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Uploaded: Wednesday, January 16, 2008, 2:54 PM
Stanford professor to win Academy Award
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 | Computer-generated special effects in the movies "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" will earn a Stanford computer professor and two colleagues an Academy Award on Feb. 9.
Ron Fedkiw of Stanford and two Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) scientists, Nick Rasmussen and Frank Losasso Petterson, developed a method of realistically simulating water and other fluids in motion. Petterson is a former student of Fedkiw's at Stanford.
When a pirate skeleton was drinking wine in "Pirates" and when the ship was sinking in "Poseidon," the images were generated by a system that the three men developed.
Rasmussen and Petterson work at ILM, the Marin County special effects lab started by George Lucas of "Star Wars" fame.
"George Lucas made 'Star Wars' and, well, that changed the world for a lot of us," Fedkiw said. "It's amazing what a movie can do for civilization. I can only be grateful that he made three more of them and that I started working with ILM just in time to get a screen credit on the last one."
The system developed by the three computer scientists to simulate fluids in motion was also used in "Evan Almighty" and was begun when they developed a system for the female liquid terminator in "Terminator 3."
Fedkiw has been invited to attend the Scientific and Technical Academy Awards presentation Feb. 9 at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills.
"After wearing sandals for the last two years -- even in the Lake Tahoe snow -- it's going to be tough to go black tie," he said.
For more information, visit physbam.stanford.edu . -- Don Kazak Are you receiving Express, our free daily e-mail edition? See a sample and sign-up for Express.
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Posted by Huh?, a resident of the Community Center neighborhood, on Jan 16, 2008 at 3:32 pm Hey, wait a minute, aren't we supposed to have to wait until they open the envelope to know who the winner is? Would this be a case of premature dissemination?
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Posted by Tyler Hanley, online editor of Palo Alto Online, on Jan 16, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Tyler Hanley is a member (registered user) of Palo Alto Online Actually, the Scientific & Technical award winners are announced in advance. For more information about the Academy Awards and the Scientific & Technical award winners, visit Web Link .
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Posted by Movie buff, a resident of the Green Acres neighborhood, on Jan 17, 2008 at 12:16 pm Congratulations!! Glad to see technical contributions getting the unique credit it deserves! Glad that we have such talented people in our midst, and that they did not have to migrate to LA to do their work!!
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Posted by What else does he do, a resident of another community, on Jan 19, 2008 at 12:55 am I hope they also do serious work in addition to the fun and games (and money), since one is a professor at a major university.
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Posted by Polly, a resident of the Downtown North neighborhood, on Feb 1, 2008 at 11:00 am It would be nice if just once there was a category on TownSquare without a snide posting. Why do people have to be so negative all the time? When a local wins a prestigious award, I think that's good news. Congratulations.
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Posted by Danny, a resident of the Crescent Park neighborhood, on Feb 1, 2008 at 12:21 pm Welcome to Palo Alto, Polly. Seems like there's always someone out there who feels the need to be snide, sarcastic or negative about any given subject. I remember seeing negative and nasty posts on very uplifting and well-worded threads. I'm with you -- I've grown very weary of all the "holier than thou" and bickery responses to even nice stories like this.
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Posted by Polly, a resident of the Downtown North neighborhood, on Feb 4, 2008 at 5:47 pm I'm sorry to hear that, but thank you for your response, Danny. I'll just keep reading and ignore the rants. :)
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