Karl Sims

Computer Scientist

41

Who is Karl Sims?

Karl Sims is a computer graphics artist and researcher, who is best known for using particle systems and artificial life in computer animation.

Sims received a B.S. from MIT in 1984, and a M.S. from the MIT Media Lab in 1987. He worked for Thinking Machines as an artist-in-residence, for Whitney-Demos Production as a researcher, and co-founded Optomystic. Sims was the CEO of GenArts, a Cambridge, Massachusetts company that develops special effects plugins used in film and advertising. In June 2008 he moved to a role on the board of directors and Katherine Hayes became CEO of GenArts.

At Optomystic, Sims developed software for the Connection Machine 2 that animated the water from drawings of a deluge by Leonardo da Vinci, used in Mark Whitney's film Excerpts from Leonardo's Deluge.

Sims' animations Particle Dreams and Panspermia used the CM-2 to animate and render various complex phenomena via particle systems. Panspermia was also used as the video for Pantera's cover of Black Sabbath's Planet Caravan.

Sims wrote landmark papers on virtual creatures and artificial evolution for computer art.

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Nationality
  • United States of America
Profession
Education
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Bachelor of Science

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

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