sketchpad

1 definition found

sketchpad - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  Sketchpad
  
     A program that allowed users to draw on a screen with a light pen
     .  It supported constraints (e.g. drawing a constrained
     ellipse produced a circle).  It also had some computer aided design
      features (e.g. computing loads on beams).
  
     Sketchpad was the subject of Ivan E. Sutherland's 1963 MIT
     PhD thesis, which opened the field of computer graphics.  It
     was the progenitor of computer drawing packages like MacDraw
     or Adobe Illustrator.  There is a film of Sketchpad in
     action.
  
     It solved constraints using value inference and introduced
     the "ring" list structure.
  
     ["Sketchpad: A Man-Machine Graphical Communication System",
     I.e. Sutherland, MIT Lincoln Lab, TR 296 (Jan 1963)].
  
     [Sammet 1969, p. 678].
  
     (1995-02-14)