COMPUTER GRAPHICS TIMELINE

• Column 1: Dates.
• Column 2: General events, publications (papers and books), stablishment of major academic infrastructures in the field, techniques, projects, awards, patents and standards. Includes (so far) the starting dates of movie projects.
• Column 3: Movies (film release dates), TV series and commercials broadcasted on TV. Does NOT include short nor demo movies, only includes full-feature long productions or paid projects.
• Column 4: People and corporations.
• Column 5: Hardware (electronic technology, computing, network, peripheral devices and graphics related appliances) and software (Operating systems, programming languages, games and others) products.

• -20G Big bang produced our universe, and current laws of physics maintain since short after then
• -5G Our solar system builds after a first generation of stars, allowing the formation of planets with presence of interesting heavy atoms like carbon
• -4.5G Organic live flourish on earth. This live will eventually become capable of vision, animation and computers
• -?M Earth life forms develop eyes
• -65M An asteroid hits the earth, killing 75% of all life, but allowing the mammals to flourish, and take over the domain of dinosaurs
• -150K Man species flourish and spreads over the planet.
• -40K - -6K Prehistoric man makes its first drawings in caverns
• -6K Human are capable of gathering resources, and still have free time, to the point of giving place to complex societies and writing, beginning an unprecedented history of advances in sciences and arts
• -2K - 1450: Multiple historical events make humanity fall in a dark age, and lost near 15 centuries, making necessary to rediscover and reinvent many things lost after the greek/roman gold classic era. Starting from another tragedy and human extinction (the plague), the human race begun to return to the path of science in the renascence.
• 1687 - Principia Mathematica - Isaac Newton
• 1760 - Johann Lambert stablishes the cosine law of the intensity of reflected light as strikes an object (introducing the word albedo)

• -5 - First primitive Abacus
• 1200 - Chinese Abacus: calculation aid for sum
• 1450 - Gutenburg press
• 1617 - John Napier's bones: calculation aid for multiplication
  
• 1622 - John Napier invents the logarithm, that is used in the first slide rule (http://www.sliderule.ca/intro.htm)

• 1801 - Joseph-Marie Jacquard builds the Jacquard loom, controled by puched cards
• 1811 - Luddites riot
• 1824 - Mark Roget publishes the paper "The Persistence Of Vision with Regard to Moving Objects"
• 1864 - Maxwell electromagnetic wave theory becomes basis for radio wave propagation
• 1888 - Oberlin Smith publishes basics of magnetic recording
• 1891 - Dickson uses Edison's kinetograph to record motion pictures

• 1825 - The thaumatrope optical toy is used to demonstrate Roget’ s theory of persistence
• 1826 - Photography (Niepce)
• 1830 - Babbage Analytical Engine designed
• 1832 - Simon Ritter von Stampfer (Austria) and Joseph A.F. Plateau (Belgium) invented the first animation devices: the Ritter phenakistiscope (rotating cylinder with pictures drawn inside of it, and spaces for looking a it) and the Plateau stroboscope (a disk with holes, with images on its back and a mirror in front of the disk to see the images).
• 1834 - Zoetrope, band of drawings inside a revolving drum
• 1842 - FAX (Alexander Bain)
• 1843 - Morse's telegraph installed between Philadelphia and Washington
• 1845 - 1853: the "magic lantern" projected transparencies over a screen, much like a modern-day slide projector. Baron Franz von Uchatius combined the magic lantern with the zoetrope, to create the first movie projector.
• 1869 - the kineopraph (the "flip book") was patented
• 1870 - 1880: the photographic emulsions improved exposure times allowing photographers like Eadweard Muybridge to take continuous motion. Still-frame animations was already popular by the time.
• 1877 - Edison invents phonograph
• 1877 - Charles Emile Reynaud creates the praxinoscope, a variant of the zoetrope that projected images from a strip of film, using mirrors
• 1884 - Nipkow (Germany) devises scanner for scanning and transmitting images
• 1885 - CRT (Cathode Ray Tube)
• 1887 - Hannibal Goodwin makes the light-sensitive emulsion on celluloid film, and George Eastman (inventor og the Kodak Camera) use this transparent film as the base of modern photography
• 1887 - Edison patents motion picture camera
• 1888 - Edison and Dickson record motion picture photos on a wax cylinder
• 1888 - Berliner invents gramophone
• 1890 - Hollerith introduces an automated punch-card driven tabulation device for the Census Bureau
  
• 1896 - Louis and Auguste Lumiére invented the cinematographe, and founded the first movie teather
• 1898 - Poulsen invents the Telegraphone, the first magnetic recording device (http://www.tcd.ie/Physics/Schools/what/materials/magnetism/six.html)

• 1905 - Einstein's Theory of Relativity
• 1906 - First experiments with color
• 1913 - John Bray simplified the hand-drawing process of making cartoons, by using translucent paper to reuse backgrounds (giving birth to the concept of "layers", "cel animation" or "sprites")
• 1917 - Felix the Cat
• 1923 - The debut of Mickey Mouse, later in the 1928 film "Steamboat Willie", the first animated cartoon with sound
• 1926 - First teleconference - between Washington and New York
• 1927 - Motion picture film standardized at 24 fps
• 1929 - BBC begins broadcasting
• 1930 - Philo Farnsworth receives patents for transmitting images by electronic means
• 1931 - First stereo recordings
• 1937 - Disney’s "Snow white and the seven dwarfs" , first animated full-length film
• 1938 - Valensi proposes color TV
• 1938 - First U.S. regular TV broadcast. In 1946 will be 12 TV broadcasting stations in the U.S., 46 in 1948 and FCC started to regulated the electromagnetic spectra
• 1940 - Disney’s "Fantasia"
• 1941 - First U.S. regular TV broadcast
• 1941 - First TV commercial (for Bulova watches)
• 1941 - Cable TV is installed
• 1940 - 1949 (?): Jay Forrester at MIT wielded to the conclusion that a "computer" would be the best tool for solving the problem of training pilots and testing aerodynamics for aircrafts... but the computers did not existed yet! (i.e. the first specific documented need of computers... and perhaps computer graphics)
• 1949 - John Whitney enters first International Experimental Film Competition in Belgium
• After 1950, the traditional film making techniques have not changed very much.

• 1906 - J. Stuart Blackton made popular the animated cartoon genre in cinemas, with "Humorous Phases of Funny Faces" and "Gertie the Dinosaur" (http://www.vegalleries.com/gerthistory.html) (1906 or 1914?)
  

• 1905 - Fleming electron tube
• 1906 - de Forest develops Audion vacuum tube amplifier http://www.pbs.org/transistor/quicktimes/movieclips/monkeysVIDEO/monkeysVIDEO_T1.mov
• 1923 - Zworykin develops Iconoscope at Westinghouse (first practical video camera)
• 1926 - First television (J.L. Baird)
• 1927 - Philo Farnsworth invents fully electronic TV (First all electronic TV is made by RCA in 1932)
• 1928 - Hollerith introduces the 80-column "punch card"
  
• 1931 - The magnetophone is first true magnetic tape recorder
• 1933 - Technicolor system (Three color). By the 1950’s, very few films were produced in blank & white
• 1939 - Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard design the Audio Oscillator (http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/histnfacts/museum/index.html)
  
• 1945 - Whirlwind computer project starts at MIT, future host for pionner computer graphics applications, proposed in order to provide a programmable flight simulation environment. The Whirlwind computer has 4KBytes of RAM.
• 1946 - The first general purpose electronic computer "ENIAC", was unveiled (University of Pennsylvania). It was able to do 1900 sums per seconds (about 1.9KIPS, or 0.0019MIPS) using 18000 vacum tubes, and the program was hardcoded in wires, using machine language directly.
  
• 1947 - Shockley, Bardeen and Brattain of Bell Labs invent transistors ("transfer resistance")
• 1948 - MARK-I computer prototype build in Manchester University, first stored program computer
• 1948 - Cable TV is installed
• 1949 - Williams tube (CRT storage tube)
• 1949 - EDSAC, first full scale (not prototype) stored program computer
• 1949 - BINAC computer made for Northrop
• 1949 - Whirlwind computer built; core memory developed by Wang of Harvard

• Cybernetics and Society - Norbert Weiner (MIT)
• Oscillon 4: Ben Laposky uses oscilloscope to display waveforms which were photographed as artwork
  

• Graphics display on vectorscope on Whirlwind computer in first public demonstration. The Whirlwind was used with a CRT to plot blips representing incoming aircrafts, based on radar gathered data (first practical use of computer graphics)
  
• UNIVAC I, the first commercial computer was delivered at 1 millon USD. 48 of them sold.

• Mr. Potato Head invented; later starred in "Toy Story"
• Air Force Project Blue Book organized to categorize UFO sightings

• IBM launches its first computer system, the IBM 701. 19 of them were sold.

• NTSC broadcast code (Luminance/Chrominance or "LC" color space). Note: the "National Television System Committee" was better known as "Never The Same Color" due to the technical limitations of the LC color codification/gamut

• FCC authorizes color TV broadcast

• FORTRAN - John Backus

• Disneyland opens

• SAGE system at Lincoln Lab uses first light pen (Bert Sutherland). Using about 46 Whirlwind computers on 23 radar stations, the las Whirlwind was operational until 1983.
  

• Lawrence Livermore National Labs connects graphics display to IBM 704; use film recorder for color images
• Ray Dolby, Charles Ginsberg and Charles Anderson of Ampex develop the first videotape recorder

• Alex Poniatoff (Ampex) introduces the VR1000 videotape recorder (2INCHES tape) - the first practical broadcast quality VTR
  
• Ampex demonstrates the Ampex VR2000 videotape recorder (2 INCHES tape)

• First image-processed photo at National Bureau of Standards

• Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) founded in august 1957 (Maynard Massachusetts, three employees and 8500 square feet of production square)

• Numerical controlled digital drafting machines - MIT
• TX-1 computer at MIT uses graphics console
• John Whitney Sr. uses analog computer (an M-5 anti-aircraft gunsight computer) to make art

• Saul Bass (and John Whitney Sr. ?), creates the titles intro to Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo using analog computer graphics devices. (1958 or 1961?, apparently in 1961)
  

• CalComp 565 drum plotter
  
• Integrated circuit (IC, or Chip) invented by Jack St. Clair Kilby of Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce of Fairchild Electronics

• First film recorder - General Dynamics Stromberg Carlson 4020 (uses Charactron tube) (http://www.wps.com/projects/Charactron/index.html)
• General Motors and IBM start developing the "DAC-1" system (Design Augmented by Computers). This system was presented in the Computer Detroit conference of 1964, and allowed a user to input a 3D description of an automobile, and then rotate it and view the image from different angles (first industrial CAD system used)
  

• Integrated circuit technology introduced in the electronics industry
• TX-2 computer at MIT uses graphics console

• William Fetter of Boeing coins the term "computer graphics" for his human factors cockpit drawings

• John Whitney Sr. founds Motion Graphics, Inc.

