Ivan Edward Sutherland (born May 16, 1938) is an American
computer scientist
A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science.
Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (a ...
and
Internet pioneer
Instead of having a single "inventor", the Internet was developed by many people over many years. The following are some Internet pioneers who contributed to its early and ongoing development. These include early theoretical foundations, specifyi ...
, widely regarded as a pioneer of computer graphics. His early work in
computer graphics
Computer graphics deals with generating images with the aid of computers. Today, computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. A great de ...
as well as his
teaching
Teaching is the practice implemented by a ''teacher'' aimed at transmitting skills (knowledge, know-how, and interpersonal skills) to a learner, a student, or any other audience in the context of an educational institution. Teaching is closely ...
with
David C. Evans
David Cannon Evans (February 24, 1924 – October 3, 1998) was the founder of the computer science department at the University of Utah and co-founder (with Ivan Sutherland) of Evans & Sutherland, a pioneering firm in computer graphics hardwar ...
in that subject at the University of Utah in the 1970s was pioneering in the field. Sutherland, Evans, and their students from that era developed several foundations of modern computer graphics. He received the
Turing Award
The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in compu ...
from the
Association for Computing Machinery
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...
in 1988 for the invention of
Sketchpad, an early predecessor to the sort of
graphical user interface
The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, ins ...
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 2012 he was awarded the
Kyoto Prize in Advanced Technology for "pioneering achievements in the development of computer graphics and interactive interfaces".
Biography
Sutherland's father was from New Zealand; his mother was from Scotland. His family moved to
Wilmette, Illinois, then
Scarsdale, New York, for his father's career.
Bert Sutherland
William Robert Sutherland (May 10, 1936 – February 18, 2020) was an American computer scientist who was the longtime manager of three prominent research laboratories, including Sun Microsystems Laboratories (1992–1998), the Systems Sci ...
was his elder brother. Ivan Sutherland earned his
bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to si ...
in electrical engineering from the
Carnegie Institute of Technology
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technolog ...
, his master's degree from
Caltech
The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...
, and his Ph.D. from
MIT in
EECS in 1963.
Sutherland invented
Sketchpad in 1962 while at MIT.
Claude Shannon
Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American mathematician, electrical engineer, and cryptographer known as a "father of information theory".
As a 21-year-old master's degree student at the Massachusetts I ...
signed on to supervise Sutherland's computer drawing thesis. Among others on his thesis committee were
Marvin Minsky
Marvin Lee Minsky (August 9, 1927 – January 24, 2016) was an American cognitive and computer scientist concerned largely with research of artificial intelligence (AI), co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's AI laboratory ...
and
Steven Coons. Sketchpad was 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
The MIT Lincoln Laboratory TX-2 computer was the successor to the Lincoln TX-0 and was known for its role in advancing both artificial intelligence and human–computer interaction. Wesley A. Clark was the chief architect of the TX-2.
Speci ...
computer and influenced
Douglas Engelbart's
oN-Line System. Sketchpad, in turn, was influenced by the conceptual
Memex as envisioned by
Vannevar Bush
Vannevar Bush ( ; March 11, 1890 – June 28, 1974) was an American engineer, inventor and science administrator, who during World War II headed the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), through which almost all warti ...
in his influential paper "
As We May Think
"As We May Think" is a 1945 essay by Vannevar Bush which has been described as visionary and influential, anticipating many aspects of information society. It was first published in ''The Atlantic'' in July 1945 and republished in an abridged ...
".
Sutherland replaced
J. C. R. Licklider
Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider (; March 11, 1915 – June 26, 1990), known simply as J. C. R. or "Lick", was an American psychologistMiller, G. A. (1991), "J. C. R. Licklider, psychologist", ''Journal of the Acoustical Society of Am ...
as the head of the US Defense Department
Advanced Research Project Agency's
Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO), when Licklider took a job at IBM in 1964.
From 1965 to 1968, Sutherland was an associate professor of electrical engineering at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
. Work with student
Danny Cohen in 1967 led to the development of the
Cohen–Sutherland computer graphics line clipping algorithm. In 1968, with his students
Bob Sproull, Quintin Foster,
Danny Cohen, and others he created the first head-mounted display that rendered images for the viewer's changing pose, as sensed by
The Sword of Damocles, thus making the first
virtual reality
Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), edu ...
system. A prior system,
Sensorama, used a
head-mounted display to play back static video and other sensory stimuli. The optical see-through head-mounted display used in Sutherland's VR system was a stock item used by U.S. military helicopter pilots to view video from cameras mounted on the helicopter's belly.
From 1968 to 1974, Sutherland was a professor at the
University of Utah
The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...
. Among his students there were
Alan Kay, inventor of the
Smalltalk language, Gordon W. Romney (computer and cybersecurity scientist), who rendered the first 3D images at U of U,
Henri Gouraud, who devised the
Gouraud shading technique,
Frank Crow, who went on to develop
antialiasing methods, Jim Clark, founder of
Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics, Inc. (stylized as SiliconGraphics before 1999, later rebranded SGI, historically known as Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS) was an American high-performance computing manufacturer, producing computer hardware and soft ...
,
Henry Fuchs
Henry Fuchs (born 20 January 1948 in Tokaj, Hungary) is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Federico Gil Professor of Computer Science at the University of Nor ...
, and
Edwin Catmull, co-founder of
Pixar and now president of
Walt Disney
Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...
and Pixar Animation Studios.
In 1968 he co-founded
Evans & Sutherland with his friend and colleague
David C. Evans
David Cannon Evans (February 24, 1924 – October 3, 1998) was the founder of the computer science department at the University of Utah and co-founder (with Ivan Sutherland) of Evans & Sutherland, a pioneering firm in computer graphics hardwar ...
