History of Digital Graphics

Howard Scott Warshaw

"E.T: The Extra-Terrestrial" 2nd Gen Home Video Games. United States. 1982

SIGGRAPH

(Special Interest Group on Computer GRAPHics and Interactive Techniques) is the annual conference on computer graphics (CG) convened by the ACM SIGGRAPH organization. The first SIGGRAPH conference was in 1974. The conference is attended by tens of thousands of computer professionals.

Magnavox Odyssey

- The first video game console for the home - Began selling in 1972 - Based on prototypes built by Ralph Behr in the late 1960

Futureworld (1976)

1976 American science fiction thriller film directed by Richard T. Heffron and written by Mayo Simon and George Schenck. Futureworld was the first major feature film to use 3D computer-generated imagery (CGI). CGI was used for an animated hand and face. The animated hand was a digitized version of Edwin Catmull's left hand, taken from his 1972 experimental short subject A Computer Animated Hand. The film also used 2D digital compositing to materialize characters over a background.

Jurassic Park (1993)

1993 American science fiction adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Gerald R. Molen. T The Dinosaurs were created with computer generated imagery by Industrial Light & Magic

Titanic

1997 Cameron wanted to push the boundary of special effects with his film, and enlisted Digital Domain to continue the developments in digital technology Digital water and smoke were added, as were extras captured on a motion capture stage. Visual effects supervisor Rob Legato scanned the faces of many actors, including himself and his children, for the digital extras and stuntmen. There was also a 65-foot-long (20 m) model of the ship's stern that could break in two repeatedly, the only miniature to be used in water.[66] For scenes set in the ship's engines, footage of the SS Jeremiah O'Brien's engines were composited with miniature support frames, and actors shot against a green screen.

Nintendo Entertainment System

1st 8bit video game console came out in 1986; immediate success. The NES was originally the Famicom, or Family Computer, and it was released in Japan in 1983. There, it sold over 2.5 million units during its first year on the market. they redesigned the Famicom and renamed it the Nintendo Entertainment System. The console was released in the United States on October 18, 1985. It was an instant success in no small way due to one of its launch titles: Super Mario Bros.

Brilliance (can commercial) (1985)

30-second commercial for canned food was first shown during the January 1984 Super Bowl. Brilliance was sponsored by the Canned Food Information Council through Ketchum Advertising, which commissioned the Hollywood special effects company Robert Abel & Associates to produce it. Brilliance was considered "groundbreaking and influential", as much for its "sexy robot" as for its computer graphics.

Nintendo

A Japanese video game company famous for series such as Super Mario Bros and The Legend of Zelda.

Atari

A video game development company that released Pong, the first big-hit arcade game, and established the home-video game market through a deal with Sears

Adobe Systems

A virtual explosion in the release of new typefaces occurred in the 1990s, as large type vendors were joined by independent type foundries set up by studios and individual designers. became a prolific and influential digital type foundry. An early type family developed for its PostScript page description language was Stone, designed by Sumner STONE.

Jim Blinn

American computer scientist who first became widely known for his work as a computer graphics expert at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), pre-encounter animations for the Voyager project, his work on the Carl Sagan documentary series Cosmos, and the research of the Blinn-Phong shading model. formulated Blinn's Law, which asserts that rendering time tends to remain constant, even as computers get faster. Blinn devised new methods to represent how objects and light interact in a three-dimensional virtual world, like environment mapping and bump mapping.

John Carmack

Co founded id software, lead programmer of doom Carmack has pioneered or popularized the use of the folowing computer graphics techniques: "adaptive tile refresh" for Commander Keen, raycasting for Hovertank 3-D, Catacomb 3-D, and Wolfenstein 3-D, Carmack's engines have also been licensed for use in other influential first-person shooters such as Half-Life, Call of Duty and Medal of Honor.

Alvy Ray Smith

Co-founder and executive vice president of Pixar Created Paint system (8 bit and beyond) Helped Negotiate the CAPS deal with Disney

Ed Catmull

Co-founder of Pixar president of Pixar Animation and Disney Animation. Developed Renderman Software

George Lucas

Creator/Director of Star Wars The Phantom Menace was the first major movie production to use digital video.

