Jim Blinn’s Corner

by Mike Garrity · May 25, 2011

This is really a note to self sort of post.

I’m always searching through my back copies of CG&A for something that Jim Blinn wrote in his Jim Blinn’s Corner column. He had great explanations of lots of important corners of computer graphics. They’re great for explaining things to coworkers. A lot of the columns have been collected into his two books (link1, link2), but I still like to go back to the originals.

He used to have an index of all of the columns on his website, but I haven’t been able to find it recently. So I’m putting a copy here so I’ll be able to find it next time.

Issue	Title
Aug 1987	How many ways can you draw a circle?
Sep 1988	The 3D kaleidoscope
Jan 1989	What we need around here is more aliasing
Mar 1989	Return of the jaggy
Sep 1989	Optimal tubes
Nov 1989	Cubic curve update
Jan 1990	Triage tables
Mar 1990	The truth about texture mapping
May 1990	Wonderful world of video
Nov 1990	The ultimate design tool
Jan 1991	A trip down the graphics pipeline: Line clipping
May 1991	WYSBOAVRTWYG
Jul 1991	A trip down the graphics pipeline: Pixel coordinates
Sep 1991	A trip down the graphics pipeline: Subpixelic particles
Jan 1992	A trip down the graphics pipeline: Grandpa, what does “viewport” mean?
Mar 1992	Uppers and downers
May 1992	Uppers and downers, part 2
Jul 1992	Hyperbolic interpolation
Sep 1992	The world of digital video
Nov 1992	How I spent my summer vacation – 1976
Mar 1993	NTSC: Nice technology, super color
May 1993	A trip down the graphics pipeline: The homogeneous perspective transform.
Jul 1993	What’s the deal with the DCT?
Nov 1993	Backface culling snags
Mar 1994	Farewell to Fortran
Jul 1994	Quantization error and dithering
Sep 1994	Compositing, part 1: Theory
Nov 1994	Compositing, part 2: Practice
Jan 1995	How to draw a sphere – part 1
Mar 1995	How to draw a sphere – part 2: Coordinate systems
Jul 1995	How to attend a SIGGRAPH conference
Sep 1995	How to draw a sphere – part 3: The hyperbolic horizon
Nov 1995	Three wrongs make a right
Mar 1996	Consider the lowly 2×2 matrix
May 1996	Calculating screen coverage
Sep 1996	Fun with premultiplied alpha
Nov 1996	Hey, buddy, how do I get into the SIGGRAPH electronic theater?
Mar 1997	Fugue for MMX
Jul 1997	Floating-point tricks
Jan 1998	A ghost in a snowstorm
May 1998	W pleasure, W fun
Jul 1998	Upon further consideration
Sep 1998	Ten more unsolved problems in computer graphics
Nov 1998	The cross ratio
May 1999	inferring transforms
Jul 1999	How many different rational parametric cubic curves are there? part 1: Inflection points
Nov 1999	How many different rational parametric cubic curves are there? part 2: The “same” game
Jan 2000	Corrections from the last column
Mar 2000	How many different rational parametric cubic curves are there? part 3: The catalog
Jul 2000	Optimizing C++ vector expressions
Nov 2000	Polynomial discriminants, part 1: Matrix magic
Jan 2001	Polynomial discriminants, part 2: Tensor diagrams
Mar 2001	Tensor contraction in C++
Mar 2002	Quartic discriminants and tensor invariants
Jul 2002	Visualize whirled 2×2 matrices
Mar 2003	Lines in space, part 1: The 4D cross product
May 2003	Lines in space, part 2: The line formulation
Jul 2003	Lines in space, part 3: The two matrices
Sep 2003	Lines in space, part 4: Back to the diagrams
Nov 2003	Lines in space, part 5: A tale of two lines
May 2004	Lines in space, part 6: Our friend the hyperbolic paraboloid
Jul 2004	Lines in space, part 7: The algebra of Tinkertoys
Sep 2004	Lines in space, part 8: Line(s) through four lines
Jan 2005	User interface stories from the real world
May 2005	Vectors and geometry and objects, oh my!
Sep 2005	What is a pixel?
Nov 2005	How to solve a quadratic equation
Mar 2006	How to solve a quadratic equation, part 2
May 2006	How to solve a cubic equation, part 1: The shape of the discriminant
Jul 2006	How to solve a cubic equation, part 2
Nov 2006	How to solve a cubic equation, part 3
Jan 2007	How to solve a cubic equation, part 4: The 111 case
May 2007	How to solve a cubic equation, part 5: Back to numerics

And as a special bonus, here’s a list of the Andrew Glassner’s Notebook columns (although you can find these at his website.

Issue	Title
Jan 1996	Solar halos and sun dogs
Mar 1996	Computer generated solar halos and sun dogs
May 1996	Frieze groups
Jul 1996	Origami platonic solids
Sep 1996	More origami solids
Jan 1997	Going the distance
Mar 1997	Situation normal
May 1997	Signs of significance
Jul 1997	Net results
Sep 1997	The perils of problematic parameterization
Nov 1997	Inside moire patterns
Jan 1998	Upon reflection
Mar 1998	Circular reasoning
May 1998	Aperiodic tiling
Jul 1998	Penrose tiling
Sep 1998	Know when to fold
Nov 1998	The triangular manuscripts
Jan 1999	Fourier polygons
Mar 1999	String crossings
May 1999	An open and shut case
Jul 1999	O say, can you see?
Sep 1999	Celtic knots, part 1
Nov 1999	Celtic knots, part 2
Jan 2000	Celtic knots, part 3
Mar 2000	The digital ceraunoscope: Synthetic thunder and lightning, part 1
May 2000	The digital ceraunoscope: Synthetic thunder and lightning, part 2
Jul 2000	Hierarchical textures
Sep 2000	Soap bubbles: part 1
Nov 2000	Soap bubbles: part 2
Jan 2001	Fill ‘er up!
Mar 2001	Tricks of the trade
May 2001	A change of scene
Jul 2001	Quantum computing, part 1
Sep 2001	Quantum computing, part 2
Nov 2001	Quantum computing, part 3
Jan 2002	Interactive pop-up card design, part 1
Mar 2002	Interactive pop-up card design, part 2
May 2002	Putting the pieces together
Jul 2002	Duck!
Sep 2002	Getting the picture
Nov 2002	Digital weaving, part 1
Jan 2003	Digital weaving, part 2
Mar 2003	Digital weaving, part 3
May 2003	Image search and replace
Jul 2003	Venn and now
Sep 2003	DMorph
Nov 2003	Everyday computer graphics
Jan 2004	About face
Mar 2004	Around and around
May 2004	Digital cubism
Jul 2004	Digital cubism, part 2
Sep 2004	Crop art, part 1
Nov 2004	Crop art, part 2
Jan 2005	Crop art, part 3
Mar 2005	Speed limit 55