• DEC PDP-1 introduced (http://www.dbit.com/~greeng3/pdp1/)
  

• LISP developed by John McCarthy

• "Catalogue" or "Catalog"(John Whitney)

• Spacewars, first video game, developed by Steve Russell at MIT for the PDP-1
  

• Itek begins Electronic Drafting Machine project
• Mr. Computer Image ABC produced on Scanimate by Lee Harrison

• Information International Inc. (Triple I) founded, and involved in the creation of digital scanners and image processing business

• [ROBE63]: Roberts (MIT) hidden line algorithm (for convex polyhedron) ([FOLE92].15.3.1)

• Sketchpad developed beginning in 1961 by Ivan Sutherland at MIT is unveiled (Ref: Sutherland, Ivan E. Sketchpad: A Man-Machine Graphical Communication System. Proceedings of the AFIPS Spring Joint Computer Conference Washington, D.C.: 1963, p. 329-346.) (TowardAMachineWithInteractiveSkills.pdf - An functional explanation of the Sketchpad program).
  
• Coons' patches
• First computer art competition, sponsored by Computers and Automation
• First computer generated film by Edward E. Zajac (Bell Labs), created on a IBM 7090
  
• BEFLIX developed at Bell Labs by Ken Knowlton
• Charles Csuri makes his first computer generated artwork
• DAC-1, first commercial CAD system, developed in 1959 by IBM for General Motors is shown at JCC
• Michael Noll (Bell Labs) starts his Gaussian Quadratic series of artwork
  
• Fetter of Boeing creates the "First Man" digital human for cockpit studies (1960 or 1963?)
  
• The Society for Information Display established

• Lockheed Georgia starts graphics activity (Chase Chasen)

• Sketchpad run in the TX-2 computer, previous design to DEC PDP-6, build in 1959 with 68Kwords of 38bits ~= 300Kbytes, 1/12 MIP (like a 0.083Mhz, or 83Khz), 8Mbyte tape storage, 1000 square feet footprint.
• Mouse invented by Doug Englebart of Stanford Research Institute (SRI) History of Englebart at http://www.ibiblio.org/pioneers/englebart.html, Mouse demo of 1968 at http://sloan.stanford.edu/mousesite/1968Demo.html
  

• Project MAC (MIT)
• Poem Field by Stan Vanderbeek and Ken Knowlton
  
• Itek Digigraphic Program (later Control Data graphics system)
• Ruth Weiss introduces drawing software that performs hidden line elimination (Ref: Weiss, Ruth E. BE VISION, a Package of IBM 7090 FORTRAN Programs to Drive Views of Combinations of Plane and Quadric Surfaces. Journal of the ACM 13(4) April 1966, p. 194-204.)
• New York World's Fair
• Electronic character generator

• IBM 2250 console ($125,000) introduced with IBM 360 computer (first commercially available graphics computer). The IBM System/360 was a family of computers, including models 40, 50, 65 and 75. (http://www.shubs.net/1130/functional/DisplayUnit.html)
  
• RAND tablet input device (commercially known as Grafacon), sold with DEC Workstations at $18.000
  
• Compact cassette tape (Phillips)

• The BASIC programming language developed by Kurtz and Kemeny

• [BRES65]: Bresenham Algorithm for plotting lines (Bresenham, J. E. Algorithm for Computer Control of a Digital Plotter. IBM Systems Journal 4(1) 1965, p. 25-30.) ([FOLE92].3.2.2)
• Roberts introduces homogeneous coordinates (Ref: Roberts, Lawrence G. 1965. Homogenous Matrix Representation and Manipulation of N-Dimensional Constructs, MS-1505. MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington, Mass.)

• First computer art exhibition, at Technische Hochschule in Stuttgart
• First U.S. computer art exhibition, at Howard Wise Gallery in New York
• Utah computer science department founded
• BBN Teleputer uses Tektronix CRT
• CADAM developed at Lockheed
• CADD developed at McDonnell Douglas
• Project DEMAND consortium (IBM, Lockheed, McDonnell Douglas, Rockwell, TRW, Rolls Royce)

• Adage founded
• Dolby Laboratories founded by Ray Dolby, inventor of the first videotape recorder (1956)

• Tektronix Direct View Storage Tube (DVST)

• Loutrel hidden line algorithm (1966 or 1970? Is this [LOUT70] o other?)

• IBM awards Artist-in-Residence to John Whitney, Sr.

• Group 1 FAX machines (using CCITT compression)
• Studies in Perception I by Ken Knowlton and Leon Harmon (Bell Labs)
  
• John Whitney, Sr. and his brother produced the film "Lapis"
• Joint Defense Department / Industry symposium on CAD/NC held in Oklahoma City

• MAGI founded by Phil Mittleman (Elmsford, N.Y.)

• Lincoln Wand (MIT) developed (http://www.packet.cc/files/lincoln-wand.html). It digitizes the (x, y, z) position on space of the tip of a pen-sized wand
• Plasma Panel introduced (first developed at Illinois in 1964 as part of the PLATO project)
  

• Odyssey, home video game developed by Ralph Baer of Sanders Assoc., first consumer CG product, later licensed to "Magnavox". The game enabled the user to move points of light around a screen, and doesn't required any high end parts.

• [APPE67]: Appel hidden line algorithm (general). Ref.: "Appel, Arthur. The Notion of Quantitative Invisibility and the Machine Rendering of Solids. Proceedings of the ACM National Conference 1967, p. 387-393.". ([FOLE92].15.3.2) - Simple escenes took from 6.5 to 84.6 seconds on an IBM 7094.
• Steven Coons publishes his surface patch "little red book" (Ref: Coons, Steven A. 1967. Surfaces for Computer-aided Design of Space Forms , Project MAC Report MAC-TR-41. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.)

• GE introduces first full color real time interactive flight simulator for NASA - Rod Rougelet
• Sine Curve Man and Hummingbird created by Chuck Csuri
  
• Adage real time 3D line drawing system
• GE introduces first full color real time interactive flight simulator for NASA - Rod Rougelet
• Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) started in New York by artists Rauschenberg and Kluver
• MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies founded by Gyorgy Kepes
• Cornell's program started in Architecture by Don Greenberg

• Lee Harrison's ANIMAC graphic device
• 1/2 inch open reel video tape recorder
• Instant replay and Slo-Mo introduced using Ampex HS-100 disc recorder

• [APPE68]: Appel introduces raycasting. ([FOLE92].15.10, [FOLE92].16.12)
• Warnock algorithm (John Warnock at Utah?)
• Watkins algorithm

• University of Utah asks Dave Evans to form a CG department in computer science
• Permutations - John Whitney, Sr. Developed with IBM programmers.
• Cybernetic Serendipity: The Computer and the Arts exhibition at London Institute of Contemporary Arts
• Csuri's Hummingbird purchased by Museum of Modern Art for permanent collection
• Edsger Dijkstra writes article Go To Statement Considered Harmful which signals beginning of structured programming

• Intel founded
• Evans & Sutherland (E&S) founded (http://www.es.com/about_eands/history/index.asp)
• Calma founded
• Houston Instrument founded
• Imlac founded

• The Line Drawing System (LDS-1) from E&S introduces line clipping. E&S created custom line drawing routines and burned into HW (LDS was the first hardware accelerated graphics system), enabling the generation of lines 100 times faster than a software based IBM 2250 line system. LDS-1 cost from E&S: $250,000 (1968 or 1969?).
• DEC 338 intelligent graphics terminal
• Tektronix 4010 (http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/tektronix.html)
  
• ARDS terminal
• Computek 400 terminal
• Sutherland Head Mounted Display (Sword of Damocles), developed in 1966, shown (AFIPS Conference). It displayed separate wireframe images. (Ref: Sutherland, Ivan E. A Head-Mounted Three-Dimensional Display. Proceedings of the AFIPS Fall Joint Computer Conference Washington, D.C.: Thompson Books, 1968, p. 757-764.)
  

• Graphical User Interface (GUI) developed by Xerox (Alan Kay) (http://www.sensomatic.com/chz/gui/history.html)

• SIGGRAPH formed (began as special interest committee in 1967 by Sam Matsa and Andy vanDam)
• SCANIMATE commercialized - Lee Harrison (http://scanimate.zfx.com/index.html)
• Genesys animation system - Ron Baecker
• GRAIL (Graphics Input Language) developed at Rand
• Lee Harrison's CAESAR animation system
• First use of CGI for commercials - MAGI for IBM

• Xerox PARC founded
• Computer Image Corporation founded (during the 70’s made products like "Animac", "Scanimate" and "Caesar", image manimulation tools used by CBS Sports, Bell phones and others)
• ComputerVision, Applicon, Vector General founded

• Bell Labs builds first framebuffer (3 bits)
• Sony U-Matic 3/4 INCHES video cassette
• Intel introduces the 1 KB RAM chip
• ARPANET (that later becomes INTERNET) is born (http://www.internetvalley.com/intval1.html)

• UNIX developed by Thompson and Ritchie at Bell Labs (in PDP-7 assembly code)
• Computer Space arcade game built by Nolan Bushnell

At the end of the 60’s, the computer graphics software costs hundreds of thousands dollars for a single terminal ...

• Watkins algorithm for visible surfaces
• Pierre Bezier from Renault develops Bezier freeform curve representation

• John Staudhammer starts NCSU Graphics Lab at NC State (http://www.3rdtech.com/nick/ncsu_lab.htm)
• Ivan Sutherland digitizes his car
  

• ISSCO (Integrated Software Systems Corporation ) founded (marketed DISSPLA software) by Peter Preuss

• Sonic Pen 3-D input device
• Imlac PDS-1 programmable graphics computer marketed (http://www.blinkenlights.com/classiccmp/imlac)
  

• Pascal programming language developed by Wirth

• Gouraud shading (Ref: Gouraud, Henri. Continuous Shading of Curved Surfaces. IEEE Transactions on Computers C-20(6) June 1971, p. 623-29.)

