Summary
In this paper, Ivan Sutherland, one of the most influential names in CG, talks about an HCI device even before mouse. SketchPad is a pen based system used to draw and define geometric shapes and also apply constrains upon them.
The first part focuses on drawing the primitives and the overall design of the system. The second part explains the data structure of the system and the well defined format geometries are stored for other applications. The ring structure allowed efficient operations on the shapes.
The rest of the paper talks about how light pen is tracked and the shapes are drawn to the screen. It also talks about the constraints that can be placed on shapes.
Discussion
I think that this paper is a fundamental stone for CAD/CAM systems. It addresses main issues of CAD systems from user interface to data structures. Probably 60 years ago the material was very innovative. Today I feel like any decent computer scientist can unsurprisingly solve it.
ivan. it's ivan.
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