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The computer graphics industry got started at the university of Utah

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Re: The computer graphics industry got started at the university of Utah

#31

Post by canucker2016 »

One of the sources of researchers for Xerox PARC, mentioned in "Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age"

- Bob Taylor - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Taylor_(computer_scient... - while at ARPA, Taylor issued a US$5M grant to the University of Utah/Dale Evans to setup the doctoral program

- Alan Kay - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Kay

- John Warnock - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Warnock

- also mentioned in the book from UofUtah, Bob Flegal and Jim Curry, who worked on Superpaint - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superpaint

Re: The computer graphics industry got started at the university of Utah

#33

Post by benatkin »

The headline suggests one thing, the article shows another:

> In 1965 the University of Utah hired him to establish its computer science department after receiving an ARPA grant of US $5 million to investigate how the emerging field of computer graphics could play a role in the country’s technological competitiveness, according to Computer Graphics and Computer Animation.

While it's impressive that this could happen in Utah, it seems to have depended on a timely grant from a federal agency.

Re: The computer graphics industry got started at the university of Utah

#34

Post by anderspitman »

jamestimmins wrote: post #32

If you haven't read Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull of Pixar, he (and his ghostwriter) do a great job talking about his work on early animation tech at Utah. Highly recommend.

Biography of the Pixel looks really good as well (by the other founder, Alvy Ray Smith). Been on my list for a while

Re: The computer graphics industry got started at the university of Utah

#35

Post by canucker2016 »

benatkin wrote: post #33

The headline suggests one thing, the article shows another: > In 1965 the University of Utah hired him to establish its computer science department after receiving an ARPA grant of US $5 million to investigate how the emerging field of computer graphics could play a role in the country’s technological competitiveness, according to Computer Graphics and Computer Animation. While it's impressive that this could happen…

excerpt from "Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC..."

"Some fields of study owed their existence to his [Bob Taylor] largesse. Among them was computer graphics, which came to life at the University of Utah when Dave Evans, a devout Mormon who had led the Genie team building the time-sharing SDS 940 at UC Berkeley, called Taylor to say his alma mater had invited him to return to Salt Lake to start a computer program. How about an ARPA project, he asked, to get it going?"

"...If Evans was willing to start such a program in the backwater of Utah, where it could develop in pristine isolation from the traditionalist thinking elsewhere, Taylor was all for it. The venture turned out better than anyone could have expected. The program Taylor funded partially as a personal experiment and partially as a favor to an old friend evolved into a world leader in computer graphics research."

Re: The computer graphics industry got started at the university of Utah

#36

Post by benatkin »

canucker2016 wrote: post #35
benatkin wrote: post #33

The headline suggests one thing, the article shows another: > In 1965 the University of Utah hired him to establish its computer science department after receiving an ARPA grant of US $5 million to investigate how the emerging field of computer graphics could play a role in the country’s technological competitiveness, according to Computer Graphics and Computer Animation. While it's impressive that this could happen…

excerpt from "Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC..." "Some fields of study owed their existence to his [Bob Taylor] largesse. Among them was computer graphics, which came to life at the University of Utah when Dave Evans, a devout Mormon who had led the Genie team building the time-sharing SDS 940 at UC Berkeley, called Taylor to say his alma mater had invited him to return to Salt Lake to start a computer program. How…

Interesting and it makes sense that a backwater would be helpful, giving it a similar vibe to Skunk Works. Not too much though. I think most parts of Utah would be unsuitable, but University of Utah is pretty good. It is right up on the edge of the mountain range, and in the biggest city of Utah.

Re: The computer graphics industry got started at the university of Utah

#37

Post by eesmith »

monocasa wrote: post #24
civilitty wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Further immortalized through the 418 I'm a Teapot HTTP error code: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Status/418

AFAIK, the 418 status is more a reference to coffee making than to the Utah Teapot.

Yes. It's an error code for the Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (RFC 2324)[1] and the author[2] has no Utah nor particular graphics background.

[1] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2324 , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper_Text_Coffee_Pot_Control_...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Masinter

Re: The computer graphics industry got started at the university of Utah

#38

Post by jasomill »

foobiekr wrote: post #23

During my internship, I worked at Evans and Sutherland, which was just off of the University of Utah tech park and was a major part of the UoU graphics world. I worked on what I think was the last generation of E&S image generators. It was pretty cool, especially the realtime phong shading (this was the 1990s!) and calligraphic lighting (sort of like a vector display that overdrew the normal displays and made things…

Speaking of E&S vector displays: as a young volunteer at our local children's museum[1] in the early '90s, I spent many pleasant hours screwing around with a first-generation Digistar planetarium system, which was essentially a vector projection display with an enormous dome-shaped screen driven by scripts running on a MicroVAX in the back room that could be interacted with via a variety of controllers — joysticks, faders, etc. — on the planetarium floor.

Sadly, this interactivity was never used in an official capacity while I was there; all public shows were fully automated affairs. But this didn't stop twelve-year-old me from simulating starship combat in between shows and after hours!

Computer-wise, this was one of the highlights of my childhood.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Children's_Museum_of_India...

Re: The computer graphics industry got started at the university of Utah

#39

Post by McKayDavis »

s1mon wrote: post #16

Evans and Sutherland also developed CDRS (Conceptual Design and Rendering System) which was later bought by PTC and developed into ISDX. This is a 3D CAD tool for high quality surfacing used by industrial designers and surfacing experts to develop exteriors for automotive and consumer products. It was originally written in Lisp. Unlike many other CAD tools, especially for its time, it described the relation between s…

Right out of high school I started as an intern at PTC in Research Park shortly after they acquired CDRS from E&S.

CDRS was originally started by some of the researchers from the University of Utah that created the Alpha_1 NURBS modeler.

After PTCs org wide rebranding, it was called Pro/Concept.

I worked on the other product in the group called Pro/3D Paint. It was the first product to use projective texture mapping to allow industrial designers to draw directly on 3D models instead of in texture space.

So many more memories I wouldn’t know where to begin…

Re: The computer graphics industry got started at the university of Utah

#40

Post by sohkamyung »

anderspitman wrote: post #34
jamestimmins wrote: post #32

If you haven't read Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull of Pixar, he (and his ghostwriter) do a great job talking about his work on early animation tech at Utah. Highly recommend.

Biography of the Pixel looks really good as well (by the other founder, Alvy Ray Smith). Been on my list for a while

I've read "The Biography of the Pixel" book. It's an amazing and educational book about the history of computer graphics and the definition of a pixel by Smith.
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