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John Hollenhorst ReportingIn a few days a big new movie opens called "CARS." It's the latest animated feature from the wildly successful Pixar company using technology pretty much invented in Utah.
An entire industry was more or less born here, and it's had a huge impact. Computer Graphics, stunningly effective now in so many ways that improve our lives and entertain us. It started with a gleam in the eye of Ed Catmull, founder of Pixar, and many others at the University of Utah, not so long ago.
We take it for granted now. Adventure with cuddly fish (Finding Nemo). Action with incredible characters (The Incredibles).
But it's not just movies, computer graphics are everywhere, providing windows into the human body, insight for designers and engineers, teaching tools that inspire awe and understanding.
When Pixar founder Ed Catmull walked the halls at the "U" in the late 60's almost none of it existed.
Ed Catmull, Founder of Pixar: "We could foresee those possibilities. It was here. That's why it was exciting."
In those early years, computer graphics were pretty much limited to line drawings in black and white and gray. Catmull was part of an amazingly successful group of U students who found a way to break through to a future most people didn't see.
Ed Catmull: "It was really exciting; we knew it was big, we knew that other people didn't get it."
Catmull's breakthrough was an animation of his own left hand.
Ed Catmull: "For us it was like being at an Easter egg hunt at the front of the line, just running out and discovering things and trying to make pictures look great."
By the time his Pixar company made "Toy Story", he'd helped re-invent movies.
Ed Catmull: "I thought it would take ten years to get it to the point where we could make images worthy of being in feature films. It actually took 20."
Catmull wasn't the only "Computer King" to emerge from the U in that era. Other founders of major companies include John Warnock of Adobe, Alan Ashton of Word Perfect, Jim Clark of Netscape and Silicon Graphics, Nolan Bushnell of Atari.
Although Bushnell came out of a different department, he invented the famous early computer game, Pong. Harvard Business professor Kent Bowen is studying the explosion of talent from the U and its big impact on computer graphics.
Prof. Kent Bowen, Harvard Business School: "They invented it."
He credits faculty pioneers Dave Evans and Ivan Sutherland, but also federal research grants based on trust, far less restricted than they are today.
Prof. Kent Bowen, Harvard Business School: "And so they invested in people that had great ideas in very high risk projects."
The result is up there on the screen and in our lives, presumably forever.
Ed Catmull: "I beleive we achieved what we foresaw at the time."
Catmull is a graduate of Granite High School and still visits Utah regularly. Now that Disney has taken over Pixar, he's President of Pixar and of Disney Animation. Quite a career.
