Mark Pesce

Mark Pesce

Internationally recognized as the man who invented the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML), bringing 3-D graphics onto the World Wide Web, Mark Pesce has been exploring the frontiers of the future for nearly two decades. A professional software engineer since 1982, he began writing professionally in 1992. In 1995, Pesce published the first of three books on VRML, VRML: Browsing and Building Cyberspace, which sold 70,000 copies in six languages. It was followed by VRML: Flying Through the Web in 1996 and Learning VRML 2.0: Design for Cyberspace in 1997. In 2000, Random House published The Playful World: How Technology Is Transforming Our Imagination. Pesce has also written for magazines such as WIRED, PC Magazine, Salon, and FEED. This is his first book for Microsoft Press.

In 1995, Pesce accepted a teaching position in San Francisco State University s Multimedia Studies Program, where he codesigned the curriculum for the certificate program in 3D Arts. In 1998, Pesce received a two-year appointment as Visiting Professor and Chair of the Interactive Media Program at the University of Southern California s world-renowned School of Cinema-Television. His mandate to bring cinema and broadcast television into the interactive era led him to create a program heavily reliant on digital video, and it is already producing a generation of entertainment professionals shaping the media of the next century.

Pesce has worked with and consulted for numerous high-technology companies, including Silicon Graphics, Apple, Sega, and Microsoft. This is his fifth book.