A Biography of the Pixel

By: Alvy Ray Smith

Narrated by: Daniel Henning

Length: 20 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's summary

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 conquered the world. Henceforward, nearly every picture in the world would be composed of pixels. 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. 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. A Biography of the Pixel is essential for anyone who has watched a video on a cell phone, played a videogame, or seen a movie.

©2021 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (P)2022 Tantor

A great history of digital light, important for artists and tech buffs

This book contains so many important explanations and perspectives on images and movies generated with the aid of computers. Despite working in a related field for many years, I learned an incredible amount from listening to this book. It is long but worth the listen for anyone interested in how movies are made, how computers are used to make art, and perhaps get insights into what to expect in the future. I highly recommend this book!

Fascinating and Informative

For anyone interested in digital art, programming, movies, or history, this is a fascinating and informative deep dive into the technical and the human side of the technology of digital light. I would say the book format might be better because you miss the visuals with audio and there is no supplemental PDF or anything. Otherwise would give 5 stars.

History / story was great, technically oversimple

I was very conflicted about my feelings for this book, oscillating back and forth between finding it really annoying / frustrating and really enjoying it. Overall though, the good parts far outweighed the frustrating ones, and I'm quite glad I read it.

With any popular book covering a technical subject, things have to be simplified to appeal to a general audience and be more approachable, and I totally get that, but in this case this process went way too far. Many of the technical sections and explanations, which constitute a significant portion of the book, generally felt simplified to the point of losing a lot of content, and occasionally being just wrong. Technical terms that would have been used throughout the book and become familiar were instead switched for easier to understand terms, despite the fact that this makes it harder to integrate these concepts into larger knowledge and understanding. This is always a tough balance to strike, but here it really felt like they were expecting way to little from the reader, and it was disappointing. Also, the Audiobook has no accompanying PDF of figures, which is a huge oversight for a book so heavily reliant on them. Also, for audiobook listeners, I'd particularly recommend trying it at 1.3x speed or more. The narrator spoke very slowly, and had many deeply annoying mispronunciations.

All of that said, this book tells an amazing story about the history of computer graphics from someone who was deeply involved from the very beginning all the way up through founding pixar, and this story is deeply interesting and well written. Despite the oversimplification of many of the technical areas, I still learned a lot about how certain kinds of computer graphics are done, and there was a lot of interesting content about correctly sampling and reconstructing the visual world in space and time. Just being able to see all of this history of the field that underlies so much of our modern lives from someone who was so deeply a part of it for so long made the book well worth it on its own.

Fascinating book read by a delightful narrator

A wide ranging review of the technologies and personalities who shaped our digital visual landscape. Author is comprehensive without getting too technical, narrator keeps the story interesting. Highly recommended.

Tech and history with autobiographical perspective

This book is a well researched history of the technology that enables digital image making, with a focus on animation, told in an entertaining way. The author clarifies what a Pixel is, what the technology entails and who invented it. He also traces the liniages of who studied with whom, the relevant companies and the centers of innovation, to it's very beginnings. Using Mores Law as the thread through modern times that paces the speed of technological innovation, the author sounds the drumbeat of technological change linked to time, in 5 year increments. By highlighting the often serendipitous way money and power, throughout history, in the hands of tyrents, and usually inadvertantly, enable brilliant inventors and creatives, the author weaves key historical figures and events into the narratvive.
This unusual and timely book is an accurate history of digital image making technology, a clear explanation of what a Pixel is and is not, and, in parts, autobiography.

The reader is lively and entertaining but the name Dick Shoup is not pronounced correctly.

interesection of movies, animation, and computers

great audio book. great technical history of the intersection of movies, animation, and computers. does a good job giving credit wherever it came from, from whichever country and person it came from.

needed an accompanied pdf of all the pictures, diagrams, and concepts talked about in the audio book. please add it. (without it, 4 stars)

Great techie history of vine moray imaging

Only thing this audiobook lacks is a PDF file with the illustrations that would improve its understandably for most of the history, terminology and technology this neat book presents. Otherwise a great insight presently by someone who lived and invented today ubiquitous digital imaging.

Good book. Misleading Title

This is a important and book to have on the shelf for computer graphics artists and alike. Mostly because we lack other books about the topic.

A big part of the book is a memoir of the author. The title made me think it would have a broader view of the topic. A broad and meritorious point of view, that is. But the narrative is too self-focused and, admittedly l, leaves behind certain important topic that would make the book deserve it's title.

Also... the fact that it doesn't have a accompanying PDF is simply shameful.

Overall it's entertaining and informative. An easy read even if you're not familiar with the subject.