• Interactive Graphics for Computer-Aided Design (Prince) published
• GINO (graphics input output specification) - Cambridge University
• MCS (Manufacturing and Consulting Services) founded by Patrick Hanratty, considered the "father" of mechanical CAD/CAM - introduces ADAM CAD software, which is the heart of many modern software systems

• Ramtek founded
• Robert Abel and Associates founded in Los Angeles (when Richard Edlund helped with camera motion control)

• Microprocessor technology introduced into electronics industry, based on integrated circuits
• Intel 4004 4-bit processor
• Floppy disk (8INCHES) - IBM

• [NEWE72]: Newell, Newell and Sancha visible surface algorithm (Ref: Newell, M. E., R. G. Newell and T. L. Sancha. A Solution to the Hidden Surface Problem. Proceedings of the ACM National Conference 1972, p. 443-450)
• Utah hand (Ed.Catmull) and face (Fred Parkes <<or Parke>>) animations produced (Ref: Catmull, Edwin. A System for Computer Generated Movies. Proceedings of the ACM National Conference August 1972, p. 422-431. and Parke, Frederic I. Computer Generated Animation of Faces. Proceedings of the ACM National Conference 1972, p. 451-457.) (Catmull was a physician from Boeing, and a Sutherland’s apprentice, who loved animation but lack of art talent..., the face was a model of Parke’s wife head)

• MAGI Synthevision started (Bo Gehring)
• CGRG founded at Ohio State
• Computer Graphics and Image Processing journal begins publication
• Sandin Image Processor - Dan Sandin, Univ. Illinois-Chicago Circle
• Graphics Symbiosis System (GRASS) developed at Ohio State by Tom DeFanti
• NASA IPAD (Integrated Program for Aerospace Vehicle Design) initiative started
• Graphics Standards Planning Committee organized by ACM-SIGGRAPH
• The @ symbol selected for email addresses by BBN
• Computer Graphics and Image Processing journal begins publication

• Emmy awarded to Lee Harrison for SCANIMATE

• Megatek, Summagraphics, Computervision, Applicon founded
• Atari formed (Nolan Bushnell)
• E&S recruits to Gary Demos from Caltech. Demos meet there with John Whitney Jr.
• E&S used PDP-11 and its own custom built hardware: picture system, graphics tablet systems and color framebuffers

• Alto computer introduced by Xerox PARC (Alan Kay) (http://members.fortunecity.com/pcmuseum/alto.html) It costed $32.000 in 1979
• 8-bit frame buffer developed by Dick Shoup at Xerox PARC
• Intel 8008 8-bit processor

• Video game Pong developed for Atari (http://www.pong-story.com/intro.htm)
• C language developed by Ritchie

• First SIGGRAPH conference (Boulder), 1200 attendees

• Principles of Interactive Computer Graphics (Newman and Sproull) first comprehensive graphics textbook is published
• Circle Graphics Habitat founded at Univ. Illinois Chicago (Tom DeFanti & Dan Sandin)
• Rich Riesenfeld (Syracuse) introduces b-splines for geometric design (Ref: R.F. Riesenfeld. Applicatoins of B-Spline Approximation to Geometric Problems of Computer Aided Design. PhD Dissertation, Syracuse University , 1973.)
• Moore's Law (the number of transistors on a microchip will double every year and a half) by Intel's chairman, Mr. Gordon Moore

• Westworld - uses 2D graphics and "pixelization" or "mosaic effect" (Triple I + E&S)
• Nolan Bushnell's video game Computer Space appears in movie Soylent Green

• Quantel founded

• Triple I + E&S team, future MPPG (Demos & Whitney Jr.) developed a framebuffer with 1000 lines, custom film recorders, scanners, graphics processors, image accelerators and software
• E&S begins marketing first commercial frame buffer
• Ethernet - Bob Metcalf (Harvard)
• 3/4 inch portapack replaces 16mm film for news gathering
• Richard Shoup develops PARC raster display

• SIGGRAPH 1974, Boulder (1)
  
• z-buffer developed by Ed Catmull (University of Utah). ([FOLE92].15.4?) (Ref: E. Catmull. A Subdivision Algorithm for Computer Display of Curved Surfaces, Ph.D. Thesis, Report UTEC-CSc-74-133, Computer Science Department, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 1974)
• [CATM74b]: texture mapping developed by Ed Catmull (University of Utah). ([FOLE92].15.4?)
• [CATM74a?] Catmull also worked in texture mapping and the rendering of curved surfaces.

• Barnhill and Riesenfeld introduce the name "Computer-Aided Geometric Design" (CAGD)
• Alex Schure opens CGL at NYIT, with Ed Catmull as Director
• SuperPaint developed by Dick Shoup and Alvy Ray Smith
• Hunger produced by Peter Foldes at National Research Council of Canada; wins Cannes Film Festival Prix de Jury award for animation

• Futureworld (sequel to Westworld) uses 3D CGI (Triple I)

• Motion Pictures Product Group (MPPG) formed at Triple I by John Whitney, Jr. and Gary Demos, both leaving E&S (Culver City, California). They used PDP-10 and a Foonley Machine (custom PDP-10 clone). (http://vhost2.zfx.com/~dave/triplei.html)
• Ed Catmull working at Applicon for a short time before moving to NYIT to build a computer graphics group with Alexander Schure

• DEC VT52 incorporated the first addressable cursor in a graphics display terminal (http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal/dec.html)
  
• Intel (Zilog) 8080 (http://www.cyberstreet.com/hcs/museum/8080.htm)
• TCP protocol (Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn)

• SIGGRAPH 1975: Bowling Green (1)
  
• [BUIT75]: Phong shading - Bui-Toung Phong (University of Utah) Ref: "Bui-Tuong, Phong. Illumination for Computer Generated Pictures. Communications of the ACM 18(6) June 1975, p. 311-317." ([FOLE92].16.1.4)
• The paper "A theory of fractals sets" is published by Benoit Mandelbrot (IBM), followed by the book "The fractal geometry of nature"
• [BAUM75]: Winged edge polyhedra representation (Bruce Baumgart) ([FOLE92].12.5.2)
• [CATM75]: Catmull curved surface rendering algorithm (Ref: Catmull, Edwin. Computer Display of Curved Surfaces. Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Graphics, Pattern Recognition and Data Structures (IEEE Cat. No. 75CH0981-1C) 1975, p. 11-17.)

• Martin Newell (Utah) develops CGI teapot (physical teapot now in the Computer Museum in Boston) (http://www.cs.utah.edu/gdc/projects/alpha1/help/man/html/model_repo/model_teapot/model_teapot.html)
• Arabesque completed (John Whitney)
  
• Anima animation system developed at CGRG at Ohio State (Csuri)
• Bui-Toung Phong died (!)
• USAF ICAM (Integrated Computer Aided Manufacturing) initiative started
• JPL Graphics Lab developed (Bob Holzman)

• Bill Gates and Paul Allen starts Microsoft

• Cray 1 introduced (1975 or 1976?)
• Sony Betamax recorder
• Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems (MITS) introduced the Altair 8800 computer, sold at $400 as a do-it-yourself mail kit (http://www.syssrc.com/html/museum/html/altair.html), (http://virtualaltair.com)
  
• Quantel (QUANtized TELevision) introduces the DFS3000 Digital Framestore

• SIGGRAPH 1976: Philadelphia (1)
  
• [BLIN76]: Jim Blinn develops reflectance and environment mapping (University of Utah)
• Jim Clark's Hierarchical model for visible surface detection (Ref: J. H. Clark. Hierarchical geometric models for visible surface algorithms. Communications of the ACM, 19(10):547-- 554, 1976.)
• [BURT76]: N. Burtnyk , M. Wein, [BURT76]_InteractiveSkeletonTechniquesForEnhancingMotionDynamicsInKeyFrameAnimation.pdf CACM, V19, #10, Oct 1976, 564-569

• MITs Visible Language Workshop founded by Muriel Cooper
• Ed Catmull develops "tweening" software (NYIT)
• Nelson Max's sphere inversion film
• Ukrainian Pysanka Egg erected in Vegraville, Canada by Ron Resch (University of Utah) to commemorate the RCMP
• "Artist and Computer", by Ruth Leavitt
• Mathematical Elements for Computer Graphics (David Rogers) published
• IFIP (The Internation Federation of Information Processing) conference at Seillac in France on "The Methodology of Computer Graphics" begins standardization process
• Computer Graphics Newsletter started by Joel Orr; becomes Computer Graphics World in 1978
• Wang word processing

• Peter Fonda's head digitized and rendered by III for Futureworld

• Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak start Apple computer.

• Dolby sound
• Sony Beta home video
• Floppy disk (5 1/4INCHES)
• Apple 1 (Wozniak)
• Ampex VPR-1 Type C 1 INCHES video recorder

• SIGGRAPH 1977: San José (1)
  
• Jim Blinn introduces a new illumination model that considers surface "facets" (Ref: Models of light reflection for computer synthesized pictures, James F. Blinn , Proceedings of the 4th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques July 1977, V11, #2, pp192-198)
• Fuchs multiprocessor visible surface algorithm (Ref: Fuchs, Henry. Distributing A Visible Surface Algorithm Over Multiple Processors. Proceedings of the ACM National Conference 1977, p. 449-451.)
• Frank Crow introduces antialiasing (Ref: Franklin C. Crow, The aliasing problem in computer-generated shaded images, Communications of the ACM, v.20 n.11, p.799-805, Nov. 1977)

• SIGGRAPH CORE Graphics standard (future evolved into PHIGS)
• Computer Graphics World begins publication (started by Joel and N'omi Orr as Computer Graphics Newsletter) (1977 or 1978?)
• Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences introduces Visual Effects category for Oscars
• Nelson Max joins LLL; Jim Blinn joins JPL
• GKS (Graphical Kernel System) graphics standard introduced (1977, 1985 or 1988?)

• Larry Cuba produces Death Star simulation for Star Wars using Grass at UICC (Electronic Visualization Lab at University of Illinois at Chicago or Ohio State?) developed by Tom DeFanti, using a DEC PDP-11, a Vector General Inc. vector display and a photographic frame by frame shooting on 35mm film.
  

• Apple Computer incorporated (http://www.apple-history.com)

• VHS (Video Home System) format - Matsushita
• JVC VHS home video
• Apple II released (http://apple2history.org/)
• TRS-80 introduced (http://www.kjsl.com/trs80), Based on Zilog Z-80 microprocessor.
  
• Ampex ESS^TM (Electronic Still Store) system introduced for network sports slo-mo;adapted for use as animation sequetial storage device

• SIGGRAPH 1978: Atlanta (1)
  
• [BLIN78b]: Bump mapping introduced (Blinn) ([FOLE92].16.3.3) (Ref: Simulation of wrinkled surfaces, James F. Blinn, Proceedings of the 5th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques August 1978, V12, #3, pp 286-292.)
  
