Mark Fontana

Current

• Staff Software Engineer at Electronics For Imaging, Inc.
• Founder at Pianocorder.info

Past

• Technical Director at Pixar Animation Studios
• Graduate Reseach Associate at Ohio Supercomputer Center

Education

• The Ohio State University
• The Ohio State University

Recommended

5 people have recommended Mark

Connections

47 connections

Industry

Computer Software

Websites

• Home page
• Master's thesis
• "Butterflies in the Rain"

Mark Fontana’s Summary

Designing and implementing software for robust, secure, efficient, responsive and attractive interactive products in the areas of consumer electronics and digital media.

Mark Fontana’s Specialties:

Embedded systems, Windows and Linux device drivers, reverse engineering, multi-platform SDK development, computer graphics and animation, technical writing

Mark Fontana’s Experience

• Staff Software Engineer

  Electronics For Imaging, Inc.

  (Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; EFII; Computer Software industry)

  February 2000 — Present (8 years 8 months)

  Developed robust, performance-critical Windows and Linux kernel drivers and control software enabling high-end digital color presses from Canon, Xerox and Ricoh to be driven by EFI's flagship Fiery print servers.
  
  Designed and implemented the embedded Linux-based firmware for EFI's PrintMe Station network appliance, a small ATM-like device providing secure printing services to guests at hotels, airports, and other hospitality areas (http://www.printme.com). Developed a comprehensive partner SDK for the PrintMe service supporting Linux, Windows, LynxOS, MacOS X and VxWorks.

• Founder

  Pianocorder.info

  (Consumer Electronics industry)

  August 1995 — Present (13 years 2 months)

  Run a successful side business selling self-designed custom hardware/software solutions for modernizing the Superscope/Marantz Pianocorder player piano system.
  
  Reverse-engineered the proprietary CD formats for several modern player piano systems and maintain freeware encoding software supporting all of them. (http://dp70.dyndns.org/mid2pianocd/)
  
  Provide ongoing technical services to Live Performance, Inc., a manufacturer of high-resolution reproducing player piano systems.

• Technical Director

  Pixar Animation Studios

  (Public Company; 501-1000 employees; DIS; Animation industry)

  January 1998 — January 2000 (2 years 1 month)

  Managed Pixar's renderfarm and image disk arrays, rendered a large portion of Pixar's second feature film A Bug's Life, provided support to personnel utilizing the rendering facilities; wrote a variety of Perl/Tcl/shell scripts to automate rendering processes and to manage and monitor resources.
  
  Developed and executed in-house procedures for creating digital video masters of Pixar's animated films for broadcast and home video, pioneering the superior quality transfers that are commonplace today on DVDs and HDTV.
  
  Created Renderman shaders and 3D paint setups for Toy Story 2 and also performed the video transfers of that film.

• Graduate Reseach Associate

  Ohio Supercomputer Center

  (Educational Institution; 51-200 employees; Research industry)

  November 1995 — December 1997 (2 years 2 months)

  Developed software to drive haptic force feedback devices in virtual surgery and patient rehabilitation applications.
  
  Implemented embedded software for a haptic joystick control system allowing a wheelchair user to navigate a virtual space assisted by active guidance and force feedback upon collisions.
  
  Implemented real-time haptic control software under Linux to drive Immersion Corporation's prototype sinus surgery simulator in tandem with an SGI Onyx-based interactive volume renderer. Imagery and force feedback were derived from MRI data.

Mark Fontana’s Education

• The Ohio State University

  M.S., Computer Science, 1995 — 1997

  Specialized in hardware-software systems, computer graphics and animation

  Activities and Societies:

  Produced a two-minute computer-animated short film, "Butterflies in the Rain", featuring procedural animation synchronized with music from a MIDI file, shown at SIGGRAPH 1997.
  
  Master's thesis: Designed a conversion system to archive digital player piano recordings from the Marantz Pianocorder system of the 1970s, including accurate conversion to the modern MIDI file format.

• The Ohio State University

  B.S., Computer Science, 1991 — 1994

  Specialized in software systems, with an emphasis on computer graphics. Graduated "Magna cum laude" and "With Distinction". Minored in Russian.

  Activities and Societies:

  Undergraduate honors thesis: Designed and built a hardware/software system to optically scan and archive player piano rolls as Standard MIDI files.

Additional Information

Mark Fontana’s Websites:

• Home page
• Master's thesis
• "Butterflies in the Rain"

Mark Fontana’s Interests:

Piano, home theater, photography, electronics, mechanical music, movies, performing arts.

Mark Fontana’s Groups:

•    LinkedMinnesota

Mark Fontana’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

• career opportunities
• consulting offers
• new ventures
• job inquiries
• expertise requests
• reference requests
• getting back in touch