A History of CGRG/ACCAD at
The Ohio State University

Csuri continued to work with graduate students and fellow faculty members from the arts and sciences for the next several years, experimenting with different approaches to instructing the computer to display and animate the various artifacts that he conceived. In 1969 he received a prestigious grant from the National Science Foundation to study the role of the computer and software for research and education in the visual arts. This was very unusual, for an artist to receive an NSF grant, and showed the level of significance of the work at OSU at the time. (In fact, a recent internal report done at the National Science Foundation stated that the greatest impact on the field of computer animation could in part be attributed to the work at CGRG.)

In 1971 he proposed a formal organization, called the Computer Graphics Research Group (CGRG) in order to realize the potential of the application of computer animation to the studies by students in the Art Department, and to have a formal cohort that could attract external research support. Members of CGRG included faculty and graduate students from Art, Industrial Design, Photography and Cinema, Computer and Information Science, and Mathematics. Grant proposals were submitted to agencies and programs both in and out of the University, and funding was provided for studies that would extend the capabilities of the evolving discipline. The group was housed in space in the OSU Research Center at 1314 Kinnear Road on the OSU campus. Equipment in the lab at this time included a 32K IBM 1130 computer interfaced to an IBM 2250 Model IV graphics display, and the FORTRAN programming language was used as the primary programming environment.

First computers
IBM 1130 and IBM 2250 Model IV graphics display

Research and development work conducted by CGRG members during this early period included hidden line and visible surface algorithms, linear interpolation, path following, data smoothing, shading and light source and reflection control, compound transformations, data generation and sophisticated interaction techniques. This seminal work evolved into a general interest in dynamic systems and languages for applications in computer-controlled display and motion. In 1970, Csuri published one of the first papers related to the complex issue of animating objects in real time.

Csuri was awarded his second NSF grant in 1971 for a project titled "Software and Hardware Requirements for Real Time Film Animation." The University provided matching equipment support, and the CGRG installed a 48K word PDP-11/45 computer and a Vector General graphics display with 3D hardware transformation capabilities in 1972. This grant supported Computer Science graduate students Tom DeFanti, who developed the animation language Graphics Symbiosis System (GRASS) in 1972, and Manfred Knemeyer, who developed the ANIMA system in 1973 for defining computer generated motion, using an integrated programming language. (Staff member Gerard Moersdorf (now CEO of Applied Innovations) helped write a large amount of the GRASS code.) Both of these systems were designed with traits that DeFanti, now at the EVL at the University of Illinois, called habitability (ease of use by novices) and extensibility (the use of stored files to be interpreted by the system), and both linked to external controls like dials, buttons and joysticks in addition to command line control. Sam Cardman provided software for interfacing with the University's milling machines, and Leslie Miller provided exceptional geometric and mathematical expertise. (Faculty advisors included Bill Buttleman and Balakrishnan Chandrasekeran of CIS.)

The Next Computers
The NSF grant allowed CGRG to upgrade to a PDP 11/45 computer and a Vector General graphics display

Csuri at VG
Chuck Csuri interacts with the Vector General display using a light pen. Click on the second image to view a larger image.

Expanding on Csuri's early work in blending of line drawing images, Mark Gillenson (now at IBM) developed a system (WhatsIsFace) that used techniques of key frame animation to blend images to create facial drawings, a system that created a significant amount of interest in the police and investigative communities. This system was one of the first formal contributions to the technology that is now called "morphing".

CGRG efforts embraced a fundamental philosophy that these complex computer animation capabilities could be made available on microcomputers (eg, PDP 11/45) and could be easy to use. The group continued to receive NSF and other internal and external support for this effort, and published extensively during the early 1970s on animation and animation control as well as human-computer interfaces. The University expanded their support and funded additional equipment (another Vector General display, a computer-controlled camera system, and a communications link with the University's PDP-10 mainframe.) In 1975, Csuri contracted with John Staudhammer of NC State (through his company Digitech) to build a special "run-length encoding" storage and display device that allowed CGRG to move from a strictly vector display environment to raster and color graphics.

Richard Parent (now a Professor in CIS at OSU) joined CGRG in 1974 to develop geometric modeling tools for animation (his 1977 dissertation received the "Best PhD Dissertation Award" from the National Computer Conference). During this early period, Alan Myers studied and developed rendering algorithms (coded in the PDP 11 assembly language) that could run efficiently in the minicomputer environment to make high quality imagery.

Ron Hackathorn (reSource Marketing) worked to expand Knemeyer's Anima animation system, and Tim Van Hook (SGI) brought a user perspective to the design, as well as a knowledge of real time issues. Also involved during this period were graduate students Sam Cardman (CIS) and Bob Reynolds (Physics), and faculty members Hal Moellering (Geography), Karl Olsen (EE), Carl Ingling (EE), Leslie Miller (Mathematics) and Robert McGhee (EE) and staff member Diana Rainwater.

Pong Man - Tim Van Hook, 1977

The Head - Tim Van Hook, 1977

The development activities resulted in the ANIMA II animation system, which supported procedural modeling and run-length encoding algorithms, the DG modeling system for data generation, and other supporting systems and languages. The group expanded to include Rodger Wilson and Wayne Carlson (now Chair of Design at OSU), and a number of other graduate students from various departments during this period.

Old Girl Morph
Click on the image above to see a video of the metamorphosis of the girl to the old lady.

Collaboration
Early investigations into "creature" animation were both influenced by and supported the work of OSU Prof. Robert McGee and his 8-legged articulated mobile robot designed and built at OSU.

Publicity
Charles Osborne reports for the CBS Sunday Morning television show from the CGRG lab.

Important work produced during this period included a visualization of interacting galaxies, which was shown on the Carl Sagan Cosmos series, by Bob Reynolds (it was updated with a complex particle system in 1978 by Wayne Carlson), studies of time in virtual environments (Sam Cardman), the use of CGI in visualizing statistical data (Hal Moellering, Rodger Wilson and Wayne Carlson), the use of animated sequences to help teach language constructs to deaf children (Parent, Hackathorn, Van Hook, Wilson and Carlson), terrain modeling (Carlson, Marshall and Wilson) and harbor pilot training simulation (Parent, Wilson and Marshall), and computer art (Csuri, Van Hook, et al). CGRG created one of the first 3D computer generated animations used for a television station, the CBS affiliate WBNS-TV in Columbus, Ohio in 1978. Payment was a used Arriflex camera that could be used by students in the lab. Animation was also done for the first interactive cable television service in the country, Qube at Time-Warner in Columbus.

Funding for the research at CGRG was provided by the University, the National Science Foundation, the Naval Weapons Training Center, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the U.S. Department of Education. Carlson and Rick Parent were also part of a consulting team to Boeing to conduct a major graphical user interface study for the Air Force ICAM (Integrated Computer Aided Manufacturing) program.

Interacting Galaxies - Bob Reynolds

Procedural Modeling
The leaves on the trees were positioned using a procedural approach.

Complex Environments
Procedural modeling and animation techniques were used in a series of simulation projects sponsored by the U.S. Navy (Naval Weapons Training Center)