Image Objects 18 August 2021 18 August 2021 Image Objects An Archaeology of Computer Graphics Jacob Gaboury The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England Downloaded from http direct mit edu. Tài liệu về đồ họa máy tính cho xử lý hình ảnh trong khảo cổ học
Image Objects Image Objects An Archaeology of Computer Graphics Jacob Gaboury The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/chapter-pdf/1954096/f000200_9780262361798.pdf by UNIV OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA user on © 2021 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher The MIT Press would like to thank the anonymous peer reviewers who provided comments on drafts of this book The generous work of academic experts is essential for establishing the authority and quality of our publications We acknowledge with gratitude the contributions of these otherwise uncredited readers An earlier version of chapter was published as “Hidden Surface Problems: On the Digital Image as Material Object” in the Journal of Visual Culture 14 (1), and a version of chapter was previously published as “The Random-Access Image: Memory and the History of the Computer Screen” in Grey Room 70 (Winter 2018) This book was set in Stone Serif and Stone Sans by Westchester Publishing Services Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Gaboury, Jacob, author Title: Image objects : an archaeology of computer graphics / Jacob Gaboury Description: Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2021] | Edited version of the author’s thesis (Ph.D.) New York University, 2014, under the title: Image objects : an archaeology of 3D computer graphics,1965–1979 | Includes bibliographical references and index Identifiers: LCCN 2020031707 | ISBN 9780262045032 (hardcover) Subjects: LCSH: Image processing History | Computer graphics History Classification: LCC TA1637 G33 2021 | DDC 006.609 dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020031707 Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/chapter-pdf/1954096/f000200_9780262361798.pdf by UNIV OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA user on Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 Culling Vision: Hidden Surface Algorithms and the Problem of Visibility 27 Random-Access Images: Interfacing Memory and the History of the Computer Screen 55 Model Objects: The Utah Teapot as Standard and Icon 87 Object Paradigms: On the Origins of Object Orientation 125 Procedure Crystallized: The Graphics Processing Unit and the Rise of Computer Graphics 157 Coda: After Objects 191 Notes 203 Bibliography 259 Index 283 Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/chapter-pdf/1954096/f000200_9780262361798.pdf by UNIV OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA user on Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/chapter-pdf/1954096/f000200_9780262361798.pdf by UNIV OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA user on Acknowledgments This book is the product of many years, and the work and collaboration of countless people, communities, and institutions It has benefited, first and foremost, from the patience and enthusiasm of mentors who saw this project through its earliest iterations nearly a decade ago I would like to thank Alexander Galloway for pushing me to make big claims, Lisa Gitelman for ensuring those claims had substance, Mara Mills for her guidance and foresight, and the support and investment of Jussi Parikka and Timothy Lenoir I am truly lucky to have had the opportunity to work with and learn from the incredible intellectual community that is the NYU Department of Media, Culture, and Communication, whose faculty and students remain my advisers, colleagues, and friends That this project was allowed the time and resources to mature is thanks largely to the support of key research fellowships and archives, which provided critical funding and through which I presented early chapter drafts that challenged my own disciplinary preoccupations My first trip to the University of Utah was made possible through the ACM History Fellowship, and subsequent trips were supported by the IEEE Life Member’s Fellowship in Electrical History At Utah, I benefited from the guidance of an incredible group of archivists in the J Willard Marriott Library Special Collections, including Elizabeth Rogers, Lorraine Crouse, Krissy Giacoletto, Sara Davis, and Molly Rose Steed Work in the Carl Machover Papers at the Charles Babbage Institute was supported by the Adelle and Erwin Tomash Fellowship in the History of Information Technology, where Jeffrey Yost and Thomas Misa helped guide me through the collections and pushed the project in new directions Access to the National Museum of American History and the Air and Space Museum were made possible through a Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/chapter-pdf/1954097/f000300_9780262361798.pdf by UNIV OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA user on viii Acknowledgments Lemelson Fellowship from the Smithsonian