
The Utah Teapot: Most Important Object in Computer Graphics History - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/blog/the-most-important-object-in-computer-graphics-history-is-this-teapot
======
McKayDavis
Also of note: Around the same time, University of Utah students created the
first ever computer graphics generated picture that looks like its physical
model: Marsha Sutherland's (Ivan Sutherland's wife) VW Bug [1].

The VW was hand measured by Sutherland's students: Jim Clark (of SGI/Netscape
fame), Bui-Tui Phong (of Phong shading fame), Raphel Rom (of Catmull-Rom
spline fame), and Robert McDermott (of Vegreville Egg fame). (I just listed
some highlights of careers, they all accomplished much more!)

A first hand account of the model creation is preserved by Mr. McDermott on
page 7 of the Fall 2003 edition of The Utah Teapot [2] (the aptly named
University of Utah School of Computing quarterly newsletter).

The CS Dept. at the U of Utah has such a storied history, especially rich in
fundamental computer graphics research [3]. Growing up in proximity to it
definitely shaped my career path.

[1] [http://jalopnik.com/the-first-real-object-ever-3d-scanned-
an...](http://jalopnik.com/the-first-real-object-ever-3d-scanned-and-rendered-
was-494241353)

[2]
[http://www.cs.utah.edu/docs/misc/Uteapot03.pdf](http://www.cs.utah.edu/docs/misc/Uteapot03.pdf)

[3]
[http://www.cs.utah.edu/about/history](http://www.cs.utah.edu/about/history)

------
kps

      > Back in his lab, he entered the sketched coordinates—called bézier
      > control points, first used in the design of automobile bodies—on a
      > Tektronix storage tube, an early computer memory.
    

Urg. Not a ‘memory’ in the computer sense, not being readable by the computer.
What this means is that he used a Tektronix graphics terminal that had a self-
persisting CRT display.¹

¹ [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct-
view_bistable_storage_t...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct-
view_bistable_storage_tube)

 _Edit_ : Teapot on a Tektronix 4014:
[https://youtu.be/bZOrL7f1-kE](https://youtu.be/bZOrL7f1-kE)

~~~
tdeck
Incidentally, there was in fact CRT-based RAM at one time:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_tube?wprov=sfla1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_tube?wprov=sfla1)

------
david-given
Yep, the Teapot is one of the highlights of the Computer History Museum in
Mountain View. Possibly the most exciting teapot I've ever seen!

[https://goo.gl/photos/quo8W9BE75VQqkmr6](https://goo.gl/photos/quo8W9BE75VQqkmr6)

Other highlights include the working Babbage Engine, with a rather good
lecture.

Antihighlights include the otherwise excellent display on the history of
integrated circuits, sponsored by Intel, which doesn't mention ARM in any way
anywhere...

The museum's totally worth a look if you're there.

~~~
pavlov
Do they have a life-size wax figure of Lena Söderberg [1]? If not, someone
should donate the money for one.

[1]
[http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~chuck/lennapg/lenna.shtml](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~chuck/lennapg/lenna.shtml)

~~~
dalke
Bear in mind
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna#Controversy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna#Controversy)

------
ska
This teapot is the graphics and rendering equivalent of the image processing
worlds "Lena" image (albeit with a less racy backstory)

~~~
mturmon
I've wanted to compile a list of canonical simplified problem settings in
various fields. Their longevity is interesting to me.

Things like the relativistic boxcars in physics, the urns and balls in
probability
([http://www.arcaneknowledge.org/science/ehrenfest.html](http://www.arcaneknowledge.org/science/ehrenfest.html)),
the teapot, Lena, blocks-world in AI.

~~~
yolesaber
Alice and Bob and Carol in cryptography.

~~~
mturmon
Exactly!

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alex_c
I feel like the Stanford Bunny should get an honourable mention too.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_bunny](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_bunny)

~~~
leoc
And the Beetle: [http://www.wired.com/2013/05/augmented-reality-the-ivan-
suth...](http://www.wired.com/2013/05/augmented-reality-the-ivan-sutherland-
scanned-1967-vw-beetle/) .

------
LyndsySimon
The original is in a museum? I thought I read that it was in orbit somewhere
between the orbits of Earth and Mars...

