Ivan Sutherland
Encyclopedia
Ivan Edward Sutherland (born May 16, 1938) is an American computer scientist
and Internet pioneer. He received the Turing Award
from the Association for Computing Machinery
in 1988 for the invention of Sketchpad
, an early predecessor to the sort of graphical user interface
that has become ubiquitous in personal computers. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering
, as well as the National Academy of Sciences
among many other major awards.
in electrical engineering from the Carnegie Institute of Technology
(now Carnegie Mellon University
), his Master's degree from Caltech, and his Ph.D. from MIT in EECS
in 1963.
He invented Sketchpad
, an innovative program that influenced alternative forms of interaction with computers. Sketchpad could accept constraints and specified relationships among segments and arcs, including the diameter of arcs. It could draw both horizontal and vertical lines and combine them into figures and shapes. Figures could be copied, moved, rotated, or resized, retaining their basic properties. Sketchpad also had the first window-drawing program and clipping algorithm, which allowed zooming. Sketchpad ran on the Lincoln TX-2 computer and influenced Douglas Engelbart
's oN-Line System
. Sketchpad, in turn, was influenced by the conceptual Memex
as envisioned by Vannevar Bush
in his influential paper "As We May Think
".
Sutherland replaced J. C. R. Licklider
as the head of the US Defense Department Advanced Research Project Agency's Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO), when Licklider returned to MIT in 1964.
From 1965 to 1968, Sutherland was an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at Harvard University
. Work with student Danny Cohen
in 1967 lead to the development of the Cohen–Sutherland computer graphics line clipping algorithm. In 1968, with the help of his student Bob Sproull
, he created the first virtual reality
and augmented reality
head-mounted display system, named The Sword of Damocles.
From 1968 to 1974, Sutherland was a professor at the University of Utah
. Among his students there were Alan Kay
, inventor of the Smalltalk
language, Henri Gouraud
who devised the Gouraud shading
technique, Frank Crow
, who went on to develop antialiasing methods, and Edwin Catmull
, computer graphics scientist, co-founder of Pixar
and now President of Walt Disney
and Pixar Animation Studios.
In 1968 he co-founded Evans and Sutherland with his friend and colleague David C. Evans
. The company has done pioneering work in the field of real-time hardware, accelerated 3D computer graphics
, and printer
languages.
Former employees of Evans and Sutherland included the future founders of Adobe
(John Warnock
) and Silicon Graphics
(Jim Clark
).
From 1974 to 1978 he was the Fletcher Jones Professor of Computer Science at California Institute of Technology
, where he was the founding head of that school's Computer Science department. He then founded a consulting firm, Sutherland, Sproull and Associates, which was purchased by Sun Microsystems
to form the seed of its research division, Sun Labs.
Sutherland was a Fellow and Vice President at Sun Microsystems
. Sutherland was a visiting scholar in the Computer Science Division at University of California, Berkeley
(Fall 2005–Spring 2008). On May 28, 2006, Ivan Sutherland married Marly Roncken. Sutherland and Marly Roncken are leading the research in Asynchronous Systems at Portland State University
.
He has two children, Juliet and Dean, and four grandchildren, Belle, Robert, William and Rose.
Ivan's elder brother, Bert Sutherland
, is also a prominent computer science researcher.
Computer scientist
A computer scientist is a scientist who has acquired knowledge of computer science, the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their application in computer systems....
and Internet pioneer. He received the Turing Award
Turing Award
The Turing Award, in full The ACM A.M. Turing Award, is an annual award given by the Association for Computing Machinery to "an individual selected for contributions of a technical nature made to the computing community. The contributions should be of lasting and major technical importance to the...
from the Association for Computing Machinery
Association for Computing Machinery
The Association for Computing Machinery is a learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 as the world's first scientific and educational computing society. Its membership is more than 92,000 as of 2009...
in 1988 for the invention of Sketchpad
Sketchpad
Sketchpad was a revolutionary computer program written by Ivan Sutherland in 1963 in the course of his PhD thesis, for which he received the Turing Award in 1988. It helped change the way people interact with computers...
