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The Shaded Picture System was a 3D
The principles of shaded, hidden-line true 3D graphics were pioneered at the
raster
file:Rgb-raster-image.svg, upright=1, The Smiley, smiley face in the top left corner is a raster image. When enlarged, individual pixels appear as squares. Enlarging further, each pixel can be analyzed, with their colors constructed through comb ...
computer display processor introduced by Evans & Sutherland
Evans & Sutherland is an American computer graphics firm founded in 1968 by David C. Evans (computer scientist), David Evans and Ivan Sutherland. Its current products are used in digital projection environments like planetariums. Its simulation b ...
in October 1973.
The Shaded Picture System was the first general-purpose, commercially available raster computer graphics display processor capable of real-time, shaded 3D graphics. It could only display black and white
Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings.
Media
The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...
graphics at a resolution of 256 by 256. It was extremely expensive, and very few units were ever sold.
History
The principles of shaded, hidden-line true 3D graphics were pioneered at the University of Utah
The University of Utah (the U, U of U, or simply Utah) is a public university, public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. It was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret (Book of Mormon), Deseret by the General A ...
in 1967. However, this algorithm was slow and would take several minutes to produce an image. In 1970, Gary Watkins developed a FORTRAN simulator of a faster algorithm that would theoretically generate shaded 3D images in real-time, "if implemented in suitable hardware". The simulator itself was still not capable of real-time shaded 3D image rendering. Evans & Sutherland developed a functional prototype of this "suitable hardware", which was later sold as the Shaded Picture System in 1973.
About a year earlier in 1972, Evans & Sutherland sold the first and only CT1 to Case Western Reserve University
Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a Private university, private research university in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It was established in 1967 by a merger between Western Reserve University and the Case Institute of Technology. Case ...
. The CT1, or Continuous Tone 1, was a specialized image generator, not meant as a marketable or mass-produced product. At the time, the CT1, along with G.E./NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...
's upgraded Electronic Scene Generator from 1971, would have been the only real-time raster graphics systems sold to customers comparable to the Shaded Picture System, although both the CT1 and Electronic Scene Generator were intentionally produced as one-off products and specialized for the needs of their customers. The Shaded Picture System, in contrast, was intentionally marketed.In early 1975, Evans & Sutherland demonstrated a random-access video frame buffer
A framebuffer (frame buffer, or sometimes framestore) is a portion of random-access memory (RAM) containing a bitmap that drives a video display. It is a memory buffer containing data representing all the pixels in a complete video frame. Mode ...
using relatively low-cost semiconductor memory
Semiconductor memory is a digital electronic semiconductor device used for digital data storage, such as computer memory. It typically refers to devices in which data is stored within metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) memory cells on a si ...
, which was much more capable than the Shaded Picture System. When interfaced with a (non-shaded) E&S Picture System, the frame buffer had a resolution of 512 by 512 in grayscale and partial color capabilities. By the end of 1975, this frame buffer was commercially available.
See also
*LDS-1 (Line Drawing System-1)
LDS-1 (Line Drawing System-1) was a calligraphic (vector, rather than raster) display processor and display device created by Evans & Sutherland in 1969. This model was known as the first graphics device with a graphics processing unit.
Features
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References