Sketchpad Demonstration

Ivan Sutherland's doctoral thesis project, Sketchpad, demonstrated real-time interactive drawing on a computer screen using a light pen. Users could draw, manipulate, and constrain geometric shapes.

Significance

Revolutionary for its time, Sketchpad introduced concepts of graphical user interfaces, object-oriented programming, and interactive graphics, laying fundamental groundwork for all future CAD and graphics software.

Key facts

Date
1963-01-30
Type
invention
Location
MIT Lincoln Laboratory, USA