, an early predecessor to the sort of graphical user interface
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
that has become ubiquitous in personal computers. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering
National Academy of Engineering
The National Academy of Engineering is a government-created non-profit institution in the United States, that was founded in 1964 under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the National Academy of Sciences...
, as well as the National Academy of Sciences
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
among many other major awards.
Biography
Sutherland earned his Bachelor's degreeBachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
in electrical engineering from the Carnegie Institute of Technology
Carnegie Institute of Technology
The Carnegie Institute of Technology , is the name for Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering. It was first called the Carnegie Technical Schools, or Carnegie Tech, when it was founded in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie who intended to build a “first class technical school” in Pittsburgh,...
(now Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
), his Master's degree from Caltech, and his Ph.D. from MIT in EECS
EECS
EECS may refer to:* Electrical Engineering & Computer Science* European Energy Certificate System...
in 1963.
He invented Sketchpad
Sketchpad
Sketchpad was a revolutionary computer program written by Ivan Sutherland in 1963 in the course of his PhD thesis, for which he received the Turing Award in 1988. It helped change the way people interact with computers...
, an innovative program that influenced alternative forms of interaction with computers. Sketchpad could accept constraints and specified relationships among segments and arcs, including the diameter of arcs. It could draw both horizontal and vertical lines and combine them into figures and shapes. Figures could be copied, moved, rotated, or resized, retaining their basic properties. Sketchpad also had the first window-drawing program and clipping algorithm, which allowed zooming. Sketchpad ran on the Lincoln TX-2 computer and influenced Douglas Engelbart
Douglas Engelbart
Douglas Carl Engelbart is an American inventor, and an early computer and internet pioneer. He is best known for his work on the challenges of human-computer interaction, resulting in the invention of the computer mouse, and the development of hypertext, networked computers, and precursors to GUIs...
's oN-Line System
NLS (computer system)
NLS, or the "oN-Line System", was a revolutionary computer collaboration system designed by Douglas Engelbart and implemented by researchers at the Augmentation Research Center at the Stanford Research Institute during the 1960s...
. Sketchpad, in turn, was influenced by the conceptual Memex
Memex
The memex is the name given by Vannevar Bush to the hypothetical proto-hypertext system he described in his 1945 The Atlantic Monthly article As We May Think...
as envisioned by Vannevar Bush
Vannevar Bush
Vannevar Bush was an American engineer and science administrator known for his work on analog computing, his political role in the development of the atomic bomb as a primary organizer of the Manhattan Project, the founding of Raytheon, and the idea of the memex, an adjustable microfilm viewer...
in his influential paper "As We May Think
As We May Think
As We May Think is an essay by Vannevar Bush, first published in The Atlantic Monthly in July 1945, and republished again as an abridged version in September 1945 — before and after the U.S. nuclear attacks on Japan...
".
Sutherland replaced J. C. R. Licklider
J. C. R. Licklider
Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider , known simply as J.C.R. or "Lick" was an American computer scientist, considered one of the most important figures in computer science and general computing history...
as the head of the US Defense Department Advanced Research Project Agency's Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO), when Licklider returned to MIT in 1964.
From 1965 to 1968, Sutherland was an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
. Work with student Danny Cohen
Danny Cohen (engineer)
Danny Cohen is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and anIEEE Fellow . In 1993 Cohen received a USAF Meritorious Civilian Service Award....
in 1967 lead to the development of the Cohen–Sutherland computer graphics line clipping algorithm. In 1968, with the help of his student Bob Sproull
Bob Sproull
Dr Robert F. Sproull is an American computer scientist, who works for Oracle Corporation where he is director of Oracle Labs in Burlington, Massachusetts .- Biography :...
, he created the first virtual reality
Virtual reality
Virtual reality , also known as virtuality, is a term that applies to computer-simulated environments that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world, as well as in imaginary worlds...
and augmented reality
Augmented reality
Augmented reality is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. It is related to a more general concept called mediated reality, in which a view of reality is...
head-mounted display system, named The Sword of Damocles.
