mercurious » graphics

Sutherland: “Back to the future”

mercurious — Wed, 28 May 2008 00:38:44 +0000

It took Apple 45 years to even come close to this.

Ivan Sutherland’s Sketchpad MIT thesis was covered by Create Digital Motion after I posted the video clip from MIT’s New Media Reader featuring Dr. Alay Kay from Xerox PARC give a lecture on Sketchpad. The video clip has since garnered over 10,000 YouTube views and other “instances” of the film on video sharing sites — so appropriate given Sutherland’s contribution of the idea of a “master” and “instances.” His contributions to computer aided design history extend well into its origins and beyond its final outcome.

Peter Kirn says it best — what I think, he was able to say about this…

Additional Demonstration Footage Also Emerged

This Sketchpad film on YouTube: Part 1

The computer has been, in a sense, nothing but a very elaborate calculating machine. But, now we’re making the computer be more like, almost like a “human assistant” and the computer will seem to have some intelligence.

It doesn’t really. Only the intelligence that we put in it.

{Emphasis added.}

Professor Steven Coons
Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT
Co-Director of The Computer Aided Design Project

Updates to Academic Site

mercurious — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 05:50:56 +0000

No recent posts as we focus on Professorial site

It has been awhile since posting to mercurious. However, we’ve been hard at work updating our academic site. This site now documents recent student work:

It also now features a commercial work samples page that highlights an eight-year career in the interactive media industry. Perhaps the most interesting additions include ancient works from the vault, some almost a decade old.

In fact, getting this site together in this manner has been long overdue.

» New and improved professorial site on parsons.edu

Adobe DevNet Article Publishing Soon

mercurious — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 20:15:37 +0000

Article to be published on Adobe Developer Center

Packing Lite: Getting Started Designing Interfaces for Mobile Media

I wrote an article/tutorial for Adobe’s Developer Center to be published at the end of August covering how to get started designing interfaces in Flash Lite on Nokia Series 60 devices. It details how to get equipped for mobile media design using Flash and the Flash Lite platform, install Flash Lite content on Nokia S60 phones with Bluetooth or Nokia’s PC Suite, discusses the unique interface design challenges, and looks at an example, highlighting the issues.

~~Stay tuned, as I’ll be sure to post the link to the article when it goes live.~~ Article pushed live at 5 PM PST, August 17, 2007←

New ‘Processing’ Handbook Looks Amazing

mercurious — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 02:21:58 +0000

Eagerly Awaiting Book Release; Creators Release Substantial Sample Chapters.

For the uninitiated, Processing→ is an open interactive media platform published on free software license via MIT by Casey Reas→ and Ben Fry→. Originally created as a learning tool, it is maturing through a Beta phase currently while winning tremendous support within the academic and design community. It appears to be emerging as the [tag]Sketchpad[/tag]↔ of the future. Sutherland→ would be so proud of his fellow alumni.

Download Sample Chapters→ in PDF
MIT Press→

For those in-the-know, this MIT Press release, Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists will be noticed on August 24, 2007. A substantial amount of the book is available in PDF format now. The free preview certainly suggests how tremendous and definitive this text is going to be. Take a peak at this inspiring passage from the introduction. It begins by describing the world view of Processing and the philosophy about software it epitomizes:

Software is a unique medium with unique qualities
Concepts and emotions that are not possible to express in other media may be expressed in this medium. Software requires its own terminology and discourse and should not be evaluated in relation to prior media such as film, photography, and painting. History shows that technologies such as oil paint, cameras, and film have changed artistic practice and discourse, and while we do not claim that new technologies improve art, we do feel they enable different forms of communication and expression. Software holds a unique position among artistic media because of its ability to produce dynamic forms, process gestures, define behavior, simulate natural systems, and integrate other media including sound, image, and text. (p. 1)

The introduction continues on to beautifully frame the pursuit of aesthetics through software. The free preview includes not only complete Table of Contents and Index, but also a very solid introduction to Processing and some of fundamental concepts. It’s enough material to function as an ideal free resource for getting started, while also leaves you thirsting for more.

Indeed, a more comprehensive review is forthcoming.

Sketchpad, The World’s First

mercurious — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 18:54:19 +0000

Sketchpad, A Man-Machine Graphical Communications System.

Between 1962 and 1964, Dr. Ivan Sutherland created Sketchpad: A Man-Machine Graphical Communications System, arguably the world’s first computer graphics system, and non-procedural programming system.

Video

In this video, Dr. Alan Kay, from PARC, discusses Sketchpad and its significance in determining the nature of Object Oriented graphical interfaces.

[flash http://www.youtube.com/v/495nCzxM9PI]

Geneology

In this Computing Family Tree diagram◊, note how Sketchpad is considered the origination point for the modern operating system, as we know it.

Lecture: The Origins of Interactive Media

mercurious — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 17:30:41 +0000

The Origins of Interactive Media.

交互式多媒体的起源

A brief examination of two influential American scientists who pioneered the idea of interactive information systems and graphics. Dr. Vannevar Bush, The Memex↑ and Dr. Ivan Sutherland, Sketchpad↑. Their research accomplishments resonate through every aspect of modern computing. A lecture given on Thursday, June 21, 2007, 13:30, Room B413 at the Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University.Sponsored by Information Art & Design in collaboration with Communication Design & Technology, Parsons The New School for Design.