A Brief History of Computer Graphics

The use of computer graphics can be traced as far back as 1940, when Jay Forrester at M.I.T. designed equipment for training new pilots. The digital computer was chosen as the ideal instrument, because of its adaptability and the flexibility with which the machine could be programmed. It was not until a few years later that a radar defense system project named Whirlwind showed the first practical use of computer graphics (see fig. 1.2). Whirlwind is a computer linked to radar sites, and it displays an electronic map of the location on its monitor with plot blips that represent incoming airplanes. Whirlwind is the first vacuum-tube computer capable of drawing lines and points on a computer screen.

In 1958, an experimental filmmaker, John Whitney, Sr.,created a short animation by using the analog computer to control the movement of the character. Whitney used the same system to create the opening title sequence of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Later Whitney and his brother produced more films based on similar techniques.

In 1957, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) opened its company with only three employees. Three years later, DEC introduced the PDP-1 (Programmed Data Processor), the world’s first small interactive computer (see Fig. 1.3). DEC has played a huge role in the development of computer graphics. “The Programmed Data Processor (PDP-1) is a high-speed, solid state digital computer designed to operate with many types of input-output devices with no internal machine changes. It is a single address, single instruction, and stored program computer with powerful program features. Five-megacycle circuits, a magnetic core memory and fully parallel processing make possible a computation rate of 100,000 additions per second. The PDP-1 is unusually versatile.

IBM helped General Motors to develop DAC-1 to showcase General Motors’ automobiles at the Joint Computer Conference in Detroit in 1964. The breakthrough came when Ivan Sutherland at M.I.T. created a computer drawing program called Sketchpad in 1961. Sketchpad is the father of all CAD programs. Sutherland created this sketching program for his doctoral thesis at M.I.T. Lincoln Laboratory. Sketchpad allowed users to draw simple shapes on the computer with a light pen. The light pen used a small photoelectric cell in its tip to emit an electronic pulse when the pen was placed in front of a computer screen. Many software companies still use Sutherland’s Sketchpad program’s interface today. This was the first instance in the history of computer graphics that demonstrated the possibility of Computer Aided Drafting and Design (CADD). Sutherland’s Sketchpad was a perfect example of vector-based graphics comprising lines rather than being based on pixels.

The first video game was created by a student, Steve Russel, at M.I.T. in 1961. Spacewar was the world’s first video arcade game that was written for the DEC’s PDP-1. Later DEC packaged Spacewar with every new unit, so the world’s first video game was run on DEC. By the end of the 1960s, CADD began to appear in the mechanical, civil, chemical, and automobile industries. However, such advancement in digital technology had not captivated the field of architecture. The main reason for the delay was perhaps the high cost associated with CAD systems at the time.

Major corporations such as TRW, General Electric, Lockheed-Georgia and Sperry Rand began to use computer graphics. IBM introduced the first commercially available graphics computer, the IBM 2250 graphics terminal, as a result of the new found interest in computer graphics.

In 1963, the mouse was being invented by Doug Englebart of the Stanford Research Institute. At the same time, the digitizing tablet was being developed. Both the mouse and the digitizing tablet are 2D point devices; therefore you need to switch X and Y coordinates to access a Z coordinate. True 3D pointing devices come at a high cost, which is a major reason why the mouse is still a popular pointing device today. Products such as Spaceball by 3Dconnexion or 3D Controller by Logitech prove effective in 3D space. These products enable the user to pan, zoom and rotate 3D models with accurate control of the design process.

To follow is a list of important events in the 1960s that profoundly affected the future of computer graphics.
1961- Whitney produced the title sequence for Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo by using an analog computer.
1963- Doug Englebart invented the world’s first mouse. At about the same time, the digitizing tablet was developed.
1966- Ralph Baer at Sanders Associates created a first video game for consumers. The same year, Sutherland at MIT invented the computer-controlled head-mounted display system. Many years later, this device is being used for virtual reality study.
1968- Evan and Sutherland created the LDS-1 (Line Drawing System) for hardware-accelerated graphics. LDS-1 is more than 100 times faster than the IBM 2250.
If the 1960s were an era of experimentation in computer graphics, the 1970s saw the birth of the personal computer. Many theories brought computer graphics to a new level of realism. In 1974, Ed Catmull discovered texture mapping, z-buffers and rendering curved surfaces in his Ph. D. thesis in computer science.

In 1971, Phong Bui-Toung at Utah developed a new shading method that was an improvement on the old Gouraud-shading. Phong’s shading method accurately renders the colors on a mesh surface and produces accurate reflective surface shading, but both Gouraud and Phong’s shadings have difficulties in smoothing over the outline edge of a 3D object.

In 1976, James Blinn of Utah developed a new technique called Bump mapping. Bump mapping can simulate the roughness of a surface by interpreting a grey scale map.

Today you don’t need to develop your own 3D software in order to render realistic images. You don’t have to be a millionaire to purchase a computer that runs 3D software. Creating computer rendering is not an impossible dream, but a reality.