John Whitney - Arabesque (1975) early computer graphics
BackJohn Whitney is considered by many to be the "Father of Computer Graphics". He started in the 1940s building clockwork mechanisms with lights to draw directly on film. Later, he bought WW2 surplus analog ballistics computers and eventually started using digital computers. I believe this one was rendered using a vector display.
Incidentally, his son John Whitney, Jr. owned the company that did graphics for "The Last Starfighter".
Channel: Film & Animation
Uploaded: April 9, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Author: postingoldtapes
Length: 00:06:43
Rating: 4.87
Views: 33799
Tags: john whitney computer graphics arabesque santur master Ostad Manoochehr Sadeghi
Video Comments:
RTpanzertime (October 11, 2008 at 7:40 pm)
Simply amazing. That would work very well as the background of a title sequence for a movie (I'm thinking a Japanese movie).
overclockeador (July 27, 2008 at 12:29 pm)
Yes, it's amazing.... tnx for the history lesson...
overclockeador (July 26, 2008 at 2:05 pm)
This was made whit sprites or poligons?
postingoldtapes (July 27, 2008 at 12:02 am)
This was 1975, and I believe it was before the invention of either sprites or any polygon drawing techniques. Dick Shoup built the first framebubber in 1974, Evans & Sutherland didn't make a commercial one until 1975. Frambuffers didn't have the power to draw like this for another decade. That's why I believe this was drawn on a vector display, which was filmed. The Star Wars animations (in Episode IV) were done in that way at the University of Chicago.
postingoldtapes (July 27, 2008 at 12:16 am)
The vector display (see old Asteroids and Tempest arcade machines) was probably monochrome, and color was added with various filters. And overlapping graphics of different colors were done by rolling the film back and double-exposing it. All of which makes Whitney's work even more amazing.
fatherwkd (May 31, 2008 at 5:53 am)
Thanks for posting this VID.!
guimbadriver (May 4, 2008 at 10:49 pm)
hey theres a movie called WESTWORLD is a movie from 1973 theres a take in a control room that a color computer screem shows a multicolor 3D triangles flying in the screem, its was the first computer graphics sample..
postingoldtapes (May 5, 2008 at 9:43 pm)
I'm not sure is John Whitney had anything to do with that, but his work predated 1973. He actually built clockworks to draw with light directly on film, then mechanical analog computers...digital computers only appeared fairly late in his career.
Yehan44surreal (September 22, 2008 at 7:59 pm)
are those mathematics equations plot in a graph? or how else are they done?
thanks
good luck
peace
thanks
good luck
peace
postingoldtapes (September 24, 2008 at 1:13 am)
I'm not sure exactly how Whitney accomplished what he did at the time. I'd love to read a book about him. I do that some of his early stuff was made by combining Lissajous patterns with shutters to cut up the forms as they were being traced on the film. The Wikipedia page on him has links to several books, but no real information.