• [WILL78]: Lance Williams curved shadows paper (Ref: Lance Williams, Casting curved shadows on curved surfaces, Proceedings of the 5th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.270-274, August 23-25, 1978 )

• Tom DeFanti's GRASS system rewritten for Bally home computer (Zgrass)
• AT&T and Canadian Telidon introduce videotex graphics standard (NAPLPS)
• Ikonas frame buffer - England/Whitton (http://www.3rdtech.com/nick/ikonas.html)
• Leroy Neiman uses Ampex AVA-1^TM video art system to draw (on air) football players in Super Bowl XII
• Computer Graphics World begins publication (1977 or 1978?)
• James Blinn produces the first of a series of animations titled The Mechanical Universe

• First CGI film title - Superman (R. Greenberg)

• E&S goes public
• R/Greenberg founded (Richard and Robert Greenberg)
• Digital Effects founded in Los Angeles (Judson Rosebush, Jeff Kleiser, et al)

• DEC VAX 11/780 introduced (http://www.compaq.com/alphaserver/vax/timeline/1977.html)
  - (200ns CPU cycles, about 5Mhz)
• Video laser disc

• SIGGRAPH 1979: Chicago (1)
  

• National Computer Graphics Association (NCGA) organized by Peter Preuss of ISSCO and Joel Orr
• Disney produces The Black Hole using CGI for the opening
• SIGGRAPH CORE Graphics standard (future evolved into PHIGS)
• Sunstone - Ed Emshwiller (NYIT)
  
• Jim Blinn presents Voyager animation fly-by made for NASA
  
• IGES graphics file format specified (http://www.nist.gov/iges)

• Disney produces The Black Hole using CGI for the opening

• George Lucas hires Ed Catmull, Ralph Guggenheim and Alvy Ray Smith to form Lucasfilm in San Rafael California (later, Lucasfilm recruited Richard Edlund from Robert Abel Associates to work on the StarWars project)

• IBM 3279 color terminal
• Atari 8-bit computers introduced (http://nimitz.mcs.kent.edu/~clisowsk/8bit.html)
• E&S PS-300
• Motorola 68000 32-bit processor

• SIGGRAPH 1980: Seattle (1)
  
• Vol Libre: Fractal terrain flyover made by Loren Carpenter of Boeing (each 512x512 pixels frame takes up to 40 minutes in a DEC VAX 11/780)
• [WHIT80]: Turner Whitted of Bell Labs publishes ray tracing paper. Simple images at 640x480 takes up to 44 minutes in a DEC VAX 11/780. ([FOLE92].15.10, [FOLE92].16.12) (Ref: Turner Whitted, An improved illumination model for shaded display, Communications of the ACM, v.23 n.6, p.343-349, June 1980)

• EUROGRAPHICS (The European Association for Computer Graphics) formed; first conference at Geneva
• SIGGRAPH Core standard reorganized as ANSC X3H3.1 (PHIGS) (1980 or 1988?)
• MIT Media Lab founded by Nicholas Negroponte
• First NCGA conference - Arlington, Virginia - Steven Levine, President
• Hanna-Barbera, largest producer of animation in the U.S.,begins implementation of computer automation of animation process
• Donkey Kong introduced by Nintendo (Mario named in US release)

• Disney contracts Abel, III, MAGI and DE for computer graphics for the movie Tron

• Apollo Computer founded
• IBM licenses DOS from Microsoft
• Apple Computer IPO - 4.6M shares at $22
• Aurora Systems founded by Richard Shoup
• Pacific Data Images founded by Carl Rosendahl

• Sony Walkman
• Donkey Kong introduced by Nintendo (Mario named in US release)
• Quantel introduces Paintbox
• Apollo Computer introduces the 68000 based workstation
• Computer hard disk drive - Seagate

• SIGGRAPH 1981: Dallas (1)
  

• Adam Powers, the Juggler: produced as a demo reel by Triple I
  
• Carla's Island: produced by Nelson Max, it was processed with vectorial algorithms in a Cray 1, using mathematical representations of clouds, waves and islands.
  

• REYES renderer written at LucasFilm
• Tom DeFanti expands GRASS to Bally Z-50 machine (ZGRASS) - University Illinois - Chicago Circle
• IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications published by IEEE Computer Society and NCGA
• MITI Fifth Generation Computer Project announced by Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry
• Ampex ADO^® system introduced; garners an Emmy award in 1983
• Penguin Software (now Polarware) introduces the Complete Graphics System (http://www.magictree.com/polarware/polarware.htm)

• Looker includes the virtual human character Cindy (Susan Dey) (Triple I, first film with shaded 3D computer graphics)

• R/Greenberg opens CGI division (Chris Woods)
• Digital Productions formed by Whitney and Demos
• Cranston/Csuri Productions founded by Chuck Csuri, Robert Kanuth and Jim Kristoff.

• Sony Betacam
• IBM introduces the first IBM PC (16 bit 8088 chip)
• DEC introduces VT100 (http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal/dec.html)

• SIGGRAPH 1982: Chicago (2)
  
• The Geometry Engine (Clark) (Ref: Clark, James H. The Geometry Engine: A VLSI Geometry System for Graphics. Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH 82 Proceedings) 16(3) July 1982, p. 127-133.)
• [FOUR82]: Alain Fournier , Don Fussell , Loren Carpenter, [FOUR82]_ComputerRenderingOfStochasticModels.pdf.Communications of the ACM, v.25 n.6, p.371-384, June 1982 (Fractal Rendering paper)

• Skeleton Animation System (SAS): developed at CGRG at Ohio State (Dave Zeltzer)
  
• The Last Starfighter (Digital Productions) begins production
• High Fidelity: Abel Image Research takes Robert Abel & Associates to shaded graphics business (1982 or 1985?)
  
• Where the Wild Things Are test (MAGI) - digital compositing used to combine CG backgrounds and traditional animation

• Fractal rendering (Fournier, Fussell and Carpenter)
• ACM begins publication of TOG (Transactions on Graphics)
• Tom Brighham develops morphing (NYIT)
• Quantel Mirage

• April/1982 When Disney's Tron was envisioned, few companies knew how to create CG effects, yet the film needed all-digital shots inside a videogame. Although now recognized as landmarks, the visual effects created by MAGI, Triple-I, Robert Abel & Associates, and Digital Effects are ignored by the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences' Visual Effects Branch. Tron was the first movie with 15 minutes of computer animation and lots of shaded graphics. Some believe Tron's box office failure slowed the adoption of digital effects, but by 2002 most films include computer graphics.
  
• June/1982 For this one-minute "Genesis effect" during Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, a dead planet comes to life thanks to the first cinematic use of fractals, particle effects, and 32-bit RGBA paint software from Lucasfilm's Pixar group (ILM computer graphics division).
  
• June/1982 Creating the dark, futuristic vision of LA in Blade Runner is accomplished using model shots and painted backgrounds. Several different kinds of software systems help generate computer-controlled camera moves on stage by, for example, fitting motion curves to selected key frames.
  

• Silicon Graphics Inc. founded by Jim Clark
• Sun Microsystems founded (SUN ::= Stanford University Network
• Adobe founded by John Warnock (exUtah guy)
• AutoDesk founded; AutoCAD released
• EPCOT Center opens
• Toyo Links established in Tokyo
• Symbolics Graphics Division founded

• Sony still frame video camera (Mavica)
• Atari develops the data glove

• SIGGRAPH 1983: Detroit (1)
  
• Particle systems (Reeves - Lucasfilm) (Ref: Reeves, William T. Particle Systems: A Technique for Modeling a Class of Fuzzy Objects. Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH 83 Proceedings) 17(3) July 1983, p. 359-376.)
• Mip-mapping introduced for efficient texture mapping (Williams - NYIT) (Ref: Williams, Lance. Pyramidal Parametrics. Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH 83 Proceedings) 17(3) July 1983, p. 1-11. )
• Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines (NURBS) introduced by Tiller (Note: this date is somewhat misleading, since the concept built on the work of Vesprille (1975), Riesenfeld (1973), Knapp (1979), Coons (1968) and Forrest (1972))

• Road to Point Reyes - Lucasfilm
  

• Jim Blinn receives the first (1983) ACM SIGGRAPH CG Achievement Award
• Ivan Sutherland receives the first (1983) ACM SIGGRAPH Steven A. Coons Award

• Steve Dompier's "Micro Illustrator"
• Utah Raster Toolkit introduced (Spencer Thomas)

• May/1983 For Star Wars: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Lucasfilm's Computer Division creates one effect: a wire-frame "holographic" model of the Death Star under construction. The division evolves into two groups, Games and Pixar. Pixar is sold to Steven Jobs in 1986.
  

• Alias founded in Toronto by Stephen Bingham, Nigel McGrath, Susan McKenna and David Springer (http://accad.osu.edu/~waynec/history/tree/ani-software.html#aliasresearch

• SGI IRIS 1000 graphics workstation
• Sony and Philips introduce first CD player

• UNIX System V
• Autodesk introduces first PC-based CAD software

• SIGGRAPH 1984: Minneapolis (1)
  
• [CARP84]: A-buffer (or alpha-buffer) introduced by Carpenter of Lucasfilm ([FOLE92].15.4, [FOLE92].15.7.3)
• [COOK84a]: Cook shading model (Lucasfilm) (Ref: Cook, Robert L. Shade Trees. Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH 84 Proceedings) 18(3) July 1984, p. 223-231.) ([FOLE92].16.14.3)
  
• [COOK84b]: Distributed ray tracing introduced by Lucasfilm. (Ref: Cook, Robert L., Thomas Porter and Loren Carpenter. Distributed Raytracing. Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH 84 Proceedings) 18(3) July 1984, p. 137-145.) ([FOLE92].16.12.4)
  
• [GORA84]: Radiosity born - Cornell University (Ref: Goral, Cindy M., Kenneth E. Torrence, Donald P. Greenberg and Bennett Battaile. Modeling the Interaction of Light Between Diffuse Surfaces. Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH 84 Proceedings) 18(3) July 1984, p. 213-222. ) ([FOLE92].16.3) [GORA84]_ModelingTheInteractionOfLightBetweenDiffuseSurfaces.pdf
• The Cornell illumination Box invented by Cohen. The Cornell Box experiments have come to symbolize the approach to physically based rendering.
  
• Porter and Duff compositing algorithm (Lucasfilm) (Ref: Porter, Thomas and Tom Duff. Compositing Digital Images. Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH 84 Proceedings) 18(3) July 1984, p. 253-259.)

• The Adventures of André and Wally B.: Created by Lucasfilm using a Cray X-MP/48 and a cluster of ten VAX 11/750s.
  
• The Magic Egg: a 14.5 minute computer generated IMAX film shown at SIGGRAPH 84 - 18 teams; 20 segments (http://www.accad.ohio-state.edu/~waynec/history/magic-egg.html)

• International Resource Development report predicts the extinction of the keyboard in the next decade
• Lucasfilms introduces motion blur effects

• Jim Clark receives the 1984 ACM SIGGRAPH CG Achievement Award
• Digital Productions (Whitney and Demos) get Academy Technical Achievement Award for CGI simulation of motion picture photography

• Brilliance: Robert Abel & Associates produces the first computer generated 30 second commercial, used for Super Bowl. (1984 or 1985?)
  

• July/1984 For The Last Starfighter, Digital Productions creates CG spaceships, planets, and high-tech hardware that are integrated into live-action scenes. It is unusual that the CG tools are used for images that aren't supposed to look computer generated. (released on 1983 or 1984?)
  

