About four or five years ago one began to hear about the enormous interest being taken in on-line consoles and displays. Nothing much was done with them, but computer men felt that this was the way computing ought to go: one might dispense with cards, and overcome many of the problems of man-machine communication. It quickly appeared that, as with computers, there had been a great under­ estimation of the amount of work involved, of the difficulties of programming, and of the cost. So it began to emerge that graphics was not the ultimate answer, in spite of superb demonstrations where one might watch a square being converted into a cube and then rotated. But my mind goes back to 1951 and the first computers. There, there were demonstrations of arithmetic speed and storage facility; but not much idea of actual use. However, we now understand how to use computers, and in the last year or two, significant developments in the field of graphics have led to genuine applications, and economic benefits. The equipment is still expensive, but it is becoming cheaper, more uses are being found, and f believe that we are just at the stage when the subject is gaining momentum, to become, like computers, a field of immense importance.

Springer Book Archives

1 Systems, Equipment, Techniques, and Trends.- What has Computer Graphics to Offer?.- Computer Graphics Hardware Techniques.- Computer Graphics Software Techniques.- Interactive Software Techniques.- Computer Display System. Tradeoffs.- Computer Graphics in the United States.- The U.K. Scene.- Low Cost Graphics.- Remote Display Terminals.- 2 Applications, Installations.- Graphical Computer Aided Programming Systems.- Alphanumeric Terminals for Management Information.- Computer Graphics used for Architectural Design and Costing.- Graphical Output in a Research Establishment.- Appendix to Graphical Output in a Research Establishment.- High Energy Physics Applications.- Mechanical Design Using Graphics.- Electronic Design Using Graphics.- Man-Machine Co-operation on a Learning Task.- Some Hardware, Software and Applications Problems.- 3 For the Computer Technologist.- Present-day Computer Graphics Research.- 4 For Reference.- Glossary of Computer Graphics Terms.- Consolidated Bibliography.- Subject and Author Index.