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David Salesin '83

Under Banchoff's direction, David and Steve Fiener developed the DIAL animation scripting language. This was published in 1982 as DIAL: A Diagrammatic Animation Language.

After Brown, David went on to work at Lucasfilm and Pixar, and then to study at Stanford, where he received his Ph.D. in 1991. After a visiting professorship at Cornell University, he is now teaching at the University of Washington, where he received the "Teacher of the Year" award in 1998.

David H. Salesin, an associate professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington here, saw where computer animation was headed in the 1980s, while he was working at Lucasfilm and Pixar, two of the industry's giants. Three years ago, he started a two-quarter, interdisciplinary course in computer animation, working with colleagues from his days in the animation industry and with faculty members in the university's schools of art and music. Silicon Graphics and other technology companies equipped a state-of-the-art multimedia laboratory.

Mr. Salesin, is studying ways of rendering that are realistic but not overtly photographic, creating a painterly style. "That's a nice way to tell stories," he says. "By having things be less precise, you have more room for viewers to insert their own associations." He is also working to improve animated renderings of human faces to achieve more-convincing expressions.
— Chronicle of Higher Education, August 7, 1998

During his career, David consulted for numerous computer companies, and even founded two of his own. He is now Senior Researcher in the Document Processing & Understanding Group at Microsoft Research.

Some on-line resources about David include:

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Created: 11 Oct 2003
Last modified: Jan 28, 2005 8:21:04 PM
Comments to: dpvc@union.edu
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