Bob Sabiston is an American film art director, computer programmer, and creator of the Rotoshop software program for computer animation. Sabiston began developing software as a graduate researcher in the MIT Media Lab from 1986 to 1991. While at MIT, and also after moving to Austin, Texas, in 1993, Sabiston used the software to create several short films, including God's Little Monkey and Snack and Drink. In 1997, he had developed his interpolating rotoscope program, Rotoshop ^*, to the level where he won an animation contest sponsored by MTV. In 2000, Sabiston gave the software to thirty graphic artists in the Austin area for use in making Richard Linklater's film Waking Life.

Sabiston developed Rotoshop as a means to make rotoscoping easier for artists by automating the interpolation of hand-drawn shapes and lines over video. The software is proprietary and currently not available for use outside of Sabiston's production company, Flat Black Films.

External Links

• Flat Black Films
• "Anatomy of a Scene" for Waking Life at SundanceChannel.com
• IMDB profile

Computer programmers | Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni