LDS-1 (Line Drawing System-1) was an attached calligraphic (computer graphics) processor with a workstation terminal created by Evans & Sutherland. It was controlled by a variety of host computers. Straight lines were smoothly rendered in real-time animation. General principles of operation were similar to the systems used today - 4x4 transformation matrices, 1x4 vertices... Possible uses included flight simulation (in the product brochure there are screenshots of landing on a carrier), scientific imaging and GIS systems.
The first LDS-1 was shipped to the customer (BBN) in August 1969. Only a few of these systems were ever built. One was used by the Los Angeles Times as their first typesetting/layout computer. One went to NASA Ames Research Center for Human Factors Research. Another was bought by the Port Authority of New York to develop a tugboat pilot trainer for navigation in the harbor.
Famous quotes containing the word drawing:
“For later in the vast gloom of cities, only there you learn
How the ideas were good only because they had to die,
Leaving you alone and skinless, a drawing by Vesalius.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)