From 1968 to 1974, Sutherland was a professor at the University of Utah
University of Utah
The University of Utah, also known as the U or the U of U, is a public, coeducational research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The university was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret by the General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret, making it Utah's oldest...
. Among his students there were Alan Kay
Alan Kay
Alan Curtis Kay is an American computer scientist, known for his early pioneering work on object-oriented programming and windowing graphical user interface design, and for coining the phrase, "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."He is the president of the Viewpoints Research...
, inventor of the Smalltalk
Smalltalk
Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed, reflective programming language. Smalltalk was created as the language to underpin the "new world" of computing exemplified by "human–computer symbiosis." It was designed and created in part for educational use, more so for constructionist...
language, Henri Gouraud
Henri Gouraud (computer scientist)
Henri Gouraud is a French computer scientist. He is the inventor of Gouraud shading used in computer graphics. He is the great nephew of general Henri Gouraud.During 1964–1967, he studied at École Centrale Paris. He received his Ph.D...
who devised the Gouraud shading
Gouraud shading
Gouraud shading, named after Henri Gouraud, is an interpolation method used in computer graphics to produce continuous shading of surfaces represented by polygon meshes...
technique, Frank Crow
Franklin C. Crow
Franklin C. Crow or Frank Crow is a computer scientist who has made important contributions to computer graphics, including some of the first practical anti-aliasing techniques. Crow also proposed the shadow volume technique for generating geometrically accurate shadows...
, who went on to develop antialiasing methods, and Edwin Catmull
Edwin Catmull
Dr. Edwin Earl Catmull, Ph.D. is a computer scientist and current president of Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios. As a computer scientist, Catmull has contributed to many important developments in computer graphics....
, computer graphics scientist, co-founder of Pixar
Pixar
Pixar Animation Studios, pronounced , is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio has earned 26 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and three Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. Its films have made over $6.3 billion worldwide...
and now President of Walt Disney
Walt Disney Feature Animation
Walt Disney Animation Studios is an American animation studio headquartered in Burbank, California. The studio, founded in 1923 as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio by brothers Walt and Roy Disney, is the oldest subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
and Pixar Animation Studios.
In 1968 he co-founded Evans and Sutherland with his friend and colleague David C. Evans
David C. Evans
David Cannon Evans was the founder of the computer science department at the University of Utah and co-founder of Evans & Sutherland, a computer firm which is known as a pioneer in the domain of computer-generated imagery.-Biography:Evans attended the University of Utah and studied electrical...
. The company has done pioneering work in the field of real-time hardware, accelerated 3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
, and printer
Computer printer
In computing, a printer is a peripheral which produces a text or graphics of documents stored in electronic form, usually on physical print media such as paper or transparencies. Many printers are primarily used as local peripherals, and are attached by a printer cable or, in most new printers, a...
languages.
Former employees of Evans and Sutherland included the future founders of Adobe
Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
(John Warnock
John Warnock
John Edward Warnock is an American computer scientist best known as the co-founder with Charles Geschke of Adobe Systems Inc., the graphics and publishing software company. Dr. Warnock was President of Adobe for his first two years and Chairman and CEO for his remaining sixteen years at the company...
) and Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics, Inc. was a manufacturer of high-performance computing solutions, including computer hardware and software, founded in 1981 by Jim Clark...
(Jim Clark
James H. Clark
James H. Clark is an American entrepreneur and computer scientist. He founded several notable Silicon Valley technology companies, including Silicon Graphics, Inc., Netscape Communications Corporation, myCFO and Healtheon...
).
From 1974 to 1978 he was the Fletcher Jones Professor of Computer Science at California Institute of Technology
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...
, where he was the founding head of that school's Computer Science department. He then founded a consulting firm, Sutherland, Sproull and Associates, which was purchased by Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
to form the seed of its research division, Sun Labs.
