When was the computer scientist known for making contributions to a digital visual effects, motion graphics, and compositing application born?
1966
Guillermo Sapiro
Guillermo Sapiro (born 1966) is a computer scientist, electrical engineer and professor who has made notable contributions to image processing.
 He worked at The University of Minnesota for 15 years before becoming a professor at Duke University.
 He has also worked at Hewlett Packard Labs (HP Laboratories) researching image processing and is known for being one of the people who originally developed the LOCO-I Compression Algorithm for lossless image compression (that was used in NASA's ICER image file format for various Mars rover expeditions) while he was working there.
 He has also made significant contributions towards the development of the rotobrush tool in Adobe After Effects, which has been included in After Effects since version CS5.
 Adobe makes use of his research in various projects like Photoshop and also frequently hires his students.
 He also teaches a massive open online course through Coursera on image and video processing.
 The title of the course is "Image and video processing: From Mars to Hollywood with a stop at the hospital."
 He lives with his wife, two sons, and a very fat golden retriever named Hummus.
Adobe After Effects
Adobe After Effects is a digital visual effects, motion graphics, and compositing application developed by Adobe Systems and used in the post-production process of film making and television production.
 Among other things, After Effects can be used for keying, tracking, compositing and animation.
 It also functions as a very basic non-linear editor, audio editor and media transcoder.
Ron Brinkmann
Ron Brinkmann (born 1964), a visual effects supervisor and a founding employee of Sony Imageworks.
 While there he was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Special Visual Effects for his work on the movie Speed.
 He later co-founded Nothing Real, a software company that produced the digital compositing application Shake.
 Nothing Real was acquired in 2002 by Apple. Shake (software)
Shake is a discontinued image compositing package used in the post-production industry developed by Apple Inc. Shake was widely used in visual effects and digital compositing for film, video and commercials.
 Shake exposed its node graph architecture graphically.
 It enabled complex image processing sequences to be designed through the connection of effects "nodes" in a graphical workflow interface.
 This type of compositing interface allowed great flexibility, including the ability to modify the parameters of an earlier image processing step "in context" (while viewing the final composite).
 Many other compositing packages, such as Blender, eyeon Fusion, Nuke and Cineon, also used a similar node-based approach. Blender (software)
Blender is a professional, free and open-source 3D computer graphics software toolset used for creating animated films, visual effects, art, 3D printed models, interactive 3D applications and video games. Blender's features include 3D modeling, UV unwrapping, texturing, raster graphics editing, rigging and skinning, fluid and smoke simulation, particle simulation, soft body simulation, sculpting, animating, match moving, camera tracking, rendering, motion graphics, video editing and compositing.
 It also features an integrated game engine. SilhouetteFX
SilhouetteFX began as a rotoscoping tool for the visual effects industry.
 SilhouetteFX has been expanded to include capabilities facilitating paint, warping and morphing, 2D to 3D conversion and alternative matting methods.
 As of V6, SilhouetteFX retains all of the aforementioned capabilities now embedded in a node-based digital compositing application. Combustion (software)
Combustion was a computer program for motion graphics, compositing and visual effects. Motion (software)
Motion is a software application produced by Apple Inc. for their macOS operating system.
 It is used to create and edit motion graphics, titling for video production and film production, and 2D and 3D compositing for visual effects. Cafe FX
CafeFX was an award-winning feature film visual effects facility offering visual effects production and supervision, CG character creation, and 3D animation.
 Founded in 1993 by Jeff Barnes and David Ebner, CafeFX was located in a 36000 sqft studio on an eight-acre campus in Santa Maria, the heart of Santa Barbara County.
 Its commercial and music video division, Santa Monica-based The Syndicate, was a creative design, branding services and digital production studio, specializing in live action direction, visual effects, animation, motion graphics, and telecine.
 CafeFX and The Syndicate were held by umbrella corporation ComputerCafe Group, which has also established Sententia Entertainment, a long form production company. Motion graphics
Motion graphics are pieces of digital footage or animation which create the illusion of motion or rotation, and are usually combined with audio for use in multimedia projects.
 Motion graphics are usually displayed via electronic media technology, but may also be displayed via manual powered technology (e.g. thaumatrope, phenakistoscope, stroboscope, zoetrope, praxinoscope, flip book).
 The term distinguishes still graphics from those with a transforming appearance over time, without over-specifying the form.
 While any form of experimental or abstract animation can be called motion graphics, the term typically more explicitly refers to the commercial application of animation and effects to video, film, TV, and interactive applications.