Ivan Sutherland

Ivan Sutherland, an American computer scientist and internet pioneer is most well known for the invention of ‘SketchPad’

‘SketchPad’ is a computer program which acted as some sort of graphical user interface which is like a early version of the ‘CAD’ program Ivan Sutherland’s ‘SketchPad’ was not only just a step forward for computer graphics but has also been a real step forward for the PC computers that we haev today.

The SketchPad could be the starting of programs like 3DS Max and other 3D computer software.

SketchPad was an incredible piece of technology that was able to draw images that appeared to look like they were three-dimensional, for example in the image here This is an image that technically is two-dimensional but because of the way that it has been drawn the image appears to look like it is a three-dimensional shape, for example looking at the image if you were asked to say what the shape was you wouldn’t say that it was it was just a load of lines drawn in a funny pattern, you would say that the image was an image of a cube, which is a three-dimensional shape as you can not actually get a cube that is two-dimensional.

In SketchPad shapes that are created can then be changed by either moving, rotating, resizing and even copying the shape so that there are then two shapes which then can be changed individually, a bit like the basic tools that can be used in the present programs like 3DS Max.

Ivan Sutherland is definitely an important man in history as if it wasn’t for Ivan Sutherland designing the SketchPad we might not have computer software like 3DS Max and other 3D softwares, we might not have the advancement in computer graphics in the gaming industry and the film industry, there would be no big 3D production companies like ‘Pixar’ and most game industries that are around today.