The pixel as the organizing principle of all pictures, from cave
paintings to Toy Story.
The Great Digital Convergence of all media types into one universal
digital medium occurred, with little fanfare, at the recent turn of the
millennium. The bit became the universal medium, and the pixel--a
particular packaging of bits--conquered the world. Henceforward, nearly
every picture in the world would be composed of pixels--cell phone
pictures, app interfaces, Mars Rover transmissions, book illustrations,
videogames. In A Biography of the Pixel, Pixar cofounder Alvy Ray
Smith argues that the pixel is the organizing principle of most modern
media, and he presents a few simple but profound ideas that unify the
dazzling varieties of digital image making.
Smith's story of the pixel's development begins with Fourier waves,
proceeds through Turing machines, and ends with the first digital movies
from Pixar, DreamWorks, and Blue Sky. Today, almost all the pictures we
encounter are digital--mediated by the pixel and irretrievably separated
from their media; museums and kindergartens are two of the last outposts
of the analog. Smith explains, engagingly and accessibly, how pictures
composed of invisible stuff become visible--that is, how digital pixels
convert to analog display elements. Taking the special case of digital
movies to represent all of Digital Light (his term for pictures
constructed of pixels), and drawing on his decades of work in the field,
Smith approaches his subject from multiple angles--art, technology,
entertainment, business, and history. A Biography of the Pixel is
essential reading for anyone who has watched a video on a cell phone,
played a videogame, or seen a movie. 400 pages of annotations, prepared
by the author and available online, provide an invaluable resource for
readers.
