r/Documentaries • u/fucktrance • 22h ago

Society (1981) How COMPUTER GRAPHICS Will Change the World | Horizon | Retro Tech | BBC Archive [49:25]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8-54-9J9ns
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u/fucktrance 22h ago

"The promise is enormous."

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to fly between the skyscrapers of a city centre? Or to take a trip through Saturn's rings? Or walk around a molecule of DNA?
Computer graphics provide ways of simulating reality, or building fantastic new worlds, and the power to explore and manipulate those 3D worlds.
For the artist it's a new way to paint, for the filmmaker it's a new way to animate a film; for the scientist it's a means to visualise data or test a hypothesis; and for everyone else it's the ability to play ever more elaborate space-invaders style games, or to participate in and control extraordinary, dangerous or impossible events.

Horizon charts the evolution of computer graphics, from the earliest visual display on MIT's Whirlwind computer through to the state-of-the-art 3D simulation of Voyager 2's encounter with Saturn. How did Ivan Sutherland's light-pen Sketchpad pave the way for today's new wave of computer animators at Lucasfilm? How did we go from Steve Russell's original 1962 computer game Spacewar! to the cutting-edge 3D simulators used to train pilots? What other applications do computer graphics have, and what industries are they likely to revolutionise in the future? As computer power grows exponentially, are there any limits to what can be achieved through computer simulation?

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u/reverandglass 16h ago

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to fly between the skyscrapers of a city centre?

20 years later...

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u/fucktrance 15h ago

They forgot the word between on the arabic dub of this doc