Yesterday, Monday the 6th of February, I had the pleasure to sit down and enjoy a cup of cappuccino with one of the most influential figures in the field of splines and its used in Computer Graphics and Geometric Modeling. I had coffee with Brian Barsky, co-author of the book “An Introduction to Splines for use in Computer Graphics and Geometric Modeling”.
It was a nice afternoon and could not have asked for a better bay-area day. No clouds, sunny and by the time we met for coffee, the sun had began to set in. The UC Berkeley campus was a block away from where we sitting and by the time we got our drinks the action on the street was happening with students filling up the sidewalk with murmurs about classes, school topics and where to catch dinner and planning for the day ahead.
But inside the coffee shop it was different. It was relatively quiet. And after we got our coffee’s, we sat and managed to chat for about two hours, perhaps a bit longer, on topics ranging from splines, digital/film photography, to mobile devices and its use in medicine, and other technologies that will carry us into the future.
To transcribe the over two hours of talk would do injustice to our chat, but having coffee with one of the giants in a field of computer graphics, which has given us the special effects we see today in movies, and its use in other fields is purely amazing. Dr. Barsky was very effusive, and he glistened while taking about current and future technologies and how we can use those technologies in the mobile world to bring the world closer than what it is now.
Thank you Dr. Barsky for allowing me to enjoy a cup of coffee with you while we talked about “splines” and other topics.
Barsky’s book
To learn more about Dr. Barsky, visit his web site >>
Coincidentally, Dr. Tony DeRose, who is now Research Group Lead at Pixar Animation Studios >> was Dr. Barsky’s PhD. student.
Carlos.