• Wavefront technologies
• Thomson Digital Image (TDI) founded
• Universal Studios opens CG department
• John Lasseter joins Lucasfilm

• Wavefront Technologies is the first commercially available 3D software package (founded by Mark Sylvester, Larry Barels and Bill Kovacs) (http://accad.osu.edu/~waynec/history/tree/ani-software.html#wavefront)

• Motorola 68020 processor
• McDonnel Douglas introduces the Polhemus 3Space digitizer and body Tracker
• First Macintosh computer is sold; introduced with Clio award winning commercial 1984 during Super Bowl(http://library.stanford.edu/mac/index.html)
• DEC launches ULTRIX UNIX variant for VAX systems
• April: DEC VAX-11/785, 133ns/cicle CPU (7.5Mhz)
  
• October: DEC VAX8600 (+/- 21Mhz? "4.2 times a VAX-11/780" )
  

• SIGGRAPH 1985: San Francisco (1)
  

• Luxo Jr.: from Pixar, premiered at SIGGRAPH 1985 (1985 or 1986?)
  
• Tony de Peltrie airs
  
• Hard Woman video for the Mick Jagger's song developed by Digital Productions (1985 or 1986?)
  
• PODA creature animation system developed by Girard and Maciejewski at Ohio State (Ref: Girard, Michael and A. A. Maciejewski. Computational Modeling for the Computer Animation of Legged Figures. Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH 85 Proceedings) 19(3) July 1985, p. 263-270.) (Video from 1985 or 1989?)
  
• Biosensor (Toyo Links)
• Young Sherlock Holmes stained glass knight (Lucasfilm / ILM) (1985 or 1989?)
• 2010 (Boss Films)
• Looker (Digital Productions)
• GKS standard (1977, 1985 or 1988?)
• PHIGS standard (1980 or 1988?)
• X10R1 format
• PostScript (Adobe - John Warnock)

• CGW predicts 90s graphics workstation
  
• [PERL85]: Perlin's noise functions introduced (Ref: Perlin, Ken. An Image Synthesizer. Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH 85 Proceedings) 19(3) July 1985, p. 287-296.) ([PERL85]_AnImageSynthesizer.pdf)

• Loren Carpenter receives the 1985 ACM SIGGRAPH CG Achievement Award
• Pierre Bezier receives the 1985 ACM SIGGRAPH Steven A. Coons Award

• Max Headroom - First computer-mediated live action figure (1985 or 1987?)
  

• NeXT Incorporated founded by Steve Jobs and five former Apple senior managers
• Sogitec founded (Xavier Nicolas)
• Judson Rosebush Co. started
• Pixar Image Computer goes to market
• MIT Media Lab moves to new home
• Boss Films Studios founded by Richard Edlund

• Cray 2
• DEC introduces MicroVAX II
  
• Commodore launches the new Amiga
• Targa 16 board (AT&T) goes to market
• CD-ROMs High Sierra (ISO9660) standard introduced
• Stereo TV

• Quantel Harry is first non-linear editor

• SIGGRAPH 1986: Dallas (2)
  
• [KAJI86]: Kajiya's Rendering Equation (Ref: Kajiya, James T. The Rendering Equation. Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH 86 Proceedings) 20(4) August 1986, p. 143-150.) ([FOLE92].16.11, [FOLE92].16.12.4)

• Waldo project introduces motion capture (Digital Productions)

• NSFNet
• TIFF (Aldus)

• Turner Whitted receives the 1986 ACM SIGGRAPH CG Achievement Award
• Luxo Jr. nominated for Oscar (first CGI film to be nominated - Pixar)

• The Great Mouse Detective was the first animated film to be aided by CG, in the creation of Big Ben's gears scene.

• Pixar purchased from Lucasfilm by Steve Jobs
• Trancept Systems founded by Nick England and Mary Whitton - graphics board for Sun
• CGI group starts at Industrial Light and Magic (Doug Kay and George Joblove)
• Sun Microsystems goes public
• Silicon Graphics Incorporated IPO
• Softimage founded by Daniel Langlois in Montreal (http://accad.osu.edu/~waynec/history/tree/ani-software.html#softimage)
• Microsoft goes public (IPO raises $61M; share prices go from $21 to $28)
• Omnibus assumes Robert Able & Associates and Digital Productions in hostile takeovers by John Pennie and investors
• Whitney/Demos Productions founded
• Scitex founded for prepress
• Computer Associates acquires ISSCO
• Mental images founded in Berlin (http://www.mentalimages.com)

• Apple IIgs introduced
• Intel introduces 82786 graphics coprocessor chip
• Texas Instruments introduces TMS34010 Graphics System Processor
• SGI IRIS 3000 (MIPS processor)

• X-Window System (MIT Project Athena)

• SIGGRAPH 1987: Anaheim (1)
  
• Reynolds' flocking behavior algorithm (Symbolics) (http://www.red3d.com/cwr/boids) (Ref: Reynolds, Craig W. Flocks, Herds and Schools: A Distributed Behavior Model. Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH 87 Proceedings) 21(4) July 1987, p. 25-34.)
• Marching Cubes algorithm (Lorensen and Cline - GE) (Ref: Lorensen, William and Harvey E. Cline. Marching Cubes: A High Resolution 3D Surface Construction Algorithm. Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH 87 Proceedings) 21(4) July 1987, p. 163-170.)

• Stanley and Stella in: Breaking the Ice
  
• Max Headroom debuts (1985 or 1987?)

• Rob Cook receives the 1987 ACM SIGGRAPH CG Achievement Award
• Don Greenberg receives the 1987 ACM SIGGRAPH Steven A. Coons Award

• GIF format (CompuServe)
• JPEG format (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
• CGM (Computer Graphics Metafile) standard
• Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD) founded at Ohio State (formerly CGRG) (http://www.accad.ohio-state.edu/~waynec/history/ACCAD-overview/overview.html)

• LucasArts formed
• Side Effects Software established (http://accad.osu.edu/~waynec/history/tree/ani-software.html#se)
• Omnibus closes, eliminating Digital Productions and Abel (http://vhost2.zfx.com/~dave/omnibust.html)
• Cranston/Csuri Productions closes
• Metrolight Studios founded
• RezN8 Productions founded
• Kleiser/Walczak Construction Co. founded
• DeGraf/Wahrman founded

• VGA (Video Graphics Array) invented by IBM
• Sun 4 SPARC workstation

• Windows 2.0
• MS/OS 2
• Excel
• Adobe Illustrator

• SIGGRAPH 1988: Atlanta (2)
  

• Tin Toy from PIXAR wins Academy award
  
• Willow (Lucasfilm) uses morphing in a feature film

• Al Barr receives the 1988 ACM SIGGRAPH CG Achievement Award

• PICT format (Apple)
• GKS standard(1977, 1985 or 1988?)
• D-2 composite video format introduced by Ampex
• Internet Worm infects servers all over the world
• Disney and Pixar develop CAPS (Computer Animation Paint System) (academy technical award in 1992)

• Willow (Lucasfilm) popularizes morphing
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit mixes live action and animation
• December/1988 Arguably, the first 3D character in a feature film is a knight who leaps out of a stained glass window in Young Sherlock Holmes. The Pixar group at Lucasfilm uses new motion blur technology and its 32-bit RGBA paint system to create the effect. ([FOLE92].ColorPlate.IV.24)
  

• Apple sues Microsoft for copyright infringement for GUI
• Gary Demos founds DemoGraFX
• Prime Computer acquires Computervision
• US Patent awarded to Pixar for RenderMan
• Open Software Foundation (OSF)
• JCGL purchased by NAMCO

• NeXT Cube - For $6500, it features: 25-MHz 68030 processor and 68882 math coprocessor, 8 MB RAM, 17-inch monochrome monitor, 256 MB read/write magneto-optical drive, and object-oriented NeXTSTEP operating system.

• SIGGRAPH 1989: Boston (2)
  

• Knick Knack (Pixar)
  

• John Warnock receives the 1989 ACM SIGGRAPH CG Achievement Award
• David Evans receives the 1989 ACM SIGGRAPH Steven A. Coons Award

• PHIGS+

• August/1989 Using Alias/2 animation software running on SGI's 4D/120 workstation, Pixar's RenderMan running on a Pixar Image Computer, and data from Cyberware's scans, ILM creates the water tentacle for The Abyss. Storyboards are scanned into SuperMac's PixelPaint and edited with not-yet-released software called Photoshop.
  

• HP buys Apollo
• Computervision acquires Calma

• 8MM videotape introduced by Sony
• Intel 80486
• Mental ray renderer released (integrated with Wavefront (1992), Softimage (1993), Maya (2002)) - awarded AMPAS Technical Achievment Award in 2002

• PIXAR starts marketing RenderMan
• Adobe Photoshop
• OSF Motif V1.0 released

• SIGGRAPH 1990: Dallas (3)
  

• Richard Shoup and Alvy Ray Smith receive the 1990 ACM SIGGRAPH CG Achievement Award

• First edition of Graphics Gems published by Academic Press (Andrew Glassner, editor)
• US Patent awarded to Pixar for point sampling
• John Wiley & Sons begins publishing The Journal of Visualization and Computer Animation

• June/1990 To animate these skeletons for Total Recall, Metrolight Studios tries using motion capture on set, but this first attempt to use mocap in a film fails. Instead, the studio rotoscopes film shot in low light during the capture. The visual effects win a special achievement Academy Award.
  (Aren't this from El vengador del futuro?)

• DEC reaches 124000 employees and 12.9GUSD (12.9 billion) of annual revenues

• IBM RS6000 workstation

• Microsoft ships Windows 3.0
• 3D Studio (AutoDesk)
• NewTek Video Toaster

• SIGGRAPH 1991: Las Vegas (1)
  

• ILM produces Terminator 2
• Beauty and the Beast (Disney)

• Jim Kajiya receives the 1991 ACM SIGGRAPH CG Achievement Award
• Andy van Dam receives the 1991 ACM SIGGRAPH Steven A. Coons Award
• The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Special Achievement Award for Visual Effects for Total Recall (Metrolight Studios)
• Disney (Randy Cartwright, David Coons, Lem Davis, Tom Hahn, Jim Houston, Mark Kimball, Dylan Kohler, Peter Nye, Mike Shaantzis, David Wolf) get Academy Scientific and Engineering Award for CAPS production system.
• Ray Feeney, Richard Keeney and Richard Lundell get Academy Scientific and Engineering Award for the Solitair Film Recorder.

• Karl Sims computes Panspermia theory botanical images on a Thinking Machines CM-2, using genetic algorithms published in the paper "Artificial Evolution for Computer Graphics"
  Karl Sims, Computer Graphics (Siggraph '91 proceedings), July 1991, pp.319-328.; and also presented in the page http://www.genarts.com/karl/panspermia.html )
  
• World Wide Web (CERN) (http://www.internetvalley.com/intval1.html)
• Disney and PIXAR agree to create 3 films, including the first computer animated full-length film Toy Story
• Kodak PhotoCD
• JPEG/MPEG

• October 1991 Director Jim Cameron develops Terminator 2, which doesn't simply include CG but relies on it for the liquid-metal, shape-shifting T-1000 character, which is modeled, animated, rendered, and morphed at ILM.
  
