GAIN A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON GRAPHICS.

Byline: David Bloom Staff Writer

Take a guess when the first computer graphics were seen on TV. Go ahead. 1983? 1976? 1968? Nah, it was a lot earlier.

According to ``The Story of Computer Graphics,'' a handsome new documentary shot in high-definition video and debuting at 8:30 p.m. Sunday at the Shrine Auditorium, the first television computer graphics were shown Dec. 16, 1951, on Edward R. Murrow's show, ``See It Now.''

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the history of so much else in technology after World War II, the graphics were created for the military, then flush with cash in the first fearful years of the Cold War.

The graphics were created by SAGE, ``a computer so big that people worked inside it,'' according to one person in the film. The computer was part of the nation's new air-defense systems, and the graphic was created by an oscilloscope rendering the projected path and speed of a missile.

From this simple line drawing, we eventually got ``Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace.'' Maybe it's not that big a leap of logic after all.

The film itself is well done, the product of three years of work overseen by about 30 members of SIGGRAPH, the huge research-oriented special interest group of ACM (formerly the Association of Computing Machinery) that focuses on computer graphics.

This week, SIGGRAPH comes to the Los Angeles Convention Center (the film will be shown repeatedly during the week there, too), attracting 50,000 graphics wizards of all kinds to show off their latest bleeding-edge technologies, art, animation and more.

The 93-minute film itself talks to many of the field's true pioneers, from the men who invented Bezier curves and the computer mouse to SGI and Netscape founder James Clark and Adobe Systems CEO John Warnock to the king of ``Star Wars,'' George Lucas, and his nine-time Oscar-winning visual effects honcho, Dennis Murren.

The film is directed by Frank Foster, a vice president at Sony Imageworks, and he does a good job explaining and illustrating a lot of sometimes arcane information in a relatively brief time.

For all that, though, it's not nearly as visually engaging as you might expect (or hope), given the subject matter.

One particular disappointment: The really over-the-top eye candy of recent times makes up only a small portion of the film. That's a shame, because many of the graphics are just eye-popping when shown on a high-definition screen.

But most of the film is devoted to the field's development over a few decades of time, so what once were revolutionary new visions now are low-resolution vector drawings up-converted to high-definition TV from ancient, often fuzzy graphics formats.

And of course, much of the film is talking heads, often engaging interviews of often aging pioneers who look wonderfully true-to-life in HDTV but aren't necessarily the most eye-catching of fellows. There aren't a lot of movie stars here.

The film does have some tremendous moments, however.

Jim Blinn (a former graphics whiz at La Canada Flintridge's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and now with Microsoft Graphics) gives a wonderful, simple, illustrated explanation of how a colleague's teapot made for a perfect test of graphic rendering programs.

He then walks viewers through the various improvements that have been made in graphics technology, showing what wireframes and Phong shading and radiosity all mean.

That quick segment alone could serve as a five-minute graphics primer for every school in the country. Blinn, by the way, will be honored at SIGGRAPH this year for his longtime contributions to the field.

There are other such moments, and they enrich the film nicely. But personally, I would have preferred to see more of the creations of the many pioneers, and less of their faces as they talked about those creations. As they say in writing class, show, don't tell.

THE FACTS

The film: ``The Story of Computer Graphics.''

The stars: Lots of computers and nearly 50 graphics pioneers who have coaxed magic from the machine.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Frank Foster. Written by Judson Rosebush.

Running time: One hour, 33 minutes.

Playing: 8:30 p.m. Sunday at the Shrine Auditorium, 665 W. Jefferson Blvd., Los Angeles; then five times a day on HDTV during SIGGRAPH at the Los Angeles Convention Center, 1201 S. Figueroa St., Los Angeles. SIGGRAPH runs from Sunday through Aug. 13.

Our rating: Two and one half stars.

Convention details

SIGGRAPH is a can't miss for people interested in virtually any aspect of computer graphics.

Registration starts at 6 p.m. Saturday with classes beginning at 1:30 p.m. Sunday and running through Tuesday. A separate series of gatherings featuring technical papers, panels and sketches on a wide range of graphics, animation and related topics starts Wednesday and wraps up Friday.

Among this year's highlights are an art gallery of digital creations, the ``Millennium Motel'' of cutting-edge demos that aren't quite ready for market, a keynote speech by sculptor/mathematician Helaman Ferguson, evening receptions, a 3-D Web roundup that's something like a demo-by-fire gong show and an exhibit hall of vendors specializing in the field.

Registration for the entire event costs $760; $630 for SIGGRAPH members. But there's also an ``exhibits-plus'' registration of $50 that gives access to the exhibit hall, some speeches and other goodies, and a ``conference select'' registration of $200 that is at an intermediate level.

For more information about what each level of registration provides, go to the SIGGRAPH Web site at www.siggraph.org/s99/, though it's too late to register online. You'll have to do that on site.

- David Bloom

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos, Box

Photo: (1) ``The Story of Computer Graphics'' goes back to the medium's beginnings, including the SAGE (Semi Automatic Ground Environment) system used by the military to track enemy aircraft in the '50s.

(2) ``Luxo Jr.,'' produced by Pixar Animation Studios in 1986, is noted for its use of computer graphics to tell a character-driven story.

Box: Convention details (See text)