Jim Blinn's Corner

For the past 8 years I have been writing a fairly regular column for the IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications journal. These are mostly small mathematical ideas that I have come up with interspersed with some philosophical comments. Here is a list of titles, dates and contents of these articles.

I am in the process of collecting these articles into a book (or two). Watch this space for more detailed publishing information.

• How many ways can you draw a circle? (Aug 1987, vol 7, issue 8)
  A collection of circle drawing algorithms.
• What, Teapots again? (Sep 1987, vol 7, issue 9)
  The database for the teapot in surface-of-revoluton form.
• Nested transformations and blobby man (Oct 1987, vol 7, issue10)
  A syntax for representing nested transforms and some examples.
• Platonic solids (Nov 1987, vol 7, issue11)
  A database for platonic solids with very simple values for vertex coordinates.
• How to write a paper for Siggraph (Dec 1987, vol 7, issue12)
  Some thoughts on what gets a paper accepted
• Me and my (fake) shadow (Jan 1988, vol 8, issue 1)
  How to cast shadows on the ground plane using perspective transformations
• The world's largest easter egg (Mar 1988, vol 8, issue 2)
  Description of some of Ron Resch's construction techniques
• Things I hope not to see or hear at Siggraph (May 1988, vol 8, issue 3)
  Some thoughts on what makes an effective presentation
• Where am I, what am I looking at (Jul 1988, vol 8, issue 4)
  A generalization of the lookat transformation that I used in space movies.
• The 3d kaleidoscope (Sep 1988, vol 8, issue 5)
  Some playing with 3D groups to make related polyhedra and other interesting shapes.
• Fractional invisibility (Nov 1988, vol 8, issue 6)
  A way to remove most of the singuarites in quantitative invisibility types of hidden line algorithms
• What we need around here is more aliasing (Jan 1989, vol 9, issue 1)
  A collection of graphs showing where aliasing comes from and the theory of how to get rid of it
• Return of the Jaggy (Mar 1989, vol 9, issue 2)
  A continuation of above with a discussion of reconstruction filtering.
• How many different cubic curves are there (May 1989, vol 9, issue 3)
  A categorizaion of the types of shapes a homogeneous cubic can generate.
• Dirty pixels (Jul 1989, vol 9, issue 4)
  How to optimally encode intensity into an 8 bit pixel
• Optimal tubes (Sep 1989, vol 9, issue 5)
  A simple modelling primitive for long cylenders that takes into account the viewpoint.
• Cubic curve update (Nov 1989, vol 9, issue 6)
  Fixing some errors in May '89 article
• Triage tables (Jan 1990, vol 10, issue 1)
  A data structure useful in recursive culling situations
• The truth about texture mapping (Mar 1990, vol 10, issue 2)
  Storing texture maps as tiles increases locality of access in virtual memory situations.
• Wonderful world of video (May 1990, vol 10, issue 3)
  Intro to various video signal and tape formats
• The ultimate design tool (Nov 1990, vol 10, issue 6)
  Some thoughts on the early stages of design
• A Trip Down The Graphics Pipeline: Line Clipping (Jan 1991, vol 11, issue 1)
  The best line clipping algorithm I have seen
• WYSBOAVRTWYG (May 1991, vol 11, issue 3)
  Various experiments in reproduction of images by the printing process, especially by measuring transfer functions from test images and applying the inverse transform to the original image.
• A Trip Down The Graphics Pipeline: Pixel Coordinates (Jul 1991, vol 11, issue 4)
  Mapping the continuous range -1...+1 to pixel coordinate values and how it is usually done wrong.
• A Trip Down The Graphics Pipeline: Sub-Pixelic Particles (Sep 1991, vol 11, issue 5)
  How to map sub-pixels to regular pixels for subsampling
• A Trip Down The Graphics Pipeline: Grandpa, What does Viewport Mean? (Jan 1992, vol 12, issue 1)
  How to properly map viewports onto the screen
• Uppers and Downers (Mar 1992, vol 12, issue 2)
  Subscript and superscript index notation for covariant and contravariant tensors and how it simplifies some calculations.
• Uppers and Downers: Part 2 (May 1992, vol 12, issue 3)
  Use of a simple form of Feynman diagrams to represent and manipulate complicated tensor equations.
• Hyperbolic Interpolation (Jul 1992, vol 12, issue 4)
  How to interpolate colors and texture indices onto objects viewed in perspective.
• The World of Digital Video (Sep 1992, vol 12, issue 5)
  Formats for the D1 and D2 digital video signal
• How I Spent My Summer Vacation--1976 (Nov 1992, vol 12, issue 6)
  Reminiscences on my summer at NYIT
• NTSC: Nice Technology, Super Color (Mar 1993, vol 13, issue 2)
  How NTSC encodes color and how to cooperate with this process to make CG images that encode nicely.
• A Trip Down The Graphics Pipeline: Homogeneous Perspective (May 1993, vol 13, issue 3)
  How the perspective transform works in homogeneous coordinates.
• What's the deal with the DCT? (Jul 1993, vol 13, issue 4)
  A comparison of DCT and DFT and some intuitive insights on how the DCT helps in image compression.
• Backface Culling Snags (Nov 1993, vol 13, issue 6)
  Some things that can go wrong if you're not careful with back face culling.
• Farewell to Fortran (Mar 1994, vol 14, issue 2)
  Thoughts on changing from Fortran to C++.
• Quantization Error (Jul 1994, vol 14, issue 4)
  Fourier transform plots of various dithering techniques.
• Image Compositing--Theory (Sep 1994, vol 14, issue 5)
  The mathematics and a new derivation of the use of alpha in image blending, and a justification for using associated colors.
• Image Composting--Practice (Nov 1994, vol 14, issue 6)
  Some speed up tricks in alpha blending.
• How To Draw a Sphere -- Part 1 (Jan 1995, vol 15, issue 1)
  Homogeneous mathematics of second order surfaces.
• How To Draw a Sphere -- Part 2, coordinate systems (Mar 1995, vol 15, issue 2)
  Tricks of picking coordinate systems for fast sphere drawing.
• How To Addend A Siggraph Conference (July 1995, Vol 15, issue 4)
  Tips on how to maximize the experience.