PIXAR: The Company and Its Founders - Sharyland ISD

PIXAR
Shoup showed him SuperPaint. The program offered
a new way to paint with color using the computer.
It was the first computer program to offer such
options as virtual pens and paintbrushes, preset
color palettes, auto filling of images, and the ability
to alter colors by changing the hue, saturation, and
value of the color. It was also the first computer
graphics program to use a graphical user interface
(GUI). GUI allows computer users to interact
with objects on a computer screen. Prior to GUI,
instructions had to be typed into the computer.
Smith was amazed at the capacity of the
program. He took a job at Xerox PARC so he could
experiment with SuperPaint. But when Xerox gave
up its color imaging research, Smith’s job ended. He
and another artist from Xerox, David DiFrancesco,
went to the University of Utah looking for
equipment they could use to continue their research
in computerized painting. The Utah faculty instead
sent them to New York, where Catmull welcomed
them to the team at NYIT.
FROM NEW YORK TO CALIFORNIA
The campus of NYIT, on Long Island’s North
Shore, was unique. Rather than traditional school
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