Boris Yamnitsky is a Soviet-American computer scientist, researcher, and software developer. He is the founder of Boris FX, a company that develops software for visual effects and compositing. He co-authored a polynomial-time algorithm for linear programming with Leonid A. Levin.
Yamnitsky emigrated from the former Soviet Union in the 1970s. He earned an M.A. in Mathematics from Boston University in 1982, where he studied theoretical computer science and linear programming.
In 1982, Yamnitsky co-authored a paper with Leonid A. Levin titled "An Old Linear Programming Algorithm Runs in Polynomial Time". The paper introduced an n-dimensional simplex-splitting technique, known as the YamnitskyâÂÂLevin algorithm. The authors demonstrated that the number of splits required, denoted q(n), equals 1, which establishes polynomial-time behavior under certain conditions. The algorithm has been cited in studies on convex optimization, approximation algorithms, and linear programming methods. Yamnitsky documented the algorithm in his MasterâÂÂs thesis.
Yamnitsky founded Boris FX in 1995 to develop software for visual effects, compositing, and post-production. He oversaw the development of software tools incorporating machine learning and AI for rotoscoping, object detection, motion estimation, image restoration, and audio denoising.