• November/1991 Although 3D graphics debuted in earlier Disney animations, Beauty and the Beast is the first in which hand-drawn characters appear in a 3D background. Every frame of the film is scanned, created, or composited within Disney's computer animation production system (CAPS) co-developed with Pixar.
  

• Symbolics Graphics Division sold to Nichimen Graphics
• SunSoft - software subsidiary of Sun Microsystems

• SGI Indigo workstation
• Motorola 68040

• SIGGRAPH 1992: Chicago (2)
  

• VIFX uses flock animation with Prism software to create large groups of animals
• University of Illinois debuts CAVE virtual reality technology at SIGGRAPH 92

• Henry Fuchs receives the 1992 ACM SIGGRAPH CG Achievement Award
• Disney and Pixar get Academy Technical Achievement Award for CAPS production system
• Loren Carpenter, Rob Cook, Ed Catmull, Tom Porter, Pat Hanrahan, Tony Apodaca and Darwyn Peachey get the Academy Scientific and Engineering Award for Renderman
• Tom Brigham, Doug Smythe and ILM get Academy Technical Achievement Award for morphing technique (MORF)

• US Patent awarded to Pixar for Non-Affine Image Warping

• Lawnmower Man (Angel Studios)
• March/1992 To create 20 minutes of The Lawnmower Man's version of VR, Angel Studios, Xaos, Inc., and Homer & Associates use motion capture, particle systems, algorithmic-based paint, and other state-of-the-art techniques running on SGI workstations.
  

• Softimage goes public
• SGI acquires MIPS
• Novell buys UNIX from AT&T - $150M (transfers UNIX trademark to X/Open standards organization in 1993)

• DEC VAX 7000, last VAX before the alpha era

• OpenGL (SGI) released
• QuickTime introduced (Apple)

• SIGGRAPH 1993: Anaheim (2)
  

• Babylon 5 uses Amiga and Macintosh generated CGI

• Pat Hanrahan receives the 1993 ACM SIGGRAPH CG Achievement Award
• Ed Catmull receives the 1993 ACM SIGGRAPH Steven A. Coons Award
• Pixar gets Academy Technical Achievement Award for development of Renderman
• Academy Scientific and Engineering Award is given to Les Dittart, Mark Leather, Doug Smythe and George Joblove for the development of the Digital Motion Picture Retouching System (rig removal and dirt cleanup)

• Disk array and compression codecs allow for nonlinear editing and full motion video
• Xaos Tools Pandemonium image processor for the SGI
• Wired Magazine launched
• February (premiere) issue of DV magazine advises "[to be able to do digital video, get] the most souped up system you can get your hands on. A fast processor (68040 on Amiga or Mac, 80486 on PC) and lots of RAM (8-64 MB) are in order. So is a large hard drive (200 MB - 1 GB) if you want to take on serious production."
  

• June/1993 When ILM's Dennis Muren convinces Stephen Speilberg to use computer graphics dinosaurs as well as animatronics in Jurassic Park, movies are forever changed. In ILM's 80 effects shots, full-size dinosaurs move freely in background plates, and the first digital double gets lunched.
  
• December 1993 Rather than train a real whale to leap to freedom in the open seas, VIFX inserts a CG whale between shots of animatronics for Free Willy. The CG orca is created with Symbolics software and hardware and rendered with RenderMan.
  

• Digital Domain founded by James Cameron, Stan Winston, and Scott Ross
• Wavefront buys TDI

• GPS system
• Xaos Tools Pandemonium image processor for the SGI

• Windows NT
• Doom hits game market (1993 or 1994?)
• Myst released (Cyan) - in 1998, it became the top selling game of all time
• Mosaic browser (NCSA)
• Adobe Acrobat

• SIGGRAPH 1994: Orlando (1)
  

• Facetracker used by SimmGraphics to animate facial expressions for Super Mario

• Ken Torrance receives the 1994 ACM SIGGRAPH CG Achievement Award
• ILM earns Oscar for special effects for Jurassic Park
• Academy Technical Achievement Awards go to Mike Boudry of the Computer Film Company for pioneering work in film input scanning; and David and Lloyd Addleman for their inventions in digital image compositing.
• The AMPAS Academy Award of Merit goes to Peter and Paul Vlahos for Ultimatte electronic blue screen compositing.
• Academy Scientific and Engineering Awards go to Gary Demos and Dan Cameron of III, David Difrancesco and Gary Starkweather of Pixar, and Scott Squires of ILM for pioneering work in film scanning; Lincoln Hu and Mike Mackenzie of ILM and Glenn Kennel and Mike Davis of Kodak for development work on a linear array CCD film input scanning system; and Ray Feeney, Will McCown and Bill Bishop of RFX and Les Dittert of PDI for their development work on an area array CCD film input scanning system

• Direct Broadcast Satellite service
• HDTV standard for transmission adopted in US
• US Patent awarded to Pixar for creating, manipulating and displaying images

• Reboot (CG cartoon) uses 3D characters (Mainframe Entertainment)

• June/1994 Casper is arguably the first 3D lead character in a live-action film and definitely the first 3D lead character animated at ILM. ILM creates 200 effects shots for the film, many of which integrate semi-transparent characters into live-action backgrounds.
  
• June/1994 For The Lion King, Disney Feature Animation's CGI department animates crowds of 3D wildebeests and integrates them into painted backgrounds, and Disney unveils its closely guarded computer animation and production system (CAPS), co-developed with Pixar.
  
• July/1994 Rarely have CG effects been used in as lively a way as the Tex Avery-style ones created by ILM for The Mask. The studio helps turn Jim Carrey into a live-action cartoon and does odd things with his dog, too.
  

• Microsoft acquires Softimage
• SGI and Nintendo team up for Nintendo 64 product
• SGI founder Jim Clark resigns, forms Mosaic Communications

• Iomega Zip drive

• Netscape browser
• VRML introduced (Mark Pesce)
• Linux 1.0 released
• Microsoft announces Windows 95

• SIGGRAPH 1995: Los Angeles (1)
  

• Pixar gets Academy Award for digital scanning technology
• John Lasseter of Pixar gets Academy Award for development and application of techniques used in Toy Story
• Kurt Akeley (SGI) receives the 1995 ACM SIGGRAPH CG Achievement Award
• Jose Encarnacao receives the 1995 ACM SIGGRAPH Steven A. Coons Award
• Academy Scientific and Engineering Award goes to Alvy Ray Smith, Ed Catmull, Tom Porter and Tom Duff (Pixar) for pioneering inventions in digital compositing.
• Academy Technical Achievement Awards go to Gary Demos, David Ruhoff, Dan Cameron and Michelle Feraud for creation of the Digital Productions digital film compositing system; the Computer Film Company for the CFC Digital Film Compositor; and Doug Smythe, Lincoln Hu,, Doug Kay and ILM for the ILM digital film compositing system.
• (?)Gary Demos of DemoGraFX receives the Academy of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences Engineering award for his pioneering work in digital film scanning

• MSNBC debuts
• US Patent awarded to Pixar for image volume data
• MP3 standard format developed

• Toy Story (Pixar)
  
• December/1995 Following the success of the CG dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, ILM is asked to produce numerous realistic CG animals for Jumanji, including monkeys and a lion, which causes the studio to develop custom software to create, animate, and render monkey and lion fur, and long hair for the lion's mane.
  

• DreamWorks SKG founded (Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen)
• DreamWorks SKG and Microsoft form DreamWorks Interactive
• Wavefront and Alias merge (http://accad.osu.edu/~waynec/history/tree/ani-software.html#aw)
• Pixar goes public with 6.9M share offering
• amazon.com established
• Netscape IPO ($58.25/share)

• Sony Playstation introduced
• Internet 2 unveiled

• Internet Explorer 2.0
• Sun introduces Java

• SIGGRAPH 1996: New Orleans (1)
  

• Marc Levoy receives the 1996 ACM SIGGRAPH CG Achievement Award
• Academy Scientific and Engineering Awards go to:
  • Jim Hourihan for particle systems in Dynamation
  • Brian Knep, Zoran Kacic-Alesic and Tom Williams of ILM for the Viewpaint 3D Paint system
  • Bill Reeves for the original development and concept of particle systems
• Academy Technical Achievement Awards go to:
  • Jim Kajiya of Cal Tech and Tim Kay for pioneering work in the creation of CGI hair and fur
  • Nestor Burtnyk and Marceli Wein of the National Research Center of Canada for computer assisted key framing for animation
  • Garth Dickie for shape-driven warping and morphing in the Elastic Reality Special Effects System
  • Jeff Yost, Christian Rouet, David Benson and Florian Kainz for the development of a system to create and control hair and fur in CGI
  • Brian Knep, Craig Hayes, Rick Sayre and Tom Williams of ILM for the creation and development of the direct input device
  • Ken Perlin for the development of the Perlin Noise technique

• John Whitney passes away (1922-1996)

• May/1996 To create the tornado for Twister, ILM develops a custom interface for Wavefront's Dynamation to generate controllable, rotating funnels of particles, and a special-purpose particle renderer that runs on SGI's Challenge.
  

• Colossal Pictures files Chapter 11 bankruptcy
• SGI buys Cray Research - $764M
• eBay launched
• Yahoo! IPO ($43/share)
• Disney purchases DreamQuest Images; Dreamworks buys interest in PDI

• SGI introduces O2 workstation
• PalmPilot introduced

• Quake hits game market
• Windows 95 ships

• SIGGRAPH 1997: Los Angeles (2)
  

• Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz receives the 1997 ACM SIGGRAPH CG Achievement Award
• James Foley receives the 1997 ACM SIGGRAPH Steven A. Coons Award
• Academy Scientific and Engineering Awards go to:
  • Bill Kovacs and Roy Hall for the engineering efforts that result in the Wavefront Advanced Visualizer software
  • Richard Shoup, Alvy Ray Smith and Tom Porter for the development of digital paint systems
  • John Gibson, Rob Kreiger, Milan Novacek, Glen Ozymok, and Dave Springer for the devlopment of geometric modeling in Alias PowerAnimator
  • Craig Reynolds for pioneering contributions to 3D computer animation
  • Eben Ostby, Bill Reeves, Sam Leffler and Tom Duff for the Pixar Marionette animation system
  • Dominique Boisvert, Rejean Gagne, Daniel Langlois, and Richard Lapierriere for the Actor component of the Softimage animation system
• Academy Technical Achievement Awards go to:
  • Jim Keating, Michael Wahrman and Richard Hollander for the Wavefront Advanced Visualizer software development
  • Greg Hermanovic, Kim Davidson, Mark Elendt and Paul Breslin for the development of PRISMS software
  • Richard Chuang, Glenn Entis and Carl Rosendahl for the PDI animation system

• Bryce 3D
• Riven (1997 or 1998?)

