Interviewing either Kurt Akeley or Pat Hanrahan for this month’s special report on GPUs would have been a great opportunity, so needless to say we were delighted when both of these graphics-programming veterans agreed to participate.
Akeley was part of the founding Silicon Graphics team in 1982 and worked there for almost 20 years, during which he led the development of several high-end graphics systems, including GTX, VGX, and RealityEngine. He’s also known for his pioneering work on OpenGL, the industry-standard programming interface for high-performance graphics hardware. Akeley is now a principal
researcher at Microsoft
Research Silicon Valley,
where he works on cutting-
edge projects in graphics
system architecture, high-
performance computing, and display design.
THE EVOLUTION
OF THE GPU
Hanrahan also has years of experience in computer graphics, including industry positions at Pixar and DEC and academic posts at Princeton and Stanford, where he currently teaches and does research. While at Pixar, Hanrahan helped design the RenderMan Interface Specification, integral in creating the sleek, photorealistic images
KURT
PAT
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