Pursuit of Perfection
Evolution of Computer Graphics
A graph of the uncanny valley (Mori).
Masahiro Mori, a Japanese roboticist, describes the concept of the uncanny valley (Mori). It illustrates a trend in which humans respond more positively to subjects that have human characteristics (Mori). The more human-like the subject, the more positive the reaction up to a point (Mori). If the subject appears nearly-human but something is out of place, humans will have a repulsion to the subject instead (Mori).
Although at the time of Mori’s observation, computer generated characters did not seam “real” enough to enter the uncanny valley, later developments in CG characters produce the effect and today’s CG artists still struggle to keep their characters out of it. Often this is done by avoiding photo realism altogether and using stylistic characters.
1970
Gouraud shading was invented by Henri Gouraud at the University of Utah as a way to apply continuous shading across a polygon (Carlson). This allowed for more complex looking shapes without using more polygons (Sevo).
1971
Ed Catmull’s work, “A Computer Animated Hand” is some of the very first 3D CG ever (Carlson). He mapped the position of points drawn on a model of his hand to create the mesh, then animated it in the computer (Carlson).
1972
Ed Catmull, a computer science student with a love for animation but a lack of drawing skills wanted to create animations with the computer so he signed up for Ivan Sutherland’s computer graphics class at the University of Utah (Sevo).
Pong was released ("Computer History").
SuperPaint, the ancestor to all modern paint programs, was released (“Computer History”).
Some of the very first CG facial animation was performed at the University of Utah (Carlson).
La Faim (Hunger) is a 10 minute animation project by animator Peter Foldes and computer scientist Nestor Burtnyk (“Computer History”). This was the first use of computer “tweening" where only the most important frames were drawn, called keyframes, and the computer filled in the frames inbetween (“Computer History”). Before this, keyframes would have been drawn by the animator and the inbetween frames would have been drawn by animation assistants (“Computer History”). This was also the first computer animation to ever be nominated for an Academy Award (Carlson).
1974
Cornell’s Program of Computer Graphics (PCG) received its own equipment (Carlson). Before then, its director, Don Greenberg, would take students to a GE research facility in Syracuse at the end of the workday to perform graphics research until the next morning. Cornell’s PCG program is “best known for pioneering work on realistic image synthesis, including the radiosity method for calculating direct and indirect illumination in synthetic scenes. The long-term goal of the lab is to develop physically-based lighting models and perceptually based rendering procedures to produce images that are visually and measurably indistinguishable from real-world images […] the lab has articulated and refined a framework for global illumination research incorporating light reflection models, energy transport simulation, and visual display algorithms” (Carlson).
A big year for research in computer graphics, the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) established the Computer Graphics Laboratory (CGL) developed and headed by Westbury entrepreneur Alex Schure (Carlson). He wanted top talent to work at his facility, so he recruited artists and engineers from the University of Utah, Ed Catmull and Malcolm Blanchard among them (Carlson). The team he assembled was very prolific and influential on the field of computer graphics for the rest of the decade (Carlson). They developed the animation programs Tween and SoftCel, and digital painting program Paint (Carlson).
They made advances in animation, fractals, morphing, image compositing, and reflection mapping, an important technique for rendering reflective objects (Carlson). Ed Catmull graduated with his Ph.D. in computer science. His thesis covered the concepts of “texture mapping, z-buffer, and rendering curved surfaces” (Carlson).
Bui-Toung, a programmer at the University of Utah, created a shading technique which has become known as Phong shading (Sevo). “His shading method accurately interpolates the colors over a polygonal surface giving accurate reflective highlights and shading”, however, this made rendering with it up to 100 times slower than Gouraud shading (Sevo).
SIGGRAPH also hosted its first conference ("Computer History"). It has been hosting annual conferences ever since (Carlson). According to Manovich, "[t]he annual SIGGRAPH convention is a competition between Zeuxis and Parrhasius on an industrial scale: around forty thousand people gather on a trade floor around thousands of new hardware and software displays, all competing with each other to deliver the best illusionistic images" (178).
George Lucas established Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), a special effects studio, to produce the visual effects for his groundbreaking film Star Wars (Carlson).
The Utah Teapot was created by graphic researcher Martin Newell for his research at the University of Utah (Carlson). It was a good object for experimentation because of its round and relatively simple shape (Carlson). Newell made the mathematical data for the teapot’s geometry available publicly, so it became a mainstay for the experiments of other computer graphics researchers (Carlson).
1975
The first computer to have a modern GUI was the Alto, a computer developed at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) (Carlson).
1973
James Blinn refined texture mapping and also invents environmental reflection mapping at the University of Utah (Carlson).
1976
The magazine “Computer Graphics World” was founded (Sevo).
1977
Bump Mapping was developed by James Blinn to give surfaces more realism and complexity without adding polygons (Carlson).
Judson Rosebush, Jeff Kleiser, and 5 partners founded “Digital Effects,” a New York City based CG studio which helped push computer graphics to the mainstream in the film and commercial industries (Carlson).
1978
John Orr and Peter Preuss founded the National Computer Graphics Association (NCGA) (Carlson).
The Special Effects Computer Group was launched at Lucasfilms (“Computer History”).
Turner Whitted improved upon ray casting with ray tracing, which simulates light more realistically (Carlson).
The Black Hole and Alien both use rudimentary CG that cemented its use in science fiction films (Carlson). Ed Catmull left NYIT to head the CG department at ILM (Carlson).
1979
