Computer Graphics: Techniques and Applications

About four or five years ago one began to hear about the enormous interest being taken in on-line consoles and displays. Nothing much was done with them, but computer men felt that this was the way computing ought to go: one might dispense with cards, and overcome many of the problems of man-machine communication. It quickly appeared that, as with computers, there had been a great under­ estimation of the amount of work involved, of the difficulties of programming, and of the cost. So it began to emerge that graphics was not the ultimate answer, in spite of superb demonstrations where one might watch a square being converted into a cube and then rotated. But my mind goes back to 1951 and the first computers. There, there were demonstrations of arithmetic speed and storage facility; but not much idea of actual use. However, we now understand how to use computers, and in the last year or two, significant developments in the field of graphics have led to genuine applications, and economic benefits. The equipment is still expensive, but it is becoming cheaper, more uses are being found, and f believe that we are just at the stage when the subject is gaining momentum, to become, like computers, a field of immense importance.