The Computer Animation Dictionary

Book excerpt: Dr AIvy Ray Smith Executive Vice President, Pixar The pOlyglot language of computer animation has arisen piecemeal as a collection of terms borrowed from geometry, film, video, painting, conventional animation, computer graphiCS, computer science, and publishing - in fact, from every older art or science which has anything to do with pictures and picture making. Robi Roncarelli, who has already demonstrated his foresight by formally identifying a nascent industry and addressing his Computer Animation Newsletter to it, here again makes a useful contribution to it by codifying its jargon. My pleasure in reading his dictionary comes additionally from the many historical notes sprinkled throughout and from surprise entries such as the one referring to Zimbabwe. Just as Samuel Johnson's dictionary of the English language was a major force in stabilizing the spelling of English, perhaps this one will serve a similar purpose for computer animation. Two of my pets are "color" for "colour" and "modeling" "modelling", under the rule that the shorter accepted spelling is always preferable. [Robi, are you reading this?] [Yes, AIvy!] Now I commend this book to you, whether you be a newcomer or an oldtimer.