Sutherland was a Fellow and Vice President at Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
. Sutherland was a visiting scholar in the Computer Science Division at University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
(Fall 2005–Spring 2008). On May 28, 2006, Ivan Sutherland married Marly Roncken. Sutherland and Marly Roncken are leading the research in Asynchronous Systems at Portland State University
Portland State University
Portland State University is a public state urban university located in downtown Portland, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1946, it has the largest overall enrollment of any university in the state of Oregon, including undergraduate and graduate students. It is also the only public university in...
.
He has two children, Juliet and Dean, and four grandchildren, Belle, Robert, William and Rose.
Ivan's elder brother, Bert Sutherland
Bert Sutherland
William Robert "Bert" Sutherland , older brother of Ivan Sutherland, was the longtime manager of three prominent research labs, including Sun Microsystems Laboratories , the Systems Science Laboratory at Xerox PARC , and the Computer Science Division of Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Inc...
, is also a prominent computer science researcher.
Awards
- Computer History MuseumComputer History MuseumThe Computer History Museum is a museum established in 1996 in Mountain View, California, USA. The Museum is dedicated to preserving and presenting the stories and artifacts of the information age, and exploring the computing revolution and its impact on our lives.-History:The museum's origins...
Fellow, 2005 - R&D 100 Award, 2004 (team)
- IEEE John von Neumann MedalIEEE John von Neumann MedalThe IEEE John von Neumann Medal was established by the IEEE Board of Directors in 1990 and may be presented annually "for outstanding achievements in computer-related science and technology." The achievements may be theoretical, technological, or entrepreneurial, and need not have been made...
, 1998 - The Franklin Institute's Certificate of Merit, 1996
- Association for Computing MachineryAssociation for Computing MachineryThe Association for Computing Machinery is a learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 as the world's first scientific and educational computing society. Its membership is more than 92,000 as of 2009...
Fellow, 1994 - Electronic Frontier FoundationElectronic Frontier FoundationThe Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization based in the United States...
EFF Pioneer Award, 1994 - ACM Software System AwardACM Software System AwardThe Software System Award is honoring people or an organization "for developing a software system that has had a lasting influence, reflected in contributions to concepts, in commercial acceptance, or both"...
, 1993 - Turing AwardTuring AwardThe Turing Award, in full The ACM A.M. Turing Award, is an annual award given by the Association for Computing Machinery to "an individual selected for contributions of a technical nature made to the computing community. The contributions should be of lasting and major technical importance to the...
, 1988 - ComputerworldComputerworldComputerworld is an IT magazine that provides information for senior IT leaders. It is published in many countries around the world under the same or similar names. Its publisher is International Data Group. Computerworld serves the needs of IT management via print and online...
Honors Program, Leadership Award, 1987 - IEEE Emanuel R. Piore AwardIEEE Emanuel R. Piore AwardThe IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award is a Technical Field Award given each year by the IEEE to an individual or small team that has made outstanding contributions to information processing systems in relation to computer science. The award is named in honor of Emanuel R. Piore.The award was established...
, 1986 - Member, United States National Academy of SciencesUnited States National Academy of SciencesThe National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
, 1978 - National Academy of EngineeringNational Academy of EngineeringThe National Academy of Engineering is a government-created non-profit institution in the United States, that was founded in 1964 under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the National Academy of Sciences...
member, 1973 - National Academy of EngineeringNational Academy of EngineeringThe National Academy of Engineering is a government-created non-profit institution in the United States, that was founded in 1964 under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the National Academy of Sciences...
First Zworykin Award, 1972
Quotes
- "A display connected to a digital computer gives us a chance to gain familiarity with concepts not realizable in the physical world. It is a looking glass into a mathematical wonderland."
- "The ultimate display would, of course, be a room within which the computer can control the existence of matter. A chair displayed in such a room would be good enough to sit in. Handcuffs displayed in such a room would be confining, and a bullet displayed in such a room would be fatal."
- When asked, "How could you possibly have done the first interactive graphics program, the first non-procedural programming language, the first object oriented software system, all in one year?" Ivan replied: "Well, I didn't know it was hard."
- “It’s not an idea until you write it down.”
- "Without the fun, none of us would go on!"
