Stanford professor awarded Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation

Pat Hanrahan, professor of computer science and co-founder of Tableau Software, was awarded Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ annual Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation for the third time in his career.

He will be officially honored at The Beverly Hills Hotel in mid-February.

Hanrahan will be recognized for his work in physically based rendering, which lends greater flexibility for digital artists in cinematography and allows computer graphics to more accurately simulate materials and lights. Hanrahan also co-authored a textbook, “Physically Based Rendering,” in 2004, which is widely used as a roadmap for source-code implementation for computer graphics.

In the past, Hanrahan has worked at Pixar Animation Studios and was the chief architect of the RenderMan Interface, which eases the digital communication between modeling programs and high quality rendering programs.