June Linda Saunders Cadcentre Ltd High Cross Madingly Road Cambridge CB3 OHB

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1 "... '-' \J 1 ft,... \,.II: ""..., I I ~..;I '- la 111 0/0/ June Linda Saunders Cadcentre Ltd High Cross Madingly Road Cambridge CB3 OHB UK Dear Ms Saunders Further to our telephone conversation today I am sending you the latest issue of The Computer Museum Report, an outline of the gallery The Computer and the Image and a reprint from Discover magazine on the displays at our former site outside Boston. The Computer and the Image is a major permanent exhibition which will be opening with the reopening of the Museum in its new site in central Boston. We would like to document the key steps in the development of image synthesis techniques and I believe some important work was done in 1970 and 1971 by Martin Newell and others under the direction of John Chilvers. I have been in touch with Martin Newell who is happy for us to make use of these early images provided that the necessary permission can be granted. Can John Chilvers grant the necessary permission? As I have not seen the images, I cannot be more specific, but one "fi rst" was the rendering of transparency in a champagne glass. Another may have been bump-mapping which Martin Newell did on a dataset describing a teapot. That teapot was used agai n and again by others such as Jim Blinn and it would be nice to t r ace these experiments from the start. As you will see in the outline, we are trying to show state-of-the-art images as well. We are receiving a number of donations of hardware from various manufacturers with a view to run n i n g w 0 r kin g d e m 0 n s t rat ion s. 1NJ ~ i n vie w 0 f 0 u r s eve r ely restricted programming staff here, ~ a n only contemplate running software that requires the minimum of modification. Specifically, we have a VAX 750 under VMS, a PDP-11/70 under RSX-11M, an Adage 3000 (ex-ikonas), a Lexidata, a Tektronix storage tube and a Grinnell Systems display. We will also be getting a Dataproducts graphics printer and an HP 9875A plotter. We would be pleased to discuss the possibility of using some of your material to make a working demonstration here. Whether or not a working demonstration is feasible, perhaps we could show some of your recent work by means of static images. I would be happy to speak to GEMS too for image-processing material. I shall be visiting England from July 3 to 7 but will really only be able to visit you on Thursday the 5th. I should be able to

2 come up to Cambridge that day if that would suit you. Thank you for your help and interest. I look forward to hearing from you. Yours sincerely Dr Oliver Strimpel Curator enclosures: report, outline, reprint cc:martin Newell, CADLINC

3 12 July 1984 Dr. Oliver Strimpel, Curator, The Computer Museum, 300 Congress Street, Boston MA USA Dear Oliver, It was very p1easan.t to meet you last week and discuss possible requirements for 'The Computer and the Image'. As requested, I now write to confirm the verbal permission I gave on behalf of John Chilvers for your use of the images you would like to use. John is very pleased to co-operate in return for acknowledgement of CADCentre Limited, and, further to my discussions with him on his return concerning your visit, has confirmed that he would also be pleased to attend your opening if possible. If you would like to have a product 'story' from visualisation to manufacture as we discussed, I would be happy to attempt to organise same, but would like as long a lead time as possible! Do get back to me if you have any further thoughts. Kind regards, Yours sincerely, LINDA A SAUNDERS Corporate Services Manager. cc: Martin Newell, CADLINC.

4 10 July 1984 Linda Saunders Cadcentre Ltd High Cross Madingley Rd Cambridge CB3 OHB Dear Linda Thank you very much for arranging such a fruitful visit for me. I am writing to be specific about what we would like to use here in our displays. Let me first cover the material I saw with Tony Howard. I did not copy down slide numbers as Tony said he would be able to identify the images from a description. 1. Shoe design: 1971 Arthur Flutter shoe; modern Clark shoe design together with corresponding actual shoe (The Computer Museum would be happy to bear this cost) 2. Carpet design examples, preferably an early one and a late one 3. Early PDMS examples with dates and photographs of actual plants of the type designed with the help of PDMS 4. Early architectural simulation: block of flats with background; are there any sets with the same buildings placed in different settings? 5. Bridge (2BI8/19) 6. Haig bottle 7. Glider, computer image and actual photo (Barry Hart). If Tony can identify some other particular images that were significant 'firsts' I would be glad to have copies of those a 1 so. I would also like to exhibit some images from vasco that Denis Payne and Nick Kotarski showed me: 8. Pencils: whole image without anti-aliasing and with anti-aliasing; detail on a pencil edge or perhaps where pencils cross both without and with anti-aliasing.

