To understand the many issues in today’s modern computer graphics, you need to know how developed computer graphics from its beginnings to this day.

1950′s - the first graphic displays, military applications

1962 - the first graphics station (sketchpad) consisting of a monitor, light pen and software for interactive operation constructed by Ivan Sutherland

1964 - research team working on the algorithms in computer graphics employed at the University of Utah (including Ivan Sutherland, James Blinn, Edwin Catmull)

1965 - the first commercial graphics  station: IBM 2250 Display Unit and the IBM PC 1130

1969 - beginning of a group SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Graphics) in the organization of ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) gathering of IT professionals

1974 - creation of graphics laboratory at the New York Institute of Technology

1980 - Turner Whitted published article about creating realistic images, beginning of method of ray tracing

1982 - TRON, the first film that uses computer graphics. The first completely computer-generated scene in the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

1983 - development of fractal techniques and their use in computer graphics. Fractals are used for example in the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

1984 - work of C. Goral, K.Torrance, D.Greenberg and B.Battaile and proposing a new approach for visualization – the method of radiosity

1988 – the first film sequence with morphing in Willow

1989 - the first character created using 3D graphics in the studio Industrial Light & Magic (ILM)

1993 - dinosaurs in Jurassic Park – the first complete and detailed living organisms generated digital technology

1995 - Toy Story implemented complete using computer graphics, the first photo-realistic hair and fur computer generated

1999 –  the first character of the complete human anatomy in a computer-generated studio ILM

2001 - photon mapping as the development of ray tracing method

2009 - film Avatar – 3D cinema revolution

2009 - decision to create specialty Modern Computer Graphics for Applied Computer Science at the University of Science and Technology in Cracow

Summary

The beginnings of computer graphics were related to the military industry, due to the very high cost of equipment. The development of new graphics techniques has forced the film industry requires realistic special effects. Currently, computer graphics is used in many areas of life.