Ivan Sutherland | Biography

Ivan Sutherland is a pioneer in the field of computer graphics. His 1960 "Sketchpad" system contributed to the development of computer graphics, computer simulation, and video games as we know them today.

Ivan Edward Sutherland was born in Hastings, Nebraska, on May 16, 1938. His first experience with computing was in high school, where as a young student he build various relay-driven machines. In the early 1950s, computers were exciting and exotic devices, and many bright students set their sights on that field.

Sutherland received his B.S. from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1959, his M.S. from the California Institute of Technology in 1960, and his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) in 1963. Throughout college Sutherland was always interested in logic and computing; he held a summer job with International Business Machines (IBM) after he got his bachelor's degree, and he switched from Cal Tech to M.I.T. for his doctoral studies because of the latter's superior computer department. His doctoral thesis committee comprised some of the biggest names in computing at the time, including Claude Shannon, Marvin Minsky, and Steven Coons. At M.I.T., Sutherland worked at the Lincoln Laboratory. There he had the use of a large, modern computer called the TX-2, which played a significant role in the research for his doctoral dissertation, entitled "Sketchpad."

"Sketchpad" was arguably Sutherland's greatest work and the basis for much of what he subsequently accomplished. The principle behind "Sketchpad" is that of a pencil moving on paper, but instead it uses a light-sensitive pen moving on the surface of a computer screen. By measuring the vertical and horizontal movements of the pen by means of a grid system, the computer could recreate the lines on the computer screen. Once on the screen, lines could be manipulated (lengthened, shortened, moved to any angle) and connected to represent solid objects, which could then be rotated to display them at any angle, exactly as if they were true three-dimensional artifacts. (Previously existing graphics systems were strictly two-dimensional.) Sutherland documented his dissertation research with a film called Sketchpad: A Man-Machine Graphical Communication System, and the film became very well known in the computer research community of the time. The concept of "Sketchpad" was revolutionary, and its direct repercussions extend down to this day.

From M.I.T., Sutherland went into the army, due to a Reserve Officers Training Corps commitment left over from Carnegie-Mellon. After brief assignments with the National Security Agency and a radar and infrared tracking project called Project Michigan, he was made director of the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where he stayed for two years. This was a heady assignment for the 26-year-old lieutenant, and it had a profound influence on his later career; virtually every business partner he subsequently had was someone he had met at DARPA.

From DARPA he went to Harvard as an associate professor of engineering and applied physics. He remained at Harvard for almost three years, during which time he developed computer graphics tools that became invaluable to his later work on computer simulation. In 1967, he was recruited by David Evans, a contractor he had worked with at DARPA, to join the computer science program at the University of Utah. Evans, who had recently moved to Utah from Berkeley, also had in mind developing a company that would exploit some of the exciting developments in computer graphics.

At the University of Utah, Sutherland worked with a group of brilliant graduate students, and the computer department became an experimental center for computer graphics. Sutherland and his students refined the animation of their simulated figures; they developed "smooth curves" and lighting and highlight effects that began to replace the original "wireframe" models. One of Sutherland's students, Nolan Bushnell, eventually went on to develop the original video arcade and home video game Pong.

In 1968, Evans and Sutherland formed the firm Evans & Sutherland in Salt Lake City. Computers at that time were being used for well-understood routine tasks, such as billing, filing, and information processing. Evans and Sutherland, however, recognized that computers had exciting possibilities as design and training tools, a potential that was not being exploited anywhere. As Evans noted in an Evans & Sutherland newsletter, computers are essentially simulators that can "replace real objects on occasions when a simulation can be built more cheaply than the physical model can be."

Evans & Sutherland's first products were computer-aided design tools, which they sold in small quantities. The company did not begin making a profit until its fifth year of operation, but by the mid-1970s it was beginning to develop a broad range of products for several market niches, principally in flight training and computer-aided design. Evans & Sutherland remains in business today. Although Sutherland left the company's day-to-day operation in 1974, he remains on the board of directors.

From 1976 to 1980, Sutherland headed the department of computer science at the California Institute of Technology. In 1980, he joined forces with Robert Sproull, the son of one of Sutherland's superiors at DARPA, to form Sutherland, Sproull & Associates in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, later moving to Palo Alto, California. Sutherland's last written work in computer graphics was a joint paper with Sproull titled, "A Characterization of Ten Hidden Surface Algorithms." Sutherland would say in a 1989 interview that this "seemed to tidy up a loose end," and he counts it as the time at which he stopped being involved with computer graphics for good.

Sutherland remains associated with Sutherland, Sproull & Associates, doing research in computer architecture and logic circuits. Married, with two children, he is a plain-spoken man who avoids publicity and rarely grants interviews. He has, however, been frequently honored by his peers in the computer industry. He has received many honorary degrees and has won many prestigious honors and awards, including the first Zworykin Award from the National Academy of Engineering and the first Steven Anson Coons Award.