The computer graphics industry got started at the university of Utah • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by johnnyanmac » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 8:35 AM UTC

cubefox wrote: post #50

westurner wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computer graphics > History: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_graphics#History History of computer animation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computer_animation

Reminds me of the Stanford Bunny: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_bunny Or, more distantly related, the test photo Lena , which recently fell victim to political correctness: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna

Yeah, I don't really get what happened there. They found out 20 years later than it was a cropped image from Playboy, and eventually both Playboy and the model were fine with it being used for research purposes. Then another 20 years later people re-discovered this and now it was sexist?

Regardless, I read some other literature and I do agree that it was probably well past time to update a reference image that wasnt a 1970's 512x512 image. But the non-technical reasoning around it is baffling. Well, not baffling for American culture, but disappointing indeed.

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

#52

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 9:04 AM UTC

elliotec wrote: post #18

The University of Utah was also the fourth node of ARPANET, the predecessor of the internet - https://www.lib.utah.edu/digital-scholarship/arpanet/ On a personal note, this is also part of why I exist at all. My father came from England very young, worked his way through agriculture jobs in California, and somehow found himself with a job offer at the u of u as an electron microscopist. Met my mom there. Details are…

Are you saying that you were made during one of those 15-min waits?

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

#53

Post by cubefox » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 9:07 AM UTC

johnnyanmac wrote: post #51

cubefox wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of the Stanford Bunny: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_bunny Or, more distantly related, the test photo Lena , which recently fell victim to political correctness: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna

Yeah, I don't really get what happened there. They found out 20 years later than it was a cropped image from Playboy, and eventually both Playboy and the model were fine with it being used for research purposes. Then another 20 years later people re-discovered this and now it was sexist? Regardless, I read some other literature and I do agree that it was probably well past time to update a reference image that wasnt…

[flagged]

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

#54

Post by nine_k » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 9:55 AM UTC

riceart wrote: post #49

elliotec wrote: post #18

The University of Utah was also the fourth node of ARPANET, the predecessor of the internet - https://www.lib.utah.edu/digital-scholarship/arpanet/ On a personal note, this is also part of why I exist at all. My father came from England very young, worked his way through agriculture jobs in California, and somehow found himself with a job offer at the u of u as an electron microscopist. Met my mom there. Details are…

1994 was way way after dialup Internet access was mainstream (both Yahoo and Amazon were founded that year). Any first access in the state would be sometime in the 80s. By 1993 there were already national level dialup ISPs. > that was about as long [15 minutes] as it took to load one webpage with one image. Very hyperbolic. A simple webpage with text would load in seconds on a 28.8k modem. A single image would usuall…

You assume 28.8, good phone lines, and a responsive server. Sometimes it was an old 9600 because it was all you could easily get, noisy lines, and the server on the other end being slow because the picture was popular. Then a page could load for a minute, with pictures and all.

Not 15 minutes though.

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

#55

Post by doctor_eval » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 9:55 AM UTC

riceart wrote: post #49

elliotec wrote: post #18

The University of Utah was also the fourth node of ARPANET, the predecessor of the internet - https://www.lib.utah.edu/digital-scholarship/arpanet/ On a personal note, this is also part of why I exist at all. My father came from England very young, worked his way through agriculture jobs in California, and somehow found himself with a job offer at the u of u as an electron microscopist. Met my mom there. Details are…

1994 was way way after dialup Internet access was mainstream (both Yahoo and Amazon were founded that year). Any first access in the state would be sometime in the 80s. By 1993 there were already national level dialup ISPs. > that was about as long [15 minutes] as it took to load one webpage with one image. Very hyperbolic. A simple webpage with text would load in seconds on a 28.8k modem. A single image would usuall…

Right, unless the backhaul was massively overcommitted... which was normal at the time because it was really difficult to sufficiently provision backhaul, even a few months in advance. The internet was certainly not fast in 1994.

Anyway, since when does the truth need to get in the way of a good story?

