Chapter 1: Fundamentals of computer graphics

Introduction
Computer graphics are graphics created using computers and, more generally, the representation
and manipulation of image data by a computer with help from specialized software and
hardware. The development of computer graphics has made computers easier to interact with,
and better for understanding and interpreting many types of data. Developments in computer
graphics have had a profound impact on many types of media and have revolutionized
animation, movies and the video game industry.
Computer graphics is a sub-field of computer science which studies methods for digitally
synthesizing and manipulating visual content. Although the term often refers to the study of
three-dimensional computer graphics, it also encompasses two-dimensional graphics and image
processing.
History of Computer Graphics
The phrase “Computer Graphics” was coined in 1960 by William Fetter, a graphic designer for
Boeing. The field of computer graphics developed with the emergence of computer graphics
hardware. Early projects like the Whirlwind and SAGE Projects introduced the CRT as a viable
display and interaction interface and introduced the light pen as an input device.
Initial 1960s developments
Further advances in computing led to greater advancements in interactive computer graphics. In
1959, the TX-2 computer was developed at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory. The TX-2 integrated a
number of new man-machine interfaces. A light pen could be used to draw sketches on the
computer using Ivan Sutherland's revolutionary Sketchpad software. Using a light pen,
Sketchpad allowed one to draw simple shapes on the computer screen, save them and even recall
them later. The light pen itself had a small photoelectric cell in its tip. This cell emitted an
electronic pulse whenever it was placed in front of a computer screen and the screen's electron
gun fired directly at it. By simply timing the electronic pulse with the current location of the
electron gun, it was easy to pinpoint exactly where the pen was on the screen at any given
moment. Once that was determined, the computer could then draw a cursor at that location.
Sutherland seemed to find the perfect solution for many of the graphics problems he faced. Even
today, many standards of computer graphics interfaces got their start with this early Sketchpad
program. One example of this is in drawing constraints. If one wants to draw a square for

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example, they do not have to worry about drawing four lines perfectly to form the edges of the
box. One can simply specify that they want to draw a box, and then specify the location and size
of the box. The software will then construct a perfect box, with the right dimensions and at the
right location. Another example is that Sutherland's software modeled objects - not just a picture
of objects. In other words, with a model of a car, one could change the size of the tires without
affecting the rest of the car. It could stretch the body of the car without deforming the tires.
Further 1961 developments
Also in 1961 another student at MIT, Steve Russell, created the first video game, Spacewar.
Written for the DEC PDP-1, Spacewar was an instant success and copies started flowing to other
PDP-1 owners and eventually even DEC got a copy. E. E. Zajac, a scientist at Bell Telephone
Laboratory (BTL), created a film called "Simulation of a two-giro gravity attitude control
system" in 1963. In this computer generated film, Zajac showed how the attitude of a satellite
could be altered as it orbits the Earth. He created the animation on an IBM 7090 mainframe
computer. Also at BTL, Ken Knowlton, Frank Sindon and Michael Noll started working in the
computer graphics field. Sindon created a film called Force, Mass and Motion illustrating
Newton's laws of motion in operation. Around the same time, other scientists were creating
computer graphics to illustrate their research. At Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, Nelson Max
created the films, "Flow of a Viscous Fluid" and "Propagation of Shock Waves in a Solid Form."
Boeing Aircraft created a film called "Vibration of an Aircraft."

Ralph Baer, a supervising engineer at Sanders Associates, came up with a home video game in
1966 that was later licensed to Magnavox and called the Odyssey. While very simplistic, and
requiring fairly inexpensive electronic parts, it allowed the player to move points of light around
on a screen. It was the first consumer computer graphics product.
David C. Evans was director of engineering at Bendix Corporation's computer division from
1953 to 1962, after which he worked for the next five years as a visiting professor at Berkeley.
There he continued his interest in computers and how they interfaced with people. In 1966, the
University of Utah recruited Evans to form a computer science program, and computer graphics
quickly became his primary interest. This new department would become the world's primary
research center for computer graphics.

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Also in 1966, Sutherland at MIT invented the first computer controlled head-mounted display
(HMD). Called the Sword of Damocles because of the hardware required for support, it
displayed two separate wireframe images, one for each eye. This allowed the viewer to see the
computer scene in stereoscopic 3D. After receiving his Ph.D. from MIT, Sutherland became
Director of Information Processing at ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency), and later
became a professor at Harvard.
In 1967 Sutherland was recruited by Evans to join the computer science program at the
University of Utah. There he perfected his HMD. Twenty years later, NASA would re-discover
his techniques in their virtual reality research. At Utah, Sutherland and Evans were highly sought
after consultants by large companies but they were frustrated at the lack of graphics hardware
available at the time so they started formulating a plan to start their own company.

