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 …