Ivan Sutherland

Developed Sketchpad (1963) •Icon •Object-oriented programming •Hierarchy - picture & subpictures Created the first version of Virtual Reality called the Sword of Damocles

ENIAC

Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer the first electronic general-purpose computer, designed and developed in 1946 at the University of Pennsylvania primarily used to calculate artillery firing tables for the United States Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory included a study of the feasibility of the hydrogen bomb

id Software

Established by John Carmack, Adrian Carmack , John Romero created Wolfenstein 3D subsequnetlly produce phenomenon 3D game DOOM

Star Wars: Attack of the Clones

First big-budget film shot on digital video emphasized "digital doubles" as computer-generated models that doubled for actors, in the same way that traditional stunt doubles did. It also furthered the authenticity of computer-generated characters by introducing a new, completely CGI-created version of Yoda.

Toy Story (1995)

First feature length 3D Animated film

Tron (1982)

First film to make extensive use of any form of computer animation Steven Lisberger, then an animator of drawings with his own studio, looked at a sample reel from a computer firm called MAGI and saw Pong for the first time and was immediately fascinated by video games and wanted to do a film incorporating them. animated film bracketed with live-action sequences involved a combination of computer-generated visuals and back-lit animation.

Atari 2600

First videogame console in the US First commercially successful video game system (1977) for homes; allowed the owner to purchase individual game cartridges.

Nolan Bushnell

Founder of Atari In 1970, he invented the first computerized video game, Computer Space Also invented of Pong considered by many to be the "father of electronic gaming."

Jack Kilby

In 1958, he invented the integrated silicon circuit, or "chip" that was first used in calculators, computers, and watches. He worked for Texas Instruments.

Sword of Damocles

Ivan Sutherland and his student Bob Sproull created the first VR / AR head mounted display (Sword of Damocles) that was connected to a computer and not a camera. It was a large and scary looking contraption that was too heavy for any user to comfortably wear and was suspended from the ceiling (hence its name). The user would also need to be strapped into the device. The computer generated graphics were very primitive wireframe rooms and objects.

Avatar (2009)

James Cameron motion capture shot mostly on a sound stage with a green screen planned release in 1999, but the necessary technology was not yet available to achieve his vision of the film. Cameron made use of his virtual camera system, a new way of directing motion-capture filmmaking. The system shows the actors' virtual counterparts in their digital surroundings in real time, allowing the director to adjust and direct scenes just as if shooting live action. To film the shots where CGI interacts with live action, a unique camera referred to as a "simulcam" was used, a merger of the 3-D fusion camera and the virtual camera systems. While filming live action in real time with the simulcam, the CGI images captured with the virtual camera or designed from scratch, are superimposed over the live action images as in augmented reality and shown on a small monitor, making it possible for the director to instruct the actors how to relate to the virtual material in the scene.

Shigeru Miyamoto

Japanese video game designer and producer for the video game company Nintendo, currently serving as one of its representative directors. His games have been prominently showcased and widely anticipated as flagship titles of every Nintendo video game console, with his earliest work appearing on arcade machines in the late 1970s. He managed Nintendo's Entertainment Analysis & Development software division, which developed many of the company's first-party titles.

Utah Teapot

Martin Newell had some novel ideas for algorithms that could realistically display 3D shapes—rendering complex effects like shadows, reflective textures, or rotations that reveal obscured surfaces. Newell struggled to find a digitized object worthy of his methods. Objects that were typically used for simulating reflections, like a chess pawn, a donut, and an urn, were too simple. It was used to try out textures because it was a more complex model

James Cameron and CGI

Most responsible for exploiting the possibilities of digital special effects o Started in Hollywood in special effects o Battle Beyond the Stars (1980)—worked as an art director, model set builder, and process-projection supervisor o The Abyss (1989) Included a scene involving a water pseudo pod Traditional effects failed Required powerful new computers and software for rendering water realistically o Terminator 2 (1991) Relied more on CGI than any movie before it More than 300 effects shots ILM had to increase its staff from 8 to nearly 40 people

Pong

Pong is one of the first computer games that ever created, this simple "tennis like" game features two paddles and a ball The game was originally manufactured by Atari, which released it in 1972. Allan Alcorn created Pong as a training exercise assigned to him by Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell. Pong was the first commercially successful video game, which helped to establish the video game industry along with the first home console, the Magnavox Odyssey. Soon after its release, several companies began producing games that copied its gameplay, and eventually released new types of games. As a result, Atari encouraged its staff to produce more innovative games.