5 9. Road scene with roundabout: photo of real scene; synthetic scene in clear daylight, in mist, thick fog, at night with street lights (all anti-aliased) - 5 images in all. c.~~ 1C.1 Slides would suit us best - we can then have prints made up to the correct size to fit our display panels. I hope I have not overburdened you but I do feel it is important to show something of the UK contribution to the field. \ re these all to be credited to Cadcentre Ltd? Many thanks again for all your help. Yours sincerely Dr Oliver Strimpel Curator

6 IT tu Hrl' C (l "11(]rn,ley t<')c (Imbrrd~f CBJ ()HP l ~ IIld Tf rep I 'me (022.3) tere )1 ( Hlrh ( M,jdlllgll' f{ijdd ldnlb,iuot ( B3 lh[! r- 1)1' rlcl,r Er 'lu No. ~)<I tl CAD C E N T R E 12 September 1984 Dr. Oliver Strimpel, Curator, The Computer Museum, 300 Congress Street, BOSTON, MA 02210, USA Dear Oliver, Please find enclosed all I have available to date for your exhibition. The mounted slides are numbered in sections, which correspond to the numbered items in your letter of 10 July (items 1-7). Separately packed are the VOSCO transparencies - item 8 complete (pencils) and all of item 9 except the road scene, which will be done later this week. The rest of the Clarks bits and pieces as discussed on the telephone recently, should be sent off next week or the beginning of the following one. I will be in touch shortly. Kind regards, Yours sincerely, L~ Linda A. Saunders Corporate Services Manager Enclosure

7 CAD C E N T R E RECFI"Fn L\UG ; 9 August 1984 Dr. Oliver Strimpel, Curator, The Computer Museum, 300 Congress Street, BOSTON, MA 02210, USA. Dear Oliver, I think our letters must have crossed in the post! Thank you for your list on display materials - we are working from it and hope to have a package ready soon. We only have one problem, which concerns the VOSCO images of the road scene with roundabout. We have investigated the situation with regard to the "road scene" and have discovered that at present the road is a staggered junction, which will be a roundabout in 1987! (The Transport Road Research Laboratory, for whom we did the images, had no idea of the current status of the road concerned). I therefore have two suggestions:- 1. We send you the visuals we have plus one of the existing junction asit is now (so that the story can change to "how it is now and how it will be in the future") or 2. There is probably a model on an existing scene, which we could generate the images from; i.e. working backwards. The disadvantage of this is that it would take a considerable amount of effort from Nick, and I fear that the expense incurred by his time would greatly exceed a) my budget and b) the potential benefit. This seems to be the only difficulty; if you have any lateral thoughts I would be pleased to hear them! Kind regards, Yours sincerely, L~ Linda A. Saunders Corporate Services Manager :A[ ( en

8 August Linda A Saunders Corporate Services Manager CADCentre Ltd High Cross Madingley Cambridge England Dear Linda Road CB3 OHB Thank you for your letters of 12 July and 9 August. Regarding the series of road scenes generated with VOSCO, let us go ahead with the picture of the road scene as it is now. The story "how it is now and how it will be in the future" is fine - it actually proves quite convincingly that the simulated road scenes were made before the real scene came into existence! I have been thinking that it might be hard to match an actual shoe currently on sale with one of the designs in your files. If indeed you cannot easily find a suitable match, let us omit that story. Thank you again for all your help. I hope to receive your package soon - we are now writing the gallery text so as to be ready in time for the November 14 public opening. It's surprising what long lead times are necessary. We shall be happy to invite John Chilvers to the opening. Yours sincerely Oliver Strimpel Curator