• May/1997 Although the background is a miniature set, the cars are CG. Digital Domain creates digital effects for The Fifth Element with Power Animator, Softimage 3D, Prisms, RenderMan and, for LeeLu's reincarnation, data from the Visible Human project.
  
• November/1997 Many of the 218 visual effects shots created at Tippett Studios for Starship Troopers are filled with crowds of huge, evil, alien bugs. The team uses Softimage 3D, Dynamation, Amazon 3D Paint, and Photoshop. Also, a custom "Bug Input Device" allows puppeteers to animate the 3D warrior bugs in real time.
  
• December/1997 Digital Domain, the lead studio on Titanic, breaks new ground by putting thousands of digital people, animated with the help of motion capture, onboard the ship. The studio also creates CG set extensions and digital water. The film receives an Oscar for visual effects, and goes on to earn more money than any other film to date. )
  

• Pixar interactive division dissolved
• Apple Computer acquires NexT
• VIFX joins with Blue Sky
• Microsoft sued by Justice Dep't

• DVD technology unveiled
• SGI Octane
• IBM Deep Blue wins at chess

• SIGGRAPH 1998: Orlando (2)
  
• Jim Blinn delivers the SIGGRAPH 98 Keynote address (http://www.siggraph.org/s98/conference/keynote/blinn.html)

• Geri's Game from Pixar awarded the Academy Award for Animated Short
  
• Bingo presented at SIGGRAPH 98
  
  
• Titanic becomes the largest grossing motion picture in US history
• Riven released (1997 or 1998?)
• CGI cartoon Voltron produced in US

• Maxine Brown receives the first SIGGRAPH Outstanding Service Award
• Michael Cohen (Microsoft) receives the 1998 ACM SIGGRAPH CG Achievement Award
• Pixar awarded a Scientific and Technical Academy Award for the development of software that produces images used in motion pictures from 3D computer descriptions of shape and appearance
• Academy Technical Achievement Awards go to:
  • Doug Roble (Digital Domain) and Thad Beier (Hammerhead) for Tracking Technology
  • Nick Foster (PDI) for water simulation systems
  • David Difrancesco, Bala Manian and Tom Noggle for laser film recording
  • Cary Philips for the ILM Caricature animation system
• Academy Scientific and Engineering Awards go to:
  • Gary Tregaski for the primary design and Dominique Boisvert, Philipe Panzini and Andre Leblanc for the development of the Flame and Inferno software
  • Roy Ference, Steve Schmidt, Richard Federico, Rockwell Yarid and Mike McCrackan for the design and development of the Kodak Lightning laser recorder

• MPEG-4 standard announced
• XML standard
• The SIGGRAPH Conference celebrates its 25th Anniversary in Orlando

• September/1998 Some 10 visual effects companies, including Digital Domain, Manex Visual Effects, and Mass Illusions, help create the complex, non-photorealistic, and often surrealistic effects for What Dreams May Come, which wins an Oscar for best visual effects.
  
• October/1998 By becoming the second studio to create a successful feature animation with 3D computer graphics, PDI helps ensure the future of the new medium. For Antz, the studio creates new crowd and water-simulation systems and muscle-based facial animation tools. )
  
• November/98 With A Bug's Life, Pixar shows the world that its first 3D animated feature, Toy Story, wasn't a fluke. Like the first, this Disney/Pixar film is also a box office hit. For this film, the technical team develops new lighting techniques and methods for defining, painting, and rendering surfaces that help give the bugs and their world a brilliant, translucent look.
  
• December/1998 In Mighty Joe Young, the gorilla himself is at times a CG character created at ILM or Dream Quest Images. (The shot above is created at ILM.) Both studios develop custom hair-raising software for the film: Dream Quest's code plugs into Maya; ILM's works with its in-house CARI.
  

• Google launched
• Boss Films closes (Richard Edlund have maded special effects for television and won 4 academy awards with Boss)
• SGI and Microsoft form partnership to develop APIs; SGI will develop NT-based PCs
• Colossal Pictures emerges from Chapter 11 bankruptcy
• Avid purchases SoftImage from Microsoft
• Compaq purchases DEC

• Sun gets back into graphics with the Darwin Ultra series of workstations

• Alias Maya released
• Quicktime 3.0 released

• SIGGRAPH 1999: Los Angeles (3)
  

• Fantasia 2000 produced by Disney
• Bunny (Chris Wedge - Blue Sky) - awarded the Academy Award for Animated Short

• Doug Roble (Digital Domain) and Thad Beier (Hammerhead) awarded Scientific and Technical Academy Award for Tracking Technology
• Fred Brooks receives the Turing Award
• Tony DeRose (Pixar) receives the 1999 ACM SIGGRAPH CG Achievement Award
• Jim Blinn receives the 1999 ACM SIGGRAPH Steven A. Coons Award

• The graphics world loses David Evans at age 74
• The graphics world loses Pierre Bezier
• SIGGRAPH celebrates its 30th Anniversary as an organization at SIGGRAPH 99 in Los Angeles

• March/1999 When the effects team at Manex Visual Effects creates this "Bullet Time" shot for The Matrix, little do they know it will inspire similar effects in dozens of future films and help this film win an Oscar for best visual effects. To freeze time for the shot, the team uses an array of cameras; for background buildings, they use image-based modeling.
  
• May/1999 To create The Mummy's Imhotep, ILM uses a combination of models and displacement maps that carve the geometry. To move him, the team uses a Vicon8 motion capture system and key frame animation; procedural animation manages the internal organs and dangling bits of decayed flesh.
  
• May/1999 To help create Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, ILM fashions 1900 visual effects shots for director George Lucas, many of which include such CG main characters as Jar Jar Binks and Boss Nass, shown here. Star wars Episode One - The Phantom Menace uses 66 digital characters composited with live action
  
• July 1999 Using Disney's Deep Canvas, background artists painted on 2D plots of 3D scenes. Information about each brushstroke was stored and later applied to positions in 3D space, giving the title character in Tarzan ample room to swing through a painterly 3D jungle.
  
• November 1999 For Warner's cel animation The Iron Giant, a 3D CG hero is created in Maya, rendered as a cartoon in RenderMan, and then imported into Cambridge Animation Systems' Animo.
  
• November/1999 Having created the first feature animation with 3D computer graphics in 1995-the wildly successful Toy Story, Pixar then creates a wildly successful sequel, Toy Story 2, which has an emotionally deeper story, 10 times the visual complexity of the first film, and improved human characters. )
  
• December/1999 Surprisingly, the first photorealistic CG star in a live-action film is not a man but a mouse acting like a child. Sony Pictures Imageworks creates the furry star of Stuart Little and costumes him with the help of Maya Cloth.
  

• Silicon Graphics Incorporated changes its name to SGI
• SGI cuts Cray, NT production and High end graphic design
• Disney's DreamQuest and Feature Animation join to form The Secret Lab (TSL)
• VIFX and Rhythm & Hues merge
• Napster created

• Side Effects Houdini ported to Linux
• NewTek ports Toaster to NT
• Melissa computer virus

• SIGGRAPH 2000: New Orleans (2)
  

• Mission to Mars effects produced by ILM and The Secret Lab

• Tom DeFanti and Copper Giloth receive the 2000 SIGGRAPH Outstanding Service Award
• David Salesin receives the 2000 ACM SIGGRAPH CG Achievement Award
• Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Award of Merit awarded to Rob Cook, Loren Carpenter and Ed Catmull for the significant advancements to the field of motion picture rendering as exemplified in Pixar's Renderman
• Academy Technical Achievement Awards go to:
  • Venkat Krishnamurthy for the Paraform software for digital form development
  • George Burshukov, Kim Libreri and Dan Piponi for image based rendering

• The graphics world loses Phil Mittleman (MAGI)
• Human genome mapped by Celera

• Walking with Dinosaurs - Framestore (UK)

• May/2000 Putting an entire cast of 3D animated characters in a world fabricated from live-action backgrounds has not been attempted before Disney Feature Animation creates a 3D animation facility to do just that for Dinosaur. To assemble the dinosaurs and lemurs, 15 software engineers write 450 programs; more than 120 are plug-ins to Maya and Softimage 3D.
  
• June/2000 To transplant the moose and squirrel into The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, a live-action film, ILM renders 3D characters with a 2D cartoon look while keeping their dimensionality, and finds ways to animate the oddly shaped, formerly hand-drawn characters.
  
• June/2000 Without CG water, it would be impossible to suggest the violence of The Perfect Storm. The effects team at ILM considers the movement of light through a drop of water, generates various types of foam and spray, reproduces the movement of ocean swells and 100-foot waves, and creates CG boats, planes, and digital doubles. The film receives a visual effects Oscar nomination.
  
• July/2000 For Hollow Man, Sony Pictures Imageworks creates a CG clone of Kevin Bacon and causes its skin, muscles, organs, and bones to erode, layer-by-layer, as it becomes invisible.
  
• November/2000 Putting Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas (produced by Centropolis) onto the big screen entails creating CG landscapes and set extensions for the live-action film. Using Houdini, Maya, and RenderMan, Digital Domain also sends a CG sleigh rocketing down a CG mountain and helps populate Who-ville with digital Whos.
  
• December/2000 Disney's The Secret Lab creates one spotless digital Dalmatian named Oddball, several spotted CG pups, and wipes the spots off real pups digitally for the film 102 Dalmatians.
  

• SGI sells Cray to Tera Computer

• Playstation 2
  
• Microsoft X-Box prototype shown at SIGGRAPH 2000

• Maya ported to Macintosh
• Mac OS-X introduced

• SIGGRAPH 2001: Los Angeles (4)
  

• Lance Williams receives the 2001 ACM SIGGRAPH Steven A. Coons Award
• Andrew Witkin receives the 2001 ACM SIGGRAPH CG Achievement Award
• Paul Debevec receives the 2001 ACM SIGGRAPH Significant New Researcher Award
• Academy Technical Achievement Awards go to:
  • Garland Stern for the Cel Paint software system
  • Uwe Sassenberg and Rolf Schneider for the 3D Equalizer matchmove system
  • Lance Williams for pioneering influence in animation and effects
  • Bill Spitzak, Paul Van Camp, Jonathan Egstad and Price Pethal for the NUKE-2D compositing software
  • Steve Sullivan and Eric Shafer for the ILM Motion and Structure Recovery System(MARS)
  • John Anderson, Jim Hourihan, Cary Philips and Sebastion Marino for the ILM Creature Dynamics System
• The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences approve a new category for the Oscars titled Best Animated Feature Film Award. Nine films were declared eligible:
  • Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
  • Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius
  • Marco Polo: Return to Xanadu
  • Monsters, Inc.
  • Osmosis Jones
  • The Prince of Light
  • Shrek
  • The Trumpet of the Swan
  • Waking Life

• The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences approve a new category for the Oscars titled Best Animated Feature Film Award. Nine films were declared eligible:
  
• The graphics world loses Bob Abel (Sept 23) (http://www.accad.ohio-state.edu/~waynec/history/VFXProAbel.html)
• Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) format introduced by Dolby Labs and Fraunhofer Institute
• September 11, 2001, passes to history as the darkest day, under terrorism atacks

• April 2001 Winner of the first Oscar for best animated feature, DreamWorks/ PDI's irreverent comedy Shrek sends its stars, a cartoony donkey, a story-book princess, and the ogre Shrek on a quest through finely detailed CG landscapes. A gigantic box-office hit, the fractured fairy-tale is PDI's second 3D feature animation.
  
