Computer Aided Design Trends in the 80’s

Abstract

The encoding and transmission of digital pictures dates back to 1921 when a transatlantic cable utilized a digital system with intensity levels and a teletype simulated a halftone. During the last thirty years the technology has evolved from the first computer driven CRT — credited to the Whirlwind I at MIT in 1950 — to countless home computers with graphic capabilities.

Great accomplishments from industry, military, research, and development laboratories as well as individual efforts have provided developments that today make the state of the art the most promising tool of the century.

A technology that has brough us the dreams of DaVinci, Pollock, Maholy-Nagy, and Duchamp, appeals to the senses because for the first time we can create the great elegance of motion, exactly as what happens in music.

We have always been able to see motion, but not able to re-create it. For the first time we can make patterns of motion; from geometrical equations we can create designs so rich and rewarding that the moving visual imagery of a culture may be recalled forever.

The time has come to revise and develop the guidelines that will reap the greatest benefits in all computer aided applications. The future lies in the principle that we must adapt machinery to people and their specific needs. In turn we can project an intelligent outlook in the process of man-machine communication that will accelerate the course of history.

As an artist/designer I faced some of the frustrations embedded in certain systems. I wished to find out how some of my colleagues perceived their systems, and to that purpose, I surveyed some of their experiences. As a result, I have formed some opinions on what I perceive to be computer aided design trends in the 1980s. Computer aided design is still relatively new and there is a great deal to be done to enhance individuality. Individuality is an asset to the process of creation and requires greater input and thought.

This century is but an episode in the life of human culture; it is clear that more paraphernalia of this epoch may be cast off than will survive into the next. Yet surely the computer will not. A solid state image will replace the chemical ribbon and cinema will eventually be interred in the archival museum. But computer and computer graphics will bring to mind the kind of tools that may characterize an age succeeding this century’s age of the machine.

John Whitney, Digital Harmony on the Complementarity of Music and Visual Art