~~~
accounthere
That's just some ancient book saying it.

~~~
LyndsySimon
So? The vast majority of people agree that's what happened to it.

------
batbomb
When I was in high school the U had a summer school where you would use their
alpha_1 software for graphics modeling.

alpha_1 was a system going back to the 1980 designed specifically for modeling
with NURBS:
[https://www.cs.utah.edu/gdc/projects/alpha1/help/man/html/in...](https://www.cs.utah.edu/gdc/projects/alpha1/help/man/html/intro.html)

~~~
McKayDavis
Yes, the UofU High School Ccomputing Institute [1]. I was accepted in '96 but
already working a summer job in research park at the time (at a company w/ a
commercial NURBS package) and didn't ever build a model. The coolest part is
they would 3D print your model long before it being the commodity that it is
today.

It'd be interesting to see a follow-up on the HSCI alumni and where they are
now.

[1]
[http://www.cs.utah.edu/~rma/hci/cs/hsci.html](http://www.cs.utah.edu/~rma/hci/cs/hsci.html)

~~~
batbomb
I was in 2002, the last class I think. In fact, I can't find any reference
anymore to the later classes. It used to be maintained, but it's disappeared.

I also recently noticed that websites historically hosted on home.utah.edu
were removed. I was going to find my old model (a model of Escher's Belvedere)
but it's now gone.

edit:

my model: [http://imgur.com/VqPVSAj](http://imgur.com/VqPVSAj)

~~~
McKayDavis
Yes, 2002 was the last year. Prof. Dave Hanscom ran the HSCI from 1990 to 2002
[1].

I checked the Wayback Machine (archive.org), but unfortunately it doesn't have
those pages mirrored. It's very sad that this history seems to be getting
lost. At least one prestigious alumni (HSCI '92) that of I'm aware of is
Berkeley Prof. Alexei Efros [2].

Awesome model! It's definitely one of the best ones I've seen from that
program.

[1] [http://www.cs.utah.edu/~hanscom/](http://www.cs.utah.edu/~hanscom/)

[2]
[http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~efros/](http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~efros/)

~~~
greglindahl
[http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.cs.utah.edu/~hanscom...](http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.cs.utah.edu/~hanscom/)
shows 100 captures? And for the original HSCI main page,
[http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.cs.utah.edu/~hsci/](http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.cs.utah.edu/~hsci/)
there are 86 captures. Looking at Summer 2002, it appears that the hsci pages
moved to
[http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.eng.utah.edu/outreac...](http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.eng.utah.edu/outreach/hsci/)
which has 64 captures.

Yes, the final captures of hsci all say "page not found" (soft 404), but the
earlier ones are fine.

~~~
batbomb
Thanks! I was looking for ece.utah.edu, I knew there was another domain
involved.

------
protomyth
Pixar gives out wind-up teapots at Siggraph each year.

[http://pixartimes.com/2013/08/01/video-a-look-at-pixars-
coll...](http://pixartimes.com/2013/08/01/video-a-look-at-pixars-collectible-
renderman-teapots/)

------
adam12
Just a little trivia: the original model for the teapot did not have a bottom.

~~~
manarth
I imagine making a cuppa would go pourly.

~~~
roel_v
This is potentially the most British joke possible.

------
gfodor
I remember my first time to the Computer History Museum, was wondering through
and suddenly saw the teapot. I was stopped in my tracks.

------
USNetizen
Way back (well, just shy of a decade ago) in my CompSci Signal and Image
Processing course I got to know this teapot very, very well. Even created a
3-dimensional solar system of orbiting teapots that mimicked the exact orbits
and rotations of the planets. Think I posted it on GitHub somewhere, too.

~~~
bitwize
Whenever I read about Russell's Teapot, I envision it as a Utah teapot
specifically.

------
osullivj
Didn't realise it was a long standing graphics in joke. Reading this took me
back 20 years to my time as an AVS/Express developer. AVS used the teapot as a
standard object for testing geometry pipelines.

------
melling
Teapots are everywhere:
[http://www.google.com/teapot](http://www.google.com/teapot)

~~~
biot
Nice. On mobile, tilt your device.

~~~
claar
Can also use the Chrome inspector to tilt it (set γ to negative values)
[https://developer.chrome.com/devtools/docs/device-
mode#devic...](https://developer.chrome.com/devtools/docs/device-mode#device-
sensors)

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peter303
The Stanford bunny is a close second. It is used everywhere in SIGGRAPH demos.

------
hamburglar
I had the privilege of working g with Martin for a while once. The guy is one
of those brilliant folks who is also incredibly humble, friendly, and happy to
teach things to newbies. And he's really funny.

------
bad_user
Goes beyond computer graphics. See HTTP status 418.

------
markatkinson
Best article on HN I have read in a while. I always wondered where that teapot
came from.

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jordache
too bad the handle on the lid looks nothing like the real tea pot it was
modeled off...