Institution, where Eric Hintz and Paul Ceruzzi offered invaluable guidance I would also like to thank David Brock at the Computer History Museum and Henry Lowood at Stanford University for their invaluable assistance in navigating their institutional archives and collections The first draft of this project was completed in Lüneburg, Germany, during a transformative fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study on Media Cultures of Computer Simulation with Martin Warnke and Claus Pias A final chapter was added during a research fellowship at the Internationales Kolleg für Kulturtechnikforschung und Medienphilosophie in Weimar, Germany, alongside an incredible group of fellows, and with the expert guidance of Bernhard Siegert and Lorenz Engell The proposal for this book was completed during a postdoctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, where Lorraine Daston, David Sepkoski, and an amazing community of historians pushed me to consider a much broader view of the history of science and the place of computer graphics within it That proposal is likewise indebted to the care and attention of Raiford Guins and Henry Lowood, whose feedback and advice transformed what was a vague plan into a complete and legible project An early draft of the final manuscript benefited greatly from a University of California Humanities Research Institute’s manuscript workshop fellowship, and the patience and sage advice of Patrick LeMieux, Patrick McCray, Colin Milburn, Rita Raley, and Fred Turner in tweaking, nudging, and totally reworking key elements of what would become this book Finally, I would like to thank Doug Sery, Noah Springer, my three anonymous reviewers, and the editorial team at the MIT Press for carrying this project through its final stages Their patience and support made this work possible, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work with them I often tell graduate students that much of their professional career will be learning to confidently perform a series of tasks for which they have not been trained and might never be asked to perform again—a near impossible task without the guidance of horizontal communities of practice and care, without which none of this would have been possible To the media slackers: Stephanie Boluk, Patrick LeMieux, Laine Nooney, David Parisi, and Carlin Wing, your friendship means the world to me To the Critical Media Forms Working Group, whose annual media aesthetics workshops refined nearly all of what follows: Brooke Belisle, Stephanie Boluk, Kris Cohen, Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/chapter-pdf/1954097/f000300_9780262361798.pdf by UNIV OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA user on Acknowledgments ix James Hodge, Patrick Jagoda, Patrick Keilty, Patrick LeMieux, and Scott Richmond, thank you I would also like to thank my students and colleagues at Stony Brook University and the University of California at Berkeley for the train rides, writing groups, happy hours, and phone calls that supported me and my work as I navigated the challenges and complexities of academe Finally: to my family—Beth, David, Bryse, Hannah, and Keith And for Keehnan, who makes everything possible Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/chapter-pdf/1954097/f000300_9780262361798.pdf by UNIV OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA user on Figure 0.1 Ivan Sutherland’s students mark and measure Marsha Sutherland’s VW Beetle for digitization, 1972 Courtesy of the Special Collections Department, J Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/chapter-pdf/1954097/f000300_9780262361798.pdf by UNIV OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA user on Plate An abandoned bunker at Fort Douglas, future home of the Evans and Sutherland Computer Corporation, ca 1968 Courtesy of the Special Collections Department, J Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah Plate David Evans (left) and Shohei Takada (right) of Hitachi Electronics on a visit to Salt Lake City, 1973 Courtesy of the Special Collections Department, J Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/chapter-pdf/1954108/f005400_9780262361798.pdf by UNIV OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA user on 18 Augu Plate Ben F Laposky, Oscillon 1049, 1960 Museum no E.1096-2008 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/chapter-pdf/1954108/f005400_9780262361798.pdf by UNIV OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA user on 18 Augu Plate Fritz Fisher, Black Girl, 1973 Painting produced using SuperPaint graphics Plate SuperPaint menu by Richard Shoup, highlighting the skeuomorphic paint and canvas logic of the frame buffer, 1977 Courtesy of the Richard Shoup Papers, Carnegie Mellon University Archives Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/chapter-pdf/1954108/f005400_9780262361798.pdf by UNIV OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA user on 18 Augu Plate The video frame buffer (right) and an E&S Picture System (left) being used to display a Klein bottle In this application, the lower half of the video frame buffer is being used as ordinary memory to store the range to the nearest surface behind each picture element The resulting hidden surface picture is seen in the upper part of the screen Courtesy of the Special Collections Department, J Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah Plate Artist Duane M Palyka using the E&S Picture System and frame buffer to create a self- portrait, 1975 Courtesy of the Special Collections Department, J Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/chapter-pdf/1954108/f005400_9780262361798.pdf by UNIV OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA user on 18 Augu Plate Molecular model (top) and chess board simulation (bottom) assembled from geometric primitives, University of Utah, 1968 Courtesy of the Special Collections Department, J Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/chapter-pdf/1954108/f005400_9780262361798.pdf by UNIV OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA user on 18 Augu Plate 10 Martin Newell’s initial drawing of the teapot on graph paper, 1972 Courtesy of Martin Newell Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/chapter-pdf/1954108/f005400_9780262361798.pdf by UNIV OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA user on 18 Augu Plate 11 Frame captures of various Easter egg appearances by the Utah teapot, including in the Windows NT 3.5 “pipes” screen saver (top), the 1995 film Toy Story (middle), and the October 1995 “Treehouse of Horror VI” episode of The Simpsons (bottom) Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/chapter-pdf/1954108/f005400_9780262361798.pdf by UNIV OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA user on 18 Augu Plate 12 Snapshot of the Utah teapot lighting rig demonstration at the 1989 SIGGRAPH convention in Boston Courtesy of Steve Baker Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/chapter-pdf/1954108/f005400_9780262361798.pdf by UNIV OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA user on 18 Augu Plate 13 Engineer using the DAC-1 graphical workstation at the General Motors Research Laboratories, 1966 Courtesy of General Motors Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/chapter-pdf/1954108/f005400_9780262361798.pdf by UNIV OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA user on 18 Augu Plate 14 View from the Wheelhouse of the CAORF simulator Courtesy of the Special Collections Department, J Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah Plate 15 Graphics from the completed CAORF, 1975 Courtesy of the Special Collections Department, J Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/chapter-pdf/1954108/f005400_9780262361798.pdf by UNIV OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA user on 18 Augu Plate 16 Page from Introduction to VLSI Systems demonstrating several of Lynn Conway’s rules and the use of the λ unit Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/chapter-pdf/1954108/f005400_9780262361798.pdf by UNIV OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA user on 18 Augu Plate 17 The first iteration of James Clark’s Geometry Engine, arguably the first modern GPU, 1979 Courtesy of Lynn Conway Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/chapter-pdf/1954108/f005400_9780262361798.pdf by UNIV OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA user on 18 Augu Plate 18 The angular desk and custom cubicle dividers built for SGI in the mid-1990s, still in use at the Computer History Museum in 2012 Photo by the author Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/chapter-pdf/1954108/f005400_9780262361798.pdf by UNIV OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA user on 18 Augu Plate 19 SGI IRIS workstation in the Computer History Museum’s permanent collection Altered © Mark Richards Courtesy of the Computer History Museum Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/chapter-pdf/1954108/f005400_9780262361798.pdf by UNIV OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA user on 18 Augu Plate 20 Artie Vierkant, Image Objects, 2011–ongoing Print on aluminum composite panel Altered documentation images Courtesy of Artie Vierkant Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/chapter-pdf/1954108/f005400_9780262361798.pdf by UNIV OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA user on 18 Augu ... emblematic of an entire practice of image making Through an analysis of these five objects that shaped the early history of computer graphics? ??? ?an algorithm, an interface, an object standard, a... ago Each of these objects have, over the course of their design and creation, been touched and transformed by computer graphics This may be surprising to anyone accustomed to thinking of graphics. .. Names: Gaboury, Jacob, author Title: Image objects : an archaeology of computer graphics / Jacob Gaboury Description: Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2021] | Edited version of the