Sketch Pad

SKETCH PAD

Ivan E. Sutherland

Consultant, Lincoln Laboratory

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Howdy! In this blog post, I am going to summarize and express my views and opinions on the above mentioned research paper. The author, Ivan Sutherland, talks about a simple and useful machine- human conversation system that he developed. It allows the user to draw shapes on the computer screen with the use of simple buttons, switches, light pen, knobs and a display system. 

(Figure 1) [1]

The system allows the user to draw lines, points, simple shapes like a circle and other things. The user can use the light pen to move around individual drawings. Simple shapes can be used to construct complicated patterns and shapes. The system's copy feature helps the user create a repetitive pattern as follows:

(Figure 2) [1]

The structure of the drawing is stored in the system so that stretching one part will move the entire drawing or change it as per the requirements demanded by the user. It turns out that this feature can be useful in many ways. Mechanical linkages can be drawn in the system and tested for stability and other parameters. It is also possible to draw circuit diagrams and test if the circuit works although this task becomes very cumbersome and time- consuming once the circuit gets more and more complicated. Drawing repetitive patterns is very easy with the help of this system.

I think that this is one of the greatest achievements in the field of computer graphics as this was the first system that gave the user an ability to communicate with the computer without the use of written commands. It opened the gateway for the field of computer graphics and computer- human interaction. The use of simple switches, buttons and knobs to draw complicated figures and to also save the design information that can be used later seems to be very sophisticated. I am very impressed by the approach that Ivan Sutherland used for designing the system. 

Ivan Sutherland also has other major accomplishments to his credit that have affected the modern world. He designed the first interactive graphics program (SketchPad), the first non- procedural programming language and the first object- oriented software system. Many consider him the creator of the field of computer graphics. 'When asked, "How could you possibly have done the first interactive graphics program, the first non-procedural programming language, the first object oriented software system, all in one year?" Ivan replied: "Well, I didn't know it was hard." ([2])

I used the following sources for this blog post:

[1] Proceeding DAC '64 Proceedings of the SHARE design automation workshop, Pages 6.329- 6.346.               ACM, New York, NY, USA 1964.

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Sutherland

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