Sketchpad – Online Paint/Drawing
Sketchpad was a revolutionary computer program designed by Ivan Sutherland in 1963 for his Ph.D. thesis. Sketchpad sets the stage for Human-computer interactivity (HCI). Sketchpad is considered the precursor of the current computer-aided design (CAD) software. It’s also considered to be an essential advancement in the field of computer graphics. For example, cutting-edge object-oriented programming and the graphic user interface (GUI) were built on Sketchpad.
In 1988 and 2012, Ivan Sutherland received the Turing Award and the Kyoto Prize for the design of Sketchpad. Sketchpad is also called Robot Draftsman.
With the introduction of Sketchpad, Ivan Sutherland showcased the possibility of computer graphics being utilized to serve both artistic and technical purposes and is used as a new method for HCI. Sketchpad could be used to support constraints. As an example, drawing an ellipse with constraints could result in the shape of a circle. Sketchpad included several CAD features, for instance, the ability to compute beam loads.
Sketchpad allowed users to draw on the screen with a light pen. It solved constraints with value inference and then presented its “ring” list framework. Sketchpad drawings Sketchpad was stored in a unique ring structure engineered for the computer. The ring structure quickly processed topological information, which did not require any searching.
Sketchpad was operated by the Lincoln TX-2 computer, the first computer of its kind, created in 1956. The computer is an “online” computer designed to examine the effectiveness of surface barrier transistors in digital circuits.
Sketchpad utilized drawing as the computer’s primary interaction medium. It comprised output, input, and computation software to interpret information drawn directly on the computer screen. Sketchpad helped draw mechanical, scientific and electrical, mathematical, and animations.
Sketchpad was an original method that helped understand concepts such as the concept of linkages that could be explained with images. With Sketchpad, it was much easier to create precise and extremely repetitive sketches. Additionally, it offered the ability to modify an image previously drawn.