The Computer Graphics Book of Knowledge

In 1968 or 1969, I saw an Evans & Sutherland graphics input computer, complete with light pen, at MIT. Along one wall was industrial shelving. Students slept on the shelving, concentration camp style, to get a session on the computers in the room. It was very inspiring; I had already had two Fortran 4 classes at my high school, 1966-67, which had its own IBM 1130 system as well as an Olivetti Programma. But it was not more interesting than Physics.

I clicked on this and I was irrationally disappointed that it wasn&#x27;t more flashy lol I guess AI is truly rotting my brain at this point.<p>Anyways, I had Claude take this page and give it the treatment I expected: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;claude.ai&#x2F;artifact&#x2F;LLCo69bUdNFrxUSy2p4itp" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;claude.ai&#x2F;artifact&#x2F;LLCo69bUdNFrxUSy2p4itp</a><p>Not sure if it adds anything of real value, but I had to scratch the itch.

Alt title from the site index:<p><i>Milestones of CGI (1999)</i>

The irony of this being a long scroll of centered text without any images or photos is quite a bit of cognitive dissonance.<p>For folks who are curious how the story continues, there is:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.shapr3d.com&#x2F;history-of-cad&#x2F;introduction" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.shapr3d.com&#x2F;history-of-cad&#x2F;introduction</a><p>(which has some overlap)<p>For my part, I was long stymied in doing anything beyond basic 2D by the tools available and CPU speeds&#x2F;memory limitations --- OpenSCAD was the first 3D software I was successful with, and since then I&#x27;ve moved on to the Python-enabled soft-fork:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pythonscad.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pythonscad.org&#x2F;</a><p>though I&#x27;ve been trying to work out how to nicely create apps for making projects with acceptable wireframe previews:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;studio.flet.dev&#x2F;run&#x2F;bicQWc3Aul&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;studio.flet.dev&#x2F;run&#x2F;bicQWc3Aul&#x2F;</a><p>which I hope to make projects such as:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;cncwoodworking&#x2F;comments&#x2F;1xto532&#x2F;bamboo_box_w_sliding_lid_made_using_rabbet&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;cncwoodworking&#x2F;comments&#x2F;1xto532&#x2F;bam...</a>

No mention of The Rendering Equation &#x2F; path tracing from James T. Kajiya in 1986? For shame!<p>Also I was surprised not to see mention of Cindy Goral&#x27;s Radiosity paper, instead it being apparently developed much sooner, before raster output even?<p>No mention of Lance Williams inventing shadow mapping, absolutely ubiquitous until the recent increase in ray traced lighting and shadowing?<p>No joke, I might be a better historical record than this page! As a teenager spending all my pocket money at a crummy internet cafe, I found a huge archive of CG papers from SIGGRAPH and other conferences, going back to the 70s, and absolutely studied all those papers to death from printouts (since I was only allowed to use the home computer for 1 hour a day on the weekends until about 1997). I was also punished with detention for several weeks for &quot;wasting&quot; the Christian Brothers College boarding school printer for printing out all these papers when I said I was only going to print a few; I wore Veach&#x27;s Thesis printout down until I could barely read the pages by the time I graduated high school in 2001, and nobody ever helped or encouraged me, studying completely alone in South Africa. Different times...