1970s
Many of the most important early breakthroughs in computer graphics research occurred at the
University of Utah in the 1970s. A student by the name of Edwin Catmull started at the
University of Utah in 1970 and signed up for Sutherland's computer graphics class. Catmull had
just come from The Boeing Company and had been working on his degree in physics. Growing
up on Disney, Catmull loved animation yet quickly discovered that he did not have the talent for
drawing. Now Catmull (along with many others) saw computers as the natural progression of
animation and they wanted to be part of the revolution. The first animation that Catmull saw was
his own. He created an animation of his hand opening and closing. It became one of his goals to
produce a feature length motion picture using computer graphics. In the same class, Fred Parke
created an animation of his wife's face. Because of Evan's and Sutherland's presence, UU was
gaining quite a reputation as the place to be for computer graphics research so Catmull went
there to learn 3D animation.
As the UU computer graphics laboratory was attracting people from all over, John Warnock was
one of those early pioneers; he would later found Adobe Systems and create a revolution in the
publishing world with his PostScript page description language. Tom Stockham led the image
processing group at UU which worked closely with the computer graphics lab. Jim Clark was
also there; he would later found Silicon Graphics, Inc.
1980s

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In the early 1980s, the availability of bit-slice and 16-bit microprocessors started to revolutionise
high resolution computer graphics terminals which now increasingly became intelligent, semi-
standalone and standalone workstations. Graphics and application processing were increasingly
migrated to the intelligence in the workstation, rather than continuing to rely on central
mainframe and mini-computers. Typical of the early move to high resolution computer graphics
intelligent workstations for the computer-aided engineering market were the Orca 1000, 2000
and 3000 workstations, developed by Orcatech of Ottawa, a spin-off from Bell-Northern
Research, and led by an early workstation pioneer David John Pearson. The Orca 3000 was
based on Motorola 68000 and AMD bit-slice processors and had Unix as its operating system. It
was targeted squarely at the sophisticated end of the design engineering sector. Artists and
graphic designers began to see the personal computer, particularly the Commodore Amiga and
Macintosh, as a serious design tool, one that could save time and draw more accurately than
other methods. In the late 1980s, SGI computers were used to create some of the first fully
computer-generated short films at Pixar. The Macintosh remains a highly popular tool for
computer graphics among graphic design studios and businesses. Modern computers, dating
from the 1980s often use graphical user interfaces (GUI) to present data and information with
symbols, icons and pictures, rather than text. Graphics are one of the five key elements of
multimedia technology.
1990s
3D graphics became more popular in the 1990s in gaming, multimedia and animation. At the end
of the 80s and beginning of the nineties were created, in France, the very first computer graphics
TV series: "La Vie des bêtes" by studio Mac Guff Ligne (1988), Les Fables Géométriques J.-Y.
Grall, Georges Lacroix and Renato (studio Fantome, 1990–1993) and Quarxs, the first HDTV
computer graphics series by Maurice Benayoun and François Schuiten (studio Z-A production,
1991–1993). In 1995, Toy Story, the first full-length computer-generated animation film, was
released in cinemas worldwide. In 1996, Quake, one of the first fully 3D games, was released.
Since then, computer graphics have only become more detailed and realistic, due to more
powerful graphics hardware and 3D modeling software.

Applications of Computer Graphics

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1. Computer Aided Design - also known as computer-aided design and drafting (CADD) , is
the use of computer technology for the process of design and design-documentation.
Computer Aided Drafting describes the process of drafting with a computer. CADD
software, or environments, provides the user with input-tools for the purpose of
streamlining design processes; drafting, documentation, and manufacturing processes.
CADD output is often in the form of electronic files for print or machining operations.
The development of CADD-based software is in direct correlation with the processes it
seeks to economize; industry-based software (construction, manufacturing, etc.) typically
uses vector-based (linear) environments whereas graphic-based software utilizes raster-
based (pixelated) environments.
CADD environments often involve more than just shapes. As in the manual drafting of
technical and engineering drawings, the output of CAD must convey information, such as
materials, processes, dimensions, and tolerances, according to application-specific
conventions.
CAD is an important industrial art extensively used in many applications, including
automotive, shipbuilding, and aerospace industries, industrial and architectural design,
prosthetics, and many more. CAD is also widely used to produce computer animation for
special effects in movies, advertising and technical manuals. The modern ubiquity and
power of computers means that even perfume bottles and shampoo dispensers are
designed using techniques unheard of by engineers of the 1960s. Because of its enormous
economic importance, CAD has been a major driving force for research in computational
geometry, computer graphics (both hardware and software), and discrete differential
geometry.
The design of geometric models for object shapes, in particular, is occasionally called
computer-aided geometric design (CAGD).
2. Computer art - is any art in which computers play a role in production or display of the
artwork. Such art can be an image, sound, animation, video, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM,
videogame, web site, algorithm, performance or gallery installation. Many traditional
disciplines are now integrating digital technologies and, as a result, the lines between
traditional works of art and new media works created using computers has been blurred.
For instance, an artist may combine traditional painting with algorithm art and other

