Think about The Simpsons, Toy Story, and your old PC screensaver.

Do you see anything in common about these three things? Surprisingly, the common factor here is a simple ‘teapot.’ You may not have thought much of seeing it in one of the cartoon shows, in an old screensaver, or in any of the other films and games it has crept into over the years. Yet this unassuming object – the “Utah teapot,” as it is most commonly known – has had an enormous influence on the history of computing, and has ultimately become one of the most iconic objects in computer graphics history.

The term “computer graphics” first appeared way back in 1960. It was coined by William Fetter, a graphic designer at Boeing, and his team’s supervisor, Verne Hudson. Then in 1963, computer scientist and CGI pioneer Ivan Sutherland wrote a program called Sketchpad. It allowed the user to draw, edit, and manipulate simple shapes with a light pen. It also was the first software to introduce object-oriented programming and geometric constraints. The program laid the basis for the rapid development of computer 3D modeling, visual simulation, and computer-aided design (CAD).

The 1970s were a decade of some real breakthroughs in the field of computer rendering. It all began when Ivan Sutherland joined David C. Evans, another computer scientist. They then began teaching a revolutionary computer graphics class, which made a significant contribution to the founding research in the field. The course had many remarkable alumni, including future co-founders of Pixar and Adobe Systems.

“The late David Evans was a true visionary to create a center of excellence in computer graphics and interactive computing in the mid 1960s,” said Kahlert School of Computing Director Mary Hall. “Early on, the atmosphere for creative innovation attracted the extraordinarily talented faculty, including Ivan Sutherland and Burroughs computer architect Bob Barton, and success followed from there.”

But before we get into the deeper history of computer rendering, you might wonder, “What exactly is rendering?”

According to the definitions from Oxford Languages,

Render (verb)

1. Provide or give (a service, help, etc.).
2. cause to be or become; make.
3. represent or depict artistically.

There are three more meanings to the word render, but the definition we are looking for is the third one, specifically a “process (an outline image) using color and shading in order to make it appear solid and three-dimensional.” But what exactly does this mean? 

In other words, rendering is the process of taking some information and data from a context, which could pretty much be anything you could imagine, and creating an image. But when it comes to rendering, you will usually have something a bit more complex than a simple green square with a blue background. Therefore, rendering is the process of taking all the information of a scene or a context and handling the generation of a final pixel.

A simple pixel can involve a lot of logic and complexity. Rendering is the step to handle this complex logic and simply focus on the state of the image.

At the forefront of exploring these challenges in rendering was the University of Utah, where computer graphics pioneers were developing innovative algorithms to deal with this complexity. The university was a powerhouse of computer graphics research at the time, and Martin Newell, who was a computer scientist at the University of Utah, had some novel ideas for algorithms that could realistically display 3D shapes – rendering complex effects like shadows, reflective textures, or rotations that reveal obscured surfaces. But, to his distress, he struggled to find a digitized object worthy of his methods. Objects that were typically used for simulating reflections, like a chess pawn, a donut, and an urn, were too simple.

Back in his lab, he entered the sketched coordinates – called Bézier control points, first used in the design of automobile bodies – on a Tektronix storage tube, an early text and graphics computer terminal. It is a set of specific “control points” that uses a formula to define a smooth, continuous curve. This curve often approximates real-world shapes that lack straightforward mathematical models or are too complex to represent precisely. The result was a lovely virtual teapot, more versatile (and probably cuter) than any 3D model to date. This was one of the very first 3D objects modeled with bézier curves – the modern CG tool we still use today – instead of precise measurements.

The new model was particularly appealing to Newell’s colleague, Jim Blinn. One day, demonstrating how his software could adjust an object’s height, Blinn flattened the teapot a bit and decided he liked the look of that version better. The distinctive Utah teapot was born.

Since then, the teapot has become so incredibly iconic that it has been featured in museums and various software. It even made appearances in several animated movies and series, including Toy Story, The Simpsons, and Monsters, Inc.

The Utah teapot didn’t just contribute to Newell’s research – it became foundational for computer graphics as a whole. If you have ever coded before, you would know that for programmers, the phrase “Hello, World!” marks a beginner’s first step into coding, representing a simple yet impactful introduction. In much the same way, the Utah teapot, with its simplicity and unique features, served as the “Hello, World!” for rendering algorithms. Its approachable shape allowed researchers to experiment with complex rendering techniques like light reflection, shading, and shadowing, which eventually became industry standards.

With its distinct curves and reflective surfaces, the teapot presented an ideal model for testing how light interacts with objects. Over time, the teapot’s role expanded beyond a mere test subject; it became the standard for testing the accuracy of visual effects, and its impact started to expand into multiple different fields.

In the 1980s, computer 3D rendering stopped being a solely scientific and academic field. Home computers became more common, the Star Wars franchise gained millions of fans and kids started playing the first video games from Nintendo, Atari, and Sega. All of that, plus the new technological advancements, increased the commercial use of 3D graphics.

From the 1990s until today, we saw a consistent improvement of quality in computer rendering. The modern hardware is powerful enough to process more data and within a much shorter time than its predecessor. The software too became a lot more sophisticated. All of that gradually led to greater photorealism, more natural-looking animation, the emergence of interactive visual formats such as VR and AR, and much more.

Now the history of computer rendering is pushing the limits of what Newell and his peers imagined, but the humble teapot remains a respected, nostalgic icon – giving us all a reminder of where it all began.

If you have ever coded before, you would know that for programmers, the phrase “Hello, World!” marks a beginner’s first step into coding, representing a simple yet impactful introduction. In much the same way, the Utah teapot, with its simplicity and unique features, served as the “Hello, World!” for rendering algorithms.