Wyvill]
Entry No.: [23]
[SIGGRAPH 1990]

Type: [Courses]
Computer Graphics and the Sciences
Organizer(s): [Cook]
Presenter(s): [Cook] [Barr] [Blinn] [Carpenter] [Drebin] [Haber] [Olson]
Entry No.: [27]
[SIGGRAPH 1987]

Type: [Courses]
The Mechanical Universe an Integrated View of a Large Scale Animation Project
Organizer(s): [Blinn]
Presenter(s): [Blinn]
Entry No.: [06]
[SIGGRAPH 1987]

Type: [Courses]
Developments in Ray Tracing
Organizer(s): [Barr]
Presenter(s): [Barr] [Arvo] [Inakage] [Kajiya] [Blinn] [Cook] [Whitted]
Entry No.: [12]
[SIGGRAPH 1986]

Type: [Courses]
Geometry for Computer Graphics and Computer Aided Design
Organizer(s): [Goldman]
Presenter(s): [Goldman] [Blinn] [Sederberg] [DeRose]
Entry No.: [10]
[SIGGRAPH 1986]

Type: [Courses]
Image Rendering Tricks
Organizer(s): [Whitted]
Presenter(s): [Whitted] [Cook] [Hall] [Blinn] [Carpenter]
Entry No.: [16]
[SIGGRAPH 1986]

Type: [Courses]
Image Rendering Tricks
Organizer(s): [Cook]
Presenter(s): [Blinn] [Carpenter] [Chuang] [Cook] [Whitted]
Entry No.: [12]
[SIGGRAPH 1985]

Type: [Courses]
Advanced Image Synthesis
Organizer(s): [Crow]
Presenter(s): [Blinn] [Crow] [Perlin] [Whitted]
Entry No.: [12]
[SIGGRAPH 1984]

Type: [Courses]
Interdisciplinary Issues in Computer Art and Design
Organizer(s): [Dietrich] [Sorensen]
Presenter(s): [Blinn] [Dietrich] [Durinski] [Em] [Kawaguchi] [Kim] [King] [Nahas] [Nessim] [Palyka] [Sorensen] [Truckenbrod] [Whitney]
Entry No.: [23]
[SIGGRAPH 1984]

Type: [Courses]
The Mathematics of Computer Graphics
Organizer(s): [Barr] [Kajiya]
Presenter(s): [Barr] [Barsky] [Blinn] [Duff] [Guibas] [Kajiya] [Mandelbrot]
Entry No.: [15]
[SIGGRAPH 1984]

Type: [Courses]
Advanced Image Synthesis
Organizer(s): [Blinn]
Presenter(s): [Blinn] [Crow] [Whitted]
Entry No.: [09]
[SIGGRAPH 1983]

Type: [Courses]
The Artist/Designer and Computer Graphics
Organizer(s): [Molnar] [Sorensen]
Presenter(s): [Sorensen] [Gerbarg] [Blinn] [McDermott] [Molnar] [Taylor] [Em] [DeWitt] [Dietrich] [Culver]
Entry No.: [18]
[SIGGRAPH 1983]

Type: [Courses]
State-of-the-Art in Image Synthesis
Organizer(s): [Catmull]
Presenter(s): [Catmull] [Blinn] [Cook] [Carpenter] [Stock]
Entry No.: [13]
[SIGGRAPH 1982]

Type: [Courses]
Advanced Image Synthesis
Organizer(s): [Whitted]
Presenter(s): [Whitted] [Blinn] [Williams] [Feibush]
Entry No.: [L]
[SIGGRAPH 1981]

Type: [Courses]
State-of-the-Art in Image Synthesis
Organizer(s): [Blinn]
Presenter(s): [Blinn] [Lundin] [Em] [Robinson] [Whitted]
Entry No.: [R]
[SIGGRAPH 1981]

Type: [Courses]
Three-Dimensional Computer Animation
Organizer(s): [Williams]
Presenter(s): [Williams] [Badler] [Stern] [Kovacs] [Demos] [Blinn]
Entry No.: [N]
[SIGGRAPH 1981]

Type: [Courses]
Advanced (3D) Raster Graphics
Organizer(s): [Whitted]
Presenter(s): [Crow] [Blinn] [Catmull] [Fuchs] [Clark] [Whitted] [Smith] [Williams]
Entry No.: [06]
[SIGGRAPH 1980]