Hanrahan recognized for scientific and technical achievements related to physically based rendering

SEATTLE, Jan. 29, 2014 — (PRNewswire) — Stanford University Professor and Tableau Software (NYSE: DATA) co-founder, Pat Hanrahan, will be honored at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' annual Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation for the third time in his career. The event will take place at The Beverly Hills Hotel on February 15. Hanrahan is the Canon Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Stanford, where Tableau was founded along with Dr. Chris Stolte and Christian Chabot in 2003.

Hanrahan will be honored alongside Matt Pharr and Greg Humphreys for their formalization and reference implementation of the concepts behind physically based rendering, as shared in their book Physically Based Rendering. Physically based rendering has transformed computer graphics lighting by more accurately simulating materials and lights, allowing digital artists to focus on cinematography rather than the intricacies of rendering. First published in 2004, Physically Based Rendering is both a textbook and a complete source-code implementation that has provided a widely adopted practical roadmap for most physically based shading and lighting systems used in film production.

Physically based rendering has transformed computer graphics lighting by more accurately simulating materials and lights. It leverages sophisticated algorithms to enable easier and much more granular use of massive amounts of graphical data, what some might call "big data" today. This has allowed digital artists to focus on cinematography rather than the intricacies of rendering.

"I speak for everyone at Tableau when I say I'm thrilled for Pat and would like to congratulate him on his third award from the Academy," said Chris Stolte, Chief Development Officer and co-founder of Tableau Software. "Pat has obviously contributed widely to the art and science of motion pictures and has an integral role in driving our company. He's incredibly worthy of this recognition."

Hanrahan was an early employee at Pixar Animation Studios and was the chief architect of the RenderMan Interface – a protocol that allows modeling programs to describe scenes to high quality rendering programs. Before joining Stanford he was a faculty member at Princeton. In 1992, he received a Scientific and Engineering Award from the Academy and in 2003 he received a Technical Achievement Award from the Academy. This year, he will receive another Technical Achievement Award. He also holds the Spirit of America Creativity Award, the SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Achievement Award, the SIGGRAPH Stephen A. Coons Award, and the IEEE Visualization Career Award.

For more information on the Academy Awards® for science and technology, visit http://www.oscars.org/science-technology/index.html.

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