• May/2001 By creating CG planes, battleships, smoke, set extensions, water, tracer fire, and digital sailors, ILM simulates the bombing of Pearl Harbor, using new rendering techniques and rigid body simulations for the movie Pearl Harbor.
  
• July/2001 Although it fails commercially, Square pictures' ambitious Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within, which features the first cast of photorealistic digital actors, stirs the imagination of the press and CG community.
  
• October 2001 For Monsters, Inc., Pixar's fourth 3D feature and big hit, the animation studio's new simulation engine makes it possible to put a blue-haired monster in nearly every frame of the film. (Inverview at http://accad.osu.edu/~waynec/history/SMAY%20INTERVIEW/Smay-interview.html)
  
• December/2001 By creating thousands of warring, Uruk-hai, a Cave Troll, a fiery Balrog, digital doubles, the Mines of Moria, and other CG effects for Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Weta Digital helps the film version of Tolkien's book win an Oscar for visual effects.
  
• Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius
• Tomb Raider (Cinesite)
• Jurassic Park III
• Planet of the Apes (Asylum)
• Harry Potter
• A.I. (Artificial Intelligence)
• The Mummy Returns (ILM)
• Marco Polo: Return To Xanadu
• Osmosis Jones
• The Prince Of Light
• The Trumpet Of The Swan
• Waking Life

• Disney's Secret Lab closes
• Autodesk acquires Media100 software product line
• AOL/TimeWarner merger

• Microsoft xBox released
• Nintendo Gamecube released
• Apple iPod

• Side Effects Houdini ported to Sun
• Windows XP
• During the past two decades, CG inventors have been in spired by filmmaking to create exciting new tools. In so doing, they have in spired filmmakers to expand the art of filmmaking-as. CG tools move downstream. Synergy gets energy. (Barbara Robertson)

• SIGGRAPH 2002: San Antonio (1), Texas
  

• Bert Hertzog (Fraunhofer Center for Research in Computer Graphics) receives the 2002 Outstanding Service Award for extraordinary service to ACM SIGGRAPH by a volunteer
• David Kirk (NVIDIA) receives the 2001 ACM SIGGRAPH CG Achievement Award
• Steven Gortler (Harvard Univ) receives the 2002 ACM SIGGRAPH Significant New Researcher Award
• Lance Williams receives a Scientific and Technical Achievement Academy Award for his pioneering influence in the field of computer-generated animation and effects for motion pictures (NYIT). The ongoing influence of Lance Williams is exemplified in his three seminal papers "Casting Shadows on Curved Surfaces", "Pyramidal Parametrics", and "View Interpolation for Image Synthesis."
• Garland Stern receives a Scientific and Technical Achievement Academy Award for the concept and implementation of the Cel Paint Software System (NYIT). All current cel painting applications in the motion picture industry can be traced back to the original idea and pioneering implementation of Garland Stern.
• Alias|Wavefront, an SGI company, was awarded an ACADEMY AWARD OF MERIT Oscar at the Scientific and Technical Awards ceremony of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for its development of Maya software.
• Academy Scientific and Engineering Award go to:
  • Mark Elendt, Paul Breslin, Greg Hermanovic and Kim Davidson for their continued development of the procedural modeling and animation components of their Prisms program, as exemplified in the Houdini software package
• Academy Technical Achievement Awards go to:
  • To Dick Walsh for the development of the PDI/ Dreamworks Facial Animation System
  • To Thomas Driemeyer and to t2he mathematicians, physicists and software engineers of Mental Images for their contributions to the Mental Ray rendering software for motion pictures
  • To Eric Daniels ,George Katanics ,Tasso Lappas and Chris Springfield for the development of the Deep Canvas rendering software

• William Fetter (Boeing) passes away.

• HP / Compaq merge

• Nvidia launches Cgtoolkit realtime focused high level shading language

• SIGGRAPH 2003: San Diego (1)
  

• The Cathedral selected as Best Short Film in SIGGRAPH Electronic Theatre

• Pat Hanrahan (Stanford) receives the 2003 ACM SIGGRAPH Steven A. Coons Award
• Peter Schrøder (Cal Tech) receives the 2003 ACM SIGGRAPH CG Achievement Award
• Mathieu Desbrun (USC) receives the 2003 ACM SIGGRAPH Significant New Researcher Award
• Oscar nominees for Best animated short film:
  • THE CHUBBCHUBBS!,Sony Pictures Imageworks,Eric Armstrong (WINNER)
  • THE CATHEDRAL ,Platige Image, Tomek Baginski
  • DAS RAD, Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg GmbH, Chris Stenner and Heidi Wittlinger
  • MIKE'S NEW CAR, Pixar Animation Studios,Pete Docter and Roger Gould
  • MT. HEAD, Yamamura Animation Production, Koji Yamamura
• Oscar nominees for Achievement in visual effects:
  • THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS, Jim Rygiel, Joe Letteri, Randall William Cook and Alex Funke (WINNER)
  • SPIDER-MAN, John Dykstra, Scott Stokdyk, Anthony LaMolinara and John Frazier
  • STAR WARS EPISODE II ATTACK OF THE CLONES, Rob Coleman, Pablo Helman, John Knoll and Ben Snow
• ICE AGE Oscar - nominated for Best Animated Feature Film

• David Brown (founder - Blue Sky and ex of MAGI) passes away

• Atari Games Corporation (Midway Games West) out of business.
• Dolby Labs acquires DemoGraFX, Gary Demos' company
• Alias/Wavefront becomes Alias

• Apple introduces the Power Mac G5

• SIGGRAPH 2004: Los Angeles (5)
  

• Chris Landreth's Ryan selected for Jury Award in SIGGRAPH Electronic Theatre
• Sejong Park's Birthday Boy selected Best Animated Short in SIGGRAPH Electronic Theatre

• Steve Cunningham and Judith Brown receive the 2004 Outstanding Service Award for extraordinary service to ACM SIGGRAPH by a volunteer
• Hugues Hoppe (Microsoft) receives the 2004 ACM SIGGRAPH CG Achievement Award
• Zoran Popovic (Univ. Washington) receives the 2004 ACM SIGGRAPH Significant New Researcher Award
• Jim Clark elected to Fellow in Academy of Arts and Sciences
• Academy Scientific and Engineering Award go to:
  • Stephen Regelous for the design and development of Massive, the autonomous agent animation system used for the battle sequences in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy
• Academy Technical Achievement Awards go to:
  • Christophe Hery, Ken McGaugh, and Joe Letteri for their groundbreaking implementations of practical methods for rendering skin and other translucent materials using subsurface scattering techniques
  • Henrik Wann Jensen, Stephen R. Marschner, and Pat Hanrahan for their pioneering research in simulating subsurface scattering of light in translucent materials as presented in their paper "A Practical Model for Subsurface Light Transport."
• Oscar nominees for Best animated short film:
  • Harvie Krumpet - Adam Elliot (winner)
  • Boundin' - Bud Luckey
  • Destino - Dominique Monfery, Roy Edward Disney
  • Gone Nutty - Carlos Saldanha, John C. Donkin
  • Nibbles - Christopher Hinton
• Oscar nominees for Best animated feature:
  • Finding Nemo - Andrew Stanton (winner)
  • Brother Bear - Aaron Blaise, Robert Walker
  • Triplettes de Belleville, Les - Sylvain Chomet
• Oscar nominees for Achievement in Visual Effects:
  • Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - Jim Rygiel, Joe Letteri, Randall William Cook, Alex Funke (winner)
  • Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World - Daniel Sudick, Stefen Fangmeier, Nathan McGuinness, Robert Stromberg
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl - John Knoll, Hal T. Hickel, Charles Gibson, Terry D. Frazee

• SIGGRAPH 2005
  

• Academy Scientific and Technical Awards go to:
  • Dr. Julian Morris, Michael Birch, Dr. Paul Smyth and Paul Tate for the development of the Vicon motion capture technology
  • Dr. John O. B. Greaves, Ned Phipps, Antonie J. van den Bogert and William Hayes for the development of the Motion Analysis motion capture technology
  • Dr. Nels Madsen, Vaughn Cato, Matthew Madden and Bill Lorton for the development of the Giant Studios motion capture technology
  • Alan Kapler for the design and development of Storm , a software toolkit for artistic control of volumetric effects
• Oscar nominees for Best animated short film:
  • Sejong Park & Andrew Gegory - Birthday Boy
  • Jeff Fowler & Tim Miller - Gopher Broke
  • Bill Plympton - Guard Dog
  • Mike Gabriel & Baker Bloodworth - Lorenzo
  • Chris Landreth - Ryan
• Oscar nominees for Best animated feature:
  • Brad Bird - The Incredibles
  • Bill Damasschka - Shark Tale
  • Andrew Adamson - Shrek 2
• Oscar nominees for Achievement in Visual Effects:
  • Roger Guyett, Tim Burke, John Richardson and Bill George  - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
  • John Nelson, Andrew R. Jones, Erik Nash and Joe Letteri - I, Robot
  • John Dykstra, Scott Stokdyk, Anthony LaMolinara and John Frazier - Spider-Man 2

• Original Wayne E. Carlson document at http://www.accad.ohio-state.edu/~waynec/history/timeline.html, and links referenced in that page: base document.
• URL’s contained in this page: aditional information.
• Corporate and history web site of Sun Microsystems http://www.sun.com: aditional information concerning Ivan Sutherland, and his pioneer work.
• Movie Retrospective, "Celebrating our 25th year with digital visual effects and scenes from animated features". Barbara Robertson, Computer Graphics World Magazine.

• Morrison Mike, "Becoming a computer animator", SAMS publishing, 1994, chapter 2: base complement document to Carlson's timeline.
• David Fox & Mitchell Waite. "Computer animation primer", McGraw Hill 1986: information about early 80's projects.
• [FOLE92] Foley, vanDam, Feiner, Hughes. "Computer Graphics principles and practice". 2nd edition, Addisson Wesley, 1992.

Last updated - February 2, 2005 / Wayne E. Carlson

Modified for printing and expanded by Oscar Chavarro / July 22 2005, special thanks to Martín Zárate.