A poem he typed up in college, at age 19, would be the inspiration and overall basis for "Puff the Magic Dragon" by Peter, Paul and Mary. The song was extremely popular when it came out in 1963, and has since become legendary.
The Smithsonian Institution honored him in 1996 for StereoGraphics' invention of CrystalEyes, electronic eyewear for computer graphics and video applications such as molecular modeling, aerial mapping and medical imaging. NASA selected it to remotely pilot the Mars Rovers, and it was used by Lockheed to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope.
Authored books including 1979's Lipton on Filmmaking; 1982's Foundations of the Stereoscopic Cinema; 1983's Independent Filmmaking; and 2021's The Cinema in Flux: The Evolution of Motion Picture Technology From the Magic Lantern to the Digital Era.
He developed the ZScreen electro-optical modulator - a tool used in digital 3D projection - through his company StereoGraphics which was acquired by RealD in 2005.