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 digital techniques. As a result, defining computer art by its end product can thus be
difficult. Computer art is by its nature evolutionary since changes in technology and
software directly affect what is possible.
3. Image processing - in computer science, image processing is any form of signal
processing for which the input is an image, such as a photograph or video frame; the
output of image processing may be either an image or, a set of characteristics or
parameters related to the image. Most image-processing techniques involve treating the
image as a two-dimensional signal and applying standard signal-processing techniques to
it. The Digital image processing is the use of computer algorithms to perform image
processing on digital images. Digital image processing has many advantages over analog
image processing. It allows a much wider range of algorithms to be applied to the input
data and can avoid problems such as the build-up of noise and signal distortion during
processing. Since images are defined over two dimensions (perhaps more) digital image
processing may be modeled in the form of Multidimensional Systems.
4. Presentation graphics program - is a computer software package used to display
information, normally in the form of a slide show. It typically includes three major
functions: an editor that allows text to be inserted and formatted, a method for inserting
and manipulating graphic images and a slide-show system to display the content.
Examples are Microsoft PowerPoint, Corel Presentations and Google Docs
5. Visualization - is any technique for creating images, diagrams, or animations to
communicate a message. Visualization through visual imagery has been an effective way
to communicate both abstract and concrete ideas since the dawn of man.
Visualization today has ever-expanding applications in science, education, engineering
(e.g. product visualization), interactive multimedia, medicine, etc. Typical of a
visualization application is the field of computer graphics. The invention of computer
graphics may be the most important development in visualization since the invention of
central perspective in the Renaissance period. Scientific visualization is the use of
interactive, sensory representations, typically visual, of abstract data to reinforce
cognition, hypothesis building and reasoning. Data visualization is a related subcategory
of visualization dealing with statistical graphics and geographic or spatial data (as in
thematic cartography) that is abstracted in schematic form.

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6. Entertainment – Computer graphics are now used in creating motion pictures, music
videos and television shows. Sometimes the graphics scenes are displayed by themselves
and sometimes graphics objects are combined with actors and live scenes.
7. Computational biology involves the development and application of data-analytical and
theoretical methods, mathematical modeling and computational simulation techniques to
the study of biological, behavioral, and social systems.
8. A computer simulation, a computer model, or a computational model - is a computer
program, or network of computers, that attempts to simulate an abstract model of a
particular system. Computer simulations have become a useful part of mathematical
modeling of many natural systems in physics (computational physics), astrophysics,
chemistry and biology, human systems in economics, psychology, social science, and
engineering. Simulations can be used to explore and gain new insights into new
technology, and to estimate the performance of systems too complex for analytical
solutions. Computer simulations vary from computer programs that run a few minutes, to
network-based groups of computers running for hours, to ongoing simulations that run
for days. The scale of events being simulated by computer simulations has far exceeded
anything possible (or perhaps even imaginable) using the traditional paper-and-pencil
mathematical modeling.
9. Virtual reality (VR) - is a term that applies to computer-simulated environments that can
simulate physical presence in places in the real world, as well as in imaginary worlds.
Most current virtual reality environments are primarily visual experiences, displayed
either on a computer screen or through special stereoscopic displays, but some
simulations include additional sensory information, such as sound through speakers or
headphones.
10. Computer animation - is the process used for generating animated images by using
computer graphics. The more general term computer generated imagery encompasses
both static scenes and dynamic images, while computer animation only refers to moving
images. To create the illusion of movement, an image is displayed on the computer
screen and repeatedly replaced by a new image that is similar to the previous image, but
advanced slightly in the time domain (usually at a rate of 24 or 30 frames/second). This

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 technique is identical to how the illusion of movement is achieved with television and
motion pictures.
11. A video game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface to
generate visual feedback on a video device. The word video in video game traditionally
referred to a raster display device, but following popularization of the term "video game",
it now implies any type of display device. The electronic systems used to play video
games are known as platforms; examples of these are personal computers and video game
consoles. These platforms range from large mainframe computers to small handheld
devices. Specialized video games such as arcade games, while previously common, have
gradually declined in use.