History of Computer Graphics
- 1. History of Computer Graphics
- 2. History of Computer Graphics (pre- WIMP age) • First Generation (1951 - 1959) – UNIVAC (1951) – Crude hardcopy devices (line printer pictures) • Data was displayed on printers or hardcopy plotters • Computers were “number crunchers”; hardware was expensive! • First computer-driven display (Late 50s and early 60s) – attached to MIT’s Whirlwind I computer – display was CRT similar to one used in TV sets
- 4. Computer Graphics History continued • SAGE air-defense system (mid 50s) used command & control CRT • used CRT display consoles on which operators identified targets with light pens
- 5. Computer Graphics History continued • Beginnings of modern interactive graphics attributed to Ivan Sutherland’s doctoral work – presented work at Spring Joint Computer Conference in 1963 in the form of a movie. – He developed the Sketchpad drawing system
- 7. Sutherland’s work continued – the system included interactive techniques that used the keyboard and light pen for making choices, pointing, and drawing – the film showed Sutherland sketching a bolt on the screen. • He formulated the ideas of – display primitives (lines, polygons, arcs, characters) – constraints on primitives – developed algorithms for dragging, rubberbanding, transforming (rotating, scaling, translating) – introduced data structures for storing hierarchies built up via easy replication of standard components
- 8. More Sutherland • Subsequently, Sutherland became director of DARPA, then professor at Harvard and later founder of Evans & Sutherland, a leading edge graphics firm • He is considered to be the founder of the computer graphics field • Because of his work, CAD & CAM became attractive • By the mid-sixties, much research was being done
- 9. Computer Graphics of the 60’s • Hardware expensive • large scale, expensive computing resources needed • About 1965, IBM brought out the first widely available interactive computer graphics terminal – vector graphics display – sold for more than $100,000 – only elite designers could use the display system
- 11. More Developments • The next landmark was a special type of CRT produced by Tektronix - the direct-view storage tube (DVST) • Introduced in 1968 – complete with keyboard, mouse, simple computer interface for $15,000 – made interactive computer graphics affordable
- 13. Where did graphics go next? • By late 60’s many researchers were concerned with dynamic graphics. • Realistic flight simulation applications were needed • To make them realistic, solid colored surfaces were needed (not wireframe) • TV raster displays were used to create such images • Systems built by GE for NASA were probably the earliest examples of such displays
- 14. Raster Graphics continued • Xerox Palo Alto Research Center designed a new graphics- based personal minicomputer called the Alto • Design was based on: – cost of computing falling - every “knowledge worker” should have a personal computer – Alto computers should be connected for communication & resource- sharing – interface between user & computer should be graphical – graphics display should be based on raster-graphics technology -- a very bold idea
- 15. Xerox Alto
- 16. More hardware development’s • PC’s in the 80’s – costs decrease drastically – built-in raster displays – bitmap graphics used
- 17. Software Developments • Sketchpad graphics • Early days software was nontransportable at the assembly language level • Push in 70’s for high-level, machine- and device-independent graphics subroutine packages • Like FORTRAN virtualized I/O, these packages defined virtual screens and virtual input devices – locater to drive cursor & pass (x,y) back – pick to select objects on screen
- 18. Software continued • The awareness of the need for standards culminated in – specification of the 3D Core Graphics System – produced by an ACM SIGGRAPH Committee in late 70’s – used as input to official standards projects within both ANSI and ISO • First graphics standard was GKS (1985) – like Core but 2D • PHIGS (Programmer’s Hierarchical Interactive Graphics System) was a 3D extension of GKS became an ANSI standard in 1988
- 19. Software continued • Also in the 80’s X Windows was developed – goals of X are totally different – X is a windowing management system • allows for creation & manipulation of overlapping, resizable windows • provides features of GUIs - pop-up, pull-down menus, dialog boxes, etc. – Also includes functions for input devices such as a mouse as well as simple 2D graphics operations – Designed to operate transparently on a network with many dissimilar computers & workstations – development began at MIT in 1984
- 20. More Software • OpenGL was introduced by SGI in 1992 – OpenGL is the “Assembler Language” of Computer Graphics – has portable, interactive 2D and 3D graphics applications – low-level, vendor-neutral software interface – broad platform accessibility in the industry
- 21. Software • Sun formally announced Java in 1995 – Developed by James Gosling (originally called Oak) – Considered to be a software development platform-- includes graphics & windowing capabilities • Java AWT (Abstract Windowing Toolkit) • Java 2D • Java 3D
- 22. For a Complete History • http://www.accad.ohio- state.edu/~waynec/history/timeline.html