Abel Image Research

Started by Robert Abel Abel was considered one of the founding fathers of computer-based animation and special effects, Abel pioneered the commercial use of digitally-controlled motion-control photography and the use of computers for pre-visualization and animation

Apple

Stephen Wozniak and Steve Jobs created it in 1976; became the fastest-growing company in US history

University of Utah

Sutherland moved to the University of Utah, where he and his late collaborator David C. Evans built up an unparalleled computer graphics program. Utah was the premiere computer graphics program in the world for many years Major contributions by Utah faculty and alumni Developed the oldest algebraic mathematics package (REDUCE) still in use. First interactive graphics program, Sketchpad. First method for representing surface textures in graphical images. Gouraud smooth shading model for computer graphics. Invention of magnetic ink printing technology. The Johnson counter logic circuit. Phong lighting model for shading with highlights. Pioneering work in asynchronous circuits. Pioneering work in computer animation. Pioneering work in computer art. Pioneering work in digital music recording. Pioneering work in graphical user interfaces. Pioneering work in stack machine architectures.

Apple IIe

The Apple IIe (styled as Apple //e) is the third model in the Apple II series of personal computers produced by Apple Computer. The e in the name stands for enhanced, referring to the fact that several popular features were now built-in that were available only as upgrades or add-ons in earlier models.

Videogame crash of 1983

The video game crash of 1983 (known as the Atari shock in Japan) was a large-scale recession in the video game industry that occurred from 1983 to 1985, primarily in North America. ... Revenues peaked at around $3.2 billion in 1983, then fell to around $100 million by 1985 (a drop of almost 97 percent). Each of these consoles had its own library of games produced by the console maker, and many had large libraries of games produced by third-party developers. In 1982, analysts noticed trends of saturation, mentioning that the amount of new software coming in will only allow a few big hits, that retailers had too much floor space for systems, along with price drops for home computers could result in an industry shakeup

Vacuum Tubes

Vacuum Tubes (1940's) - They were electronic devices that controlled the flow of electricity in and out of a computer. They looked like long light bulbs. Vacuum tubes were eventually replaced by silicon chips/integrated circuits

Punch Cards

Wooden or cardboard pieces with punched holes in predefined positions; used to store and process information in early calculating and computer devices. cards with holes in them used to program old computers

John Warnock

Xerox PARC researcher who Founded Adobe Systems in 1983, also developed laser printers and Postscript technology

Doom

a 1993 first-person shooter video game by id Software. It is considered one of the most significant and influential titles in video game history, for having helped to pioneer the now-ubiquitous first-person shooter.

Industrial Light and Magic

a lucasfilm special effect company which was famous for its laserbursts and bright lights. ex: Star Wars developed by Dennis Muren, John Dykstra, and Richard Edlund

MRI

a technique that uses magnetic fields and radio waves to produce computer-generated images that distinguish among different types of soft tissue; allows us to see structures within the brain magnetic resonance imagery

Microsoft

best-selling products are the Microsoft Windows operating system, Microsoft Office suite of productivity software, Xbox, a line of entertainment of games,

Ralph Baer

father of video games Created 1st gaming console (Magnavox Odyssey), developed surveillance and intelligence systems

Spacewar

first interactive computer game, 1962

RED one 4K Camera

founded by Jim Jannard The early team members engaged in undisclosed research on how to make a digital camera feasible for Hollywood productions. Part of this involved using 4K resolution instead of 2K The Red One first introduced in 2007 was Red Digital Cinema's first production camera. It captures up to 120 frames per second at 2K resolution and 60 frames per second at 4K resolution

Warnock Algorithm

hidden surface algorithm invented by John Warnock that is typically used in the field of computer graphics It solves the problem of rendering a complicated image by recursive subdivision of a scene until areas are obtained that are trivial to compute. Essentially: if the scene is simple enough to compute efficiently then it is rendered; otherwise it is divided into smaller parts which are likewise tested for simplicity This is a divide and conquer algorithm with run-time of O(np), where n is the number of polygons and p is the number of pixels in the viewport.