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

#56

Post by dgacmu » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 11:13 AM UTC

riceart wrote: post #49

elliotec wrote: post #18

The University of Utah was also the fourth node of ARPANET, the predecessor of the internet - https://www.lib.utah.edu/digital-scholarship/arpanet/ On a personal note, this is also part of why I exist at all. My father came from England very young, worked his way through agriculture jobs in California, and somehow found himself with a job offer at the u of u as an electron microscopist. Met my mom there. Details are…

1994 was way way after dialup Internet access was mainstream (both Yahoo and Amazon were founded that year). Any first access in the state would be sometime in the 80s. By 1993 there were already national level dialup ISPs. > that was about as long [15 minutes] as it took to load one webpage with one image. Very hyperbolic. A simple webpage with text would load in seconds on a 28.8k modem. A single image would usuall…

This is not correct for access open to the general public. The first commercial ISP in Utah, Xmission, was founded in 1993. Yes, many of us had internet access through the University of Utah before that (Pete Ashdown, the founder, had worked at Evans & Sutherland, which had quite good internet connectivity). But most people did not if they weren't associated with a university.

(I helped create the third public ISP in Utah (ArosNet), in 1995).

V34 (28.8k) was only ratified in 1994, and many ISPs were still at 14.4 at that time. Many customers still used much slower modems - 9600 remained quite common.

The commercial Internet really only started taking off in 1993. Not by coincidence, that was the same year NCSA Mosaic was released.

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

#57

Post by bsenftner » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 11:34 AM UTC

nologic01 wrote: post #44

Computer graphics has always been a world apart in computing. Even today we still have the somewhat arcane world of GPU's versus the CPU's for the common folk. Programming-wise too, computer graphics, especially 3D, has this pronounced mathematical / geometric aspect to it that is not shared with normal applications. That has been inhereted in the game industry but remains a thing apart. In some sense it is only now,…

I've been writing 3D graphics software since '84, and a few years ago when I started formally learning machine learning I found it had so many parallels with 3D graphics, the transition was quite a bit easier than I expected.

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

#58

Post by s1mon » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 12:31 PM UTC

McKayDavis wrote: post #39

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…

I started using ISDX in ‘96 soon after PTC acquired it and managed to port it and make it work with Pro/E. I’ve worked on a number of products which are still in production using it, but it’s been a while since I was using Pro/E (now Creo). I don’t miss Creo, but I do miss ISDX. There was a while when I was using Solidworks and Pro/E (with ISDX) depending on the project/client, but then I transitioned to Solidworks for many years. Now I’m using Onshape (started by the key people from Solidworks) which recently was acquired by PTC. Both Solidworks and Onshape use the Parasolid kernel which was first developed for Unigraphics. It seems like it’s a small world in CAD tool development.

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

#59

Post by photonerd » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 12:45 PM UTC

dgacmu wrote: post #56

riceart wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1994 was way way after dialup Internet access was mainstream (both Yahoo and Amazon were founded that year). Any first access in the state would be sometime in the 80s. By 1993 there were already national level dialup ISPs. > that was about as long [15 minutes] as it took to load one webpage with one image. Very hyperbolic. A simple webpage with text would load in seconds on a 28.8k modem. A single image would usuall…

This is not correct for access open to the general public. The first commercial ISP in Utah, Xmission, was founded in 1993. Yes, many of us had internet access through the University of Utah before that (Pete Ashdown, the founder, had worked at Evans & Sutherland, which had quite good internet connectivity). But most people did not if they weren't associated with a university. (I helped create the third public ISP in…

Wow, Utah really lagged on getting an ISP, huh?

From a UK perspective: my family got dual up in ‘94, there were lots of ISP options & it was basically impossible to buy anything slower than 28.8k new (at retail anyhow, I’m sure you could special order) as no-where stocked them. 28.8 took over fast.

I think the UK had lots pf ISPs at the time because without a local number to call it was VERY expensive rather than just kinda expensive. But that’s just a guess.

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

#60

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 12:55 PM UTC

riceart wrote: post #49

elliotec wrote: post #18

The University of Utah was also the fourth node of ARPANET, the predecessor of the internet - https://www.lib.utah.edu/digital-scholarship/arpanet/ On a personal note, this is also part of why I exist at all. My father came from England very young, worked his way through agriculture jobs in California, and somehow found himself with a job offer at the u of u as an electron microscopist. Met my mom there. Details are…

1994 was way way after dialup Internet access was mainstream (both Yahoo and Amazon were founded that year). Any first access in the state would be sometime in the 80s. By 1993 there were already national level dialup ISPs. > that was about as long [15 minutes] as it took to load one webpage with one image. Very hyperbolic. A simple webpage with text would load in seconds on a 28.8k modem. A single image would usuall…

Dialup services were available. Most had little to no internet connectivity. The few services dedicated to internet access were not mainstream yet. MS was preparing to deploy MSN 1.0 with no internet because that was just a hippie fad.