. The company did pioneering work in the field of real-time hardware, accelerated
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics, or “3D graphics,” sometimes called CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) that is stored in the computer for th ...
, and
printer languages.
Former employees of Evans & Sutherland included the future founders of
Adobe
Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for '' mudbrick''. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of ...
(
John Warnock) and
Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics, Inc. (stylized as SiliconGraphics before 1999, later rebranded SGI, historically known as Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS) was an American high-performance computing manufacturer, producing computer hardware and soft ...
(
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
Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, t ...
to form the seed of its research division, Sun Labs.
Sutherland was a fellow and vice president at
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, t ...
. Sutherland was a visiting scholar in the computer science division at
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...
(fall 2005 – spring 2008). On May 28, 2006, Ivan Sutherland married Marly Roncken. Sutherland and Marly Roncken are leading the research in
Asynchronous Systems
The primary focus of this article is asynchronous control in digital electronic systems. In a synchronous system, operations ( instructions, calculations, logic, etc.) are coordinated by one, or more, centralized clock signals. An asynchron ...
at
Portland State University
Portland State University (PSU) is a public research university in Portland, Oregon. It was founded in 1946 as a post-secondary educational institution for World War II veterans. It evolved into a four-year college over the following two dec ...
.
He has two children. His elder brother,
Bert Sutherland
William Robert Sutherland (May 10, 1936 – February 18, 2020) was an American computer scientist who was the longtime manager of three prominent research laboratories, including Sun Microsystems Laboratories (1992–1998), the Systems Sci ...
, was also a computer science researcher.
Awards
*
Computer History Museum
The Computer History Museum (CHM) is a museum of computer history, located in Mountain View, California. The museum presents stories and artifacts of Silicon Valley and the information age, and explores the computing revolution and its impact o ...
Fellow "for the Sketchpad computer-aided design system and for lifelong contributions to computer graphics and education," 2005
* R&D 100 Award, 2004 (team)
[R&D 100](_blank)
*
IEEE John von Neumann Medal, 1998
[von Neumann Medal](_blank)
/ref>
* Association for Computing Machinery
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...
Fellow, 1994[ACM Fellow](_blank)
/ref>
* Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet ...
EFF Pioneer Award, 1994[EFF Pioneer](_blank)
* ACM Software System Award
The ACM Software System Award is an annual award that honors 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". It is awarded b ...
, 1993
* Turing Award
The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in compu ...
, 1988
* Computerworld
''Computerworld'' (abbreviated as CW) is an ongoing decades old professional publication which in 2014 "went digital." Its audience is information technology (IT) and business technology professionals, and is available via a publication website ...
Honors Program, Leadership Award, 1987
*
* Member, United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the N ...
, 1978[NAS Member](_blank)
/ref>
* National Academy of Engineering member
1973 "for creative contributions in computer science and computer graphics, particularly in the study of the interfaces between men and machines"[NAE member](_blank)
* Kyoto Prize 2012, in the category of advanced technology.
* National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductee, 2016.
* Washington Award, 2018
* BBVA Fronteras del conocimiento 2019.
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?", Sutherland 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
2004 from "CAD software – history of CAD CAM" by CADAZZ
*Sutherland's 1963 Ph.D. Thesis from Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of th ...
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
Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American mathematician, electrical engineer, and cryptographer known as a "father of information theory".
As a 21-year-old master's degree student at the Massachusetts I ...
, father of information theory
Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification, storage, and communication of information. The field was originally established by the works of Harry Nyquist and Ralph Hartley, in the 1920s, and Claude Shannon in the 1940s. ...
.
Duchess Chips for Process-Specific Wire Capacitance Characterization, The
by Jon Lexau, Jonathan Gainsley, Ann Coulthard and Ivan E. Sutherland, Sun Microsystems Laboratories Report Number TR-2001-100, October 2001
Technology And Courage
by Ivan Sutherland, Sun Microsystems Laboratories Perspectives Essay Series, Perspectives-96-1 (April 1996)
*
Counterflow Pipeline Processor Architecture
by Ivan E. Sutherland, Charles E. Molnar ( Charles Molnar), and Robert F. Sproull ( Bob Sproull), Sun Microsystems Laboratories Report Number TR-94-25, April 1994
Oral history interview with Ivan Sutherland
at Charles Babbage Institute, 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. Licklider
Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider (; March 11, 1915 – June 26, 1990), known simply as J. C. R. or "Lick", was an American psychologistMiller, G. A. (1991), "J. C. R. Licklider, psychologist", ''Journal of the Acoustical Society of Am ...
and the new initiatives started while he was there: projects in graphics and networking, the ILLIAC IV, and the Macromodule program.
See also
* List of pioneers in computer science
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sutherland, Ivan
American computer scientists
American software engineers
1938 births
Living people
Computer graphics professionals
Computer graphics researchers
Internet pioneers
Virtual reality pioneers
Engineers from California
Scientists from California
Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery
Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Sun Microsystems people
Turing Award laureates
California Institute of Technology faculty
Harvard University faculty
University of Utah faculty
California Institute of Technology alumni
Carnegie Mellon University College of Engineering alumni
Scarsdale High School alumni
People from Hastings, Nebraska
People from Scarsdale, New York
20th-century American engineers
21st-century American engineers
20th-century American scientists
21st-century American scientists
Scientists from New York (state)
American people of Scottish descent
Engineers from New York (state)
Engineers from Nebraska
American people of New Zealand descent
UC Berkeley College of Engineering faculty
Kyoto laureates in Advanced Technology
Inventors from Nebraska