Pixar

instrumental in the development and production of computer-animated films in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Pixar originated in the 1970s at the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT), where a team of computer scientists, including Ed Catmull, contributed to the emerging field of computer graphics. 1979: Catmull was hired by Lucasfilm Ltd., to lead its nascent computer division, and several of his NYIT colleagues followed him there. Aimed to improve graphics technology, the division developed the Pixar Image Computer, which, in its ability to render high-resolution three-dimensional colour images, offered applications beyond the film industry. some of their feature length animated movies Toy Story (1995), A Bug's Life (1998), Toy Story 2 (1999), Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004).

Ben Laposky

mathematician, artist and draftsman in Cherokee, Iowa. He has been credited with making the first computer graphics, utilizing an oscilloscope as the creation medium for abstract art. In 1953 he released what he called "Oscillons" (or oscillogram designs) along with a corresponding thesis entitled "Electronic Abstractions" via a gallery exhibition of fifty pictures of the same name at Sanford Museum in Cherokee. Laposky is often credited as the pioneer for electronic art, more specifically in the analog vector medium. In 1950 Laposky used a cathode ray oscilloscope with sine wave generators and various other electrical and electronic circuits to create abstract art

Military funding of computing during the Cold War (primarily missile defense)

military systems ranging from command and control displays in the 1950s to flight simulators and image generators in the 1970s were due to computer graphics Sutherland also developed the first virtual reality display helmet at Harvard in the 1960s with funding from the Department of Defense and his head-mounted display concepts became widely used in military and commercial simulators Another invention, Sketchpad, the first computer graphical user interface, employed a light pen and was originally developed for the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) air defense system.

postscript

page description language in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing business. It is a dynamically typed, concatenative programming language and was created at Adobe Systems by John Warnock, Charles Geschke, Doug Brotz, Ed Taft and Bill Paxton from 1982 to 1984.

X-ray

radiology x-rays are usually generated in vacuum tubes by bombarding a metal target with high-speed electrons and images produced by passing the resulting radiation through the patient's body on to a photographic plate or digital recorder to produce a radiograph, or by rotating both source and detector around the patient's body to produce a "slice" image by computerized tomography

virtual reality

the computer-generated simulation of a three-dimensional image or environment that can be interacted with in a seemingly real or physical way by a person using special electronic equipment, such as a helmet with a screen inside or gloves fitted with sensors. 1968 - Sword of Damocles Ivan Sutherland and his student Bob Sproull created the first VR / AR head mounted display (Sword of Damocles)

Silicon chips

the main components of computers replaced vacuum tubes

The Rise of the home personal computer

the success of video games and the IBM computer encouraged manufacturers to cash in on the trend by churning out their own low-cost machines. The growing number of computers pressured established makers to update their machines, which in turn convinced office machine makers to upgrade their products by issuing computers. It was a cycle, and one that led to a rise in affordable home PCs. In 1984, Apple introduced the Macintosh and operating it was much easier

ultrasound imaging

uses high-frequency sound waves to view inside the body. Because ultrasound images are captured in real-time, they can also show movement of the body's internal organs as well as blood flowing through the blood vessels. Unlike X-ray imaging, there is no ionizing radiation exposure associated with ultrasound imaging. The ultrasound image is produced based on the reflection of the waves off of the body structures. The strength (amplitude) of the sound signal and the time it takes for the wave to travel through the body provide the information necessary to produce an image.

Luxo Jr. (1986)

was the first full-length computer animated short film, and won an Academy Award. Written and directed by John Lasseter the film demonstrates the use of shadow maps to simulate the shifting light and shadow given by the animated lamps. The lights and the color surfaces of all the objects are calculated, each using a RenderMan surface shader, not surface textures. The articulation of "limbs" is carefully coordinated, and power cords trail believably behind the moving lamps.