Patents
Sutherland has more than 60 patents, including:- US Patent 7,636,361 (2009) Apparatus and method for high-throughput asynchronous communication with flow control
- US Patent 7,417,993 (2008) Apparatus and method for high-throughput asynchronous communication
- US Patent 7,384,804 (2008) Method and apparatus for electronically aligning capacitively coupled mini-bars
- US patent 3,889,107 (1975) System of polygon sorting by dissection
- US patent 3,816,726 (1974) Computer Graphics Clipping System for Polygons
- US patent 3,732,557 (1973) Incremental Position-Indicating System
- US patent 3,684,876 (1972) Vector Computing System as for use in a Matrix Computer
- US patent 3,639,736 (1972) Display Windowing by Clipping
Publications and external links
- SketchPad, 2004 from "CAD software – history of CAD CAM" by CADAZZ
- Sutherland's 1963 Ph.D. Thesis from Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyThe Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
republished in 2003 by University of Cambridge as Technical Report Number 574 , Sketchpad, A Man-Machine Graphical Communication System. His thesis supervisor was Claude Shannon, father of information theoryInformation theoryInformation theory is a branch of applied mathematics and electrical engineering involving the quantification of information. Information theory was developed by Claude E. Shannon to find fundamental limits on signal processing operations such as compressing data and on reliably storing and...
. - Duchess Chips for Process-Specific Wire Capacitance Characterization, The, by Jon Lexau, Jonathan Gainsley, Ann Coulthard and Ivan E. Sutherland, Sun Microsystems LaboratoriesSun Microsystems LaboratoriesSun Microsystems Laboratories, or Sun Labs was the research and development branch of Sun Microsystems. It was established in 1990 by Ivan Sutherland and Robert Sproull...
Report Number TR-2001-100, October 2001 - Technology And Courage by Ivan Sutherland, Sun Microsystems LaboratoriesSun Microsystems LaboratoriesSun Microsystems Laboratories, or Sun Labs was the research and development branch of Sun Microsystems. It was established in 1990 by Ivan Sutherland and Robert Sproull...
Perspectives Essay Series, Perspectives-96-1 (April 1996) - Biography, "Ivan Sutherland" circa 1996, hosted by the Georgia Institute of TechnologyGeorgia Institute of TechnologyThe Georgia Institute of Technology is a public research university in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States...
College of Computing - Counterflow Pipeline Processor Architecture, by Ivan E. Sutherland, Charles E. Molnar (Charles MolnarCharles MolnarCharles Edwin Molnar was a co-developer of one of the first minicomputers, the LINC , while a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1962. His collaborator was Wesley A. Clark....
), and Robert F. Sproull (Bob SproullBob SproullDr Robert F. Sproull is an American computer scientist, who works for Oracle Corporation where he is director of Oracle Labs in Burlington, Massachusetts .- Biography :...
), Sun Microsystems LaboratoriesSun Microsystems LaboratoriesSun Microsystems Laboratories, or Sun Labs was the research and development branch of Sun Microsystems. It was established in 1990 by Ivan Sutherland and Robert Sproull...
Report Number TR-94-25, April 1994 - Oral history interview with Ivan Sutherland at Charles Babbage InstituteCharles Babbage InstituteThe Charles Babbage Institute is a research center at the University of Minnesota specializing in the history of information technology, particularly the history since 1935 of digital computing, programming/software, and computer networking....
, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Sutherland describes his tenure as head of the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) from 1963 to 1965. He discusses the existing programs as established by J. C. R. LickliderJ. C. R. LickliderJoseph Carl Robnett Licklider , known simply as J.C.R. or "Lick" was an American computer scientist, considered one of the most important figures in computer science and general computing history...
and the new initiatives started while he was there: projects in graphics and networking, the ILLIAC IVILLIAC IVThe ILLIAC IV was one of the most infamous supercomputers ever built. One of a series of research machines, the ILLIACs from the University of Illinois, the ILLIAC IV design featured fairly high parallelism with up to 256 processors, used to allow the machine to work on large data sets in what...
, and the Macromodule program.