Ruth A. Weiss is a British-American
software engineer
Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development.
A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term ''p ...
known for her 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 ...
, especially the
hidden-line removal
In 3D computer graphics, Solid geometry, solid objects are usually modeled by polyhedra. A face of a polyhedron is a planar polygon bounded by straight line segments, called Edge (geometry), edges. Curved surfaces are Computer representation of s ...
problem. She also developed, together with
Richard Hamming
Richard Wesley Hamming (February 11, 1915 – January 7, 1998) was an American mathematician whose work had many implications for computer engineering and telecommunications. His contributions include the Hamming code (which makes use of a ...
, the
L2 programming language, a
floating-point mathematical package for the
IBM 650.
Early life
Weiss was born in
Willesden
Willesden () is an area of northwest London, situated 5 miles (8 km) northwest of Charing Cross. It is historically a parish in the county of Middlesex that was incorporated as the Municipal Borough of Willesden in 1933, and has forme ...
, Middlesex, England (now part of the Greater London area) on March 30, 1945.
[Birth Registration, Willesden, Middlesex, England; General Register Office, Southport, England; Line 113, Vol. 3A] She arrived in the United States on November 13, 1952, with her mother, Margaret Weiss (Marliese Oppá or Oppe), and her two brothers and maternal grandmother on the French ocean liner ''Ile de France'', which sailed from
Southampton
Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...
on November 7, 1952.
[Immigration, New York City, New York, United States, NARA microfilm publication T715 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.)] Her father,
Paul Weiss, a noted British mathematician of German descent, had already arrived in the U.S. in September 1950
and was living in Syracuse, NY. Weiss was naturalized a U.S. citizen on April 28, 1964.
[Ruth Elizabeth Weiss, Naturalization Petition and Record, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division, Detroit, Certificate No. 8637552, Issued April 28, 1964]
Career and accomplishments
While working for
Bell Labs
Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984),
then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996)
and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007),
is an American industrial Research and development, research and scientific developm ...
in the 1950s and 1960s, Weiss co-developed, with
Richard Hamming
Richard Wesley Hamming (February 11, 1915 – January 7, 1998) was an American mathematician whose work had many implications for computer engineering and telecommunications. His contributions include the Hamming code (which makes use of a ...
, the
L2 interpretive floating point package. The L2 system was widely used within Bell Labs, and also by outside users, who knew it as Bell 2. It was superseded by
Fortran when the
IBM 650 was replaced by the
IBM 704 in 1957.
At Bell Labs she also worked on development of the
Multics
Multics ("Multiplexed Information and Computing Service") is an influential early time-sharing operating system based on the concept of a single-level memory.Dennis M. Ritchie, "The Evolution of the Unix Time-sharing System", Communications of ...
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...
.
Weiss's 1966 paper
[Ruth A. Weiss ]
BE VISION, A Package of IBM 7090 FORTRAN Programs to Draw Orthographic Views of Combinations of Plane and Quadric Surfaces
' on her BE VISION software for the
IBM 7090
The IBM 7090 is a second-generation transistorized version of the earlier IBM 709 vacuum tube mainframe computer that was designed for "large-scale scientific and technological applications". The 7090 is the fourth member of the IBM 700/7000 se ...
describes
hidden-line removal
In 3D computer graphics, Solid geometry, solid objects are usually modeled by polyhedra. A face of a polyhedron is a planar polygon bounded by straight line segments, called Edge (geometry), edges. Curved surfaces are Computer representation of s ...
in curved surfaces, a challenging problem at the time. This paper was acknowledged by inclusion in a 1998 compilation by
SIGGRAPH of the seminal papers in computer graphics. According to Carlson, "Ruth Weiss created in 1964 (published in 1966) some of the first algorithms for converting equations of surfaces to orthographic views on an output device." In a 1966 paper,
Ivan E. Sutherland
Ivan Edward Sutherland (born May 16, 1938) is an American computer scientist and Internet pioneer, widely regarded as a pioneer of computer graphics. His early work in computer graphics as well as his teaching with David C. Evans in that subje ...
stated that the problem of hidden-line removal remained unsolved for surfaces other than planes. Two months later, Weiss corrected him in a letter
[Ruth A. Weiss. Letters. ''Datamation'', 12(8):12, 1966.] to the same publication, citing her work in hidden-line removal in quadric surfaces.
[
]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Weiss, Ruth A.
Programming language designers
Computer graphics professionals
British software engineers
British women engineers
Women computer scientists
1945 births
Living people