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Image Objects: An Archaeology of Computer Graphics
How computer graphics transformed the computer from a calculating machine into an interactive medium, as seen through the histories of five technical objects.
Most of us think of computer graphics as a relatively recent invention, enabling the spectacular visual effects and lifelike simulations we see in current films, television shows, and digital games. In fact, computer graphics have been around as long as the modern computer itself, and played a fundamental role in the development of our contemporary culture of computing. In Image Objects , Jacob Gaboury offers a prehistory of computer graphics through an examination of five technical objects--an algorithm, an interface, an object standard, a programming paradigm, and a hardware platform--arguing that computer graphics transformed the computer from a calculating machine into an interactive medium.
Gaboury explores early efforts to produce an algorithmic solution for the calculation of object visibility; considers the history of the computer screen and the random-access memory that first made interactive images possible; examines the standardization of graphical objects through the Utah teapot, the most famous graphical model in the history of the field; reviews the graphical origins of the object-oriented programming paradigm; and, finally, considers the development of the graphics processing unit as the catalyst that enabled an explosion in graphical computing at the end of the twentieth century.
The development of computer graphics, Gaboury argues, signals a change not only in the way we make images but also in the way we mediate our world through the computer--and how we have come to reimagine that world as computational.
Most of us think of computer graphics as a relatively recent invention, enabling the spectacular visual effects and lifelike simulations we see in current films, television shows, and digital games. In fact, computer graphics have been around as long as the modern computer itself, and played a fundamental role in the development of our contemporary culture of computing. In Image Objects , Jacob Gaboury offers a prehistory of computer graphics through an examination of five technical objects--an algorithm, an interface, an object standard, a programming paradigm, and a hardware platform--arguing that computer graphics transformed the computer from a calculating machine into an interactive medium.
Gaboury explores early efforts to produce an algorithmic solution for the calculation of object visibility; considers the history of the computer screen and the random-access memory that first made interactive images possible; examines the standardization of graphical objects through the Utah teapot, the most famous graphical model in the history of the field; reviews the graphical origins of the object-oriented programming paradigm; and, finally, considers the development of the graphics processing unit as the catalyst that enabled an explosion in graphical computing at the end of the twentieth century.
The development of computer graphics, Gaboury argues, signals a change not only in the way we make images but also in the way we mediate our world through the computer--and how we have come to reimagine that world as computational.
312 pages, Hardcover
Published August 3, 2021
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July 19, 2023
Choosing how many stars to give was really a challenge for me, I chose to go with 3-stars as these are marked as "liked it" instead of 4-stars ("really liked it").
I was mightily excited when hearing first about this book as a computer graphics researcher and found the topic intriguing. And though I did not love the book, I still enjoyed reading it.
Part of my disappointment probably comes down to my preconceived idea that this would not be restricted to very early investigations in computer graphics (i.e. the early 20th century up to 1970 or so) while omitting all of the more recent advances in computer graphics, even in the late 20th century or early 21st century.
It felt a bit like a history of the University of Utah and the chronicles of Ivan Sutherland.
But what really bothered me was the writing style, which was obtuse and unnecessarily complex, which made it really hard to read and I often felt that, to sound more sophisticated, sentences were constructed in weird ways and the vocabulary used felt like from a sociology book, not something science or tech-related.
I was mightily excited when hearing first about this book as a computer graphics researcher and found the topic intriguing. And though I did not love the book, I still enjoyed reading it.
Part of my disappointment probably comes down to my preconceived idea that this would not be restricted to very early investigations in computer graphics (i.e. the early 20th century up to 1970 or so) while omitting all of the more recent advances in computer graphics, even in the late 20th century or early 21st century.
It felt a bit like a history of the University of Utah and the chronicles of Ivan Sutherland.
But what really bothered me was the writing style, which was obtuse and unnecessarily complex, which made it really hard to read and I often felt that, to sound more sophisticated, sentences were constructed in weird ways and the vocabulary used felt like from a sociology book, not something science or tech-related.
Displaying 1 of 1 review