3 ms·

The page you link to even talks about it being a model rather than a scan: > It is a mathematical model of an ordinary Melitta-brand teapot > The teapot mode

by jreese 5y ago

The page you link to even talks about it being a model rather than a scan: > It is a mathematical model of an ordinary Melitta-brand teapot > The teapot model was created in 1975 by early computer graphics researcher Martin Newell, a member of the pioneering graphics program at the University of Utah.[3] It was one of the first to be modeled (using bézier curves) rather than precisely measured.

dahart 5y ago
Yes that's correct. It wasn't scanned in the typical meaning of "scan" at the time, by digitizing the vertices of a triangle mesh. But it also wasn't an original design from scratch - which is what calling it a "design" seems to imply. The Bezier curves were plotted out to match the reference model, the Melitta teapot, so it was in a sense, a manual eyeballed scan. Calling it a "design" as something in opposition to a scan just seems a bit misleading. There is some overlap of those two terms with the Utah Teapot. The shape wasn't an original design, just the topology and representation were, and the digitizing process was manual and approximate, right?
- boulos 5y ago
  Right. Both the teapot and Ivan’s VW are “manual scans”. The teapot even got “accidentally” stretched by Jim Blinn and most copies use that one. In searching for that evidence (Wikipedia says citation needed!), I rediscovered Frank Crow’s great write up from 1987 (which includes a scan of the graph paper!): https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/cg/1987/01/mcg1987010008/13rRUygT7ct https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/cg/1987/01/mcg1987010... aka https://s3.amazonaws.com/ieeecs.cdn.csdl.content/mags/cg/1987/01/mcg1987010008.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=ASIA2Z6GPE73N5537GPZ&Expires=1622076613&Signature=WRPHAtVONvsOUoU%2B2nDvKKyJlrQ%3D&x-amz-security-token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEJH%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJIMEYCIQD%2Bo%2FKPvCCVim7oYNGo8Csguo5elWTuETiG%2FQs1Zn9VEgIhAMmm9WFL6AOkoZjisxeTD8oPrgi0j0Bh%2FD3m3FP%2BolhzKp0CCDoQABoMNzQyOTA4NzAwNjYyIgytKu77mp6UMUBBucsq%2BgEVmDnKo%2BOCxS8KySy3Fft1sLdHhEpeZ0y78tL1%2FUA0aHTuyOFVfPbFBUzHNj9cG%2F2VwnkKyvTpoMyhliwWEAOWeJbJcYXAC9X4PU56vIJrbqfKn0l6WSrr6yt9RKYwiIwcJ%2BI2H%2BODL08jB7RFq5FyLKPQdneb4596a7PQS%2Fq5Ro5vxOWVrO7YaYmuBKTX25MTgvyHk1fgtHjbHpoKaqP9yw%2B%2BppOa0p5a99T3pTWHOL%2BFNks3S5eiVZPdnpF40HJnx%2F%2BbIt4W6edBgpm5Mf6oiz%2BCQgKXKKh1vbrjU9uYdgBZjBAvTXvqwSih8eAwA7A0msUTtsBmp1UdMMHRu4UGOpkBhE2jvDVX1FD93AMLYnQDMAI0hdj83s1Dy6x%2B4O1i%2BzGNyGOGc1e2HqBs6%2BieATKmXX0iOExuY1IaAnuTyLdbyJRz4xMoigdK%2BwzWUxW%2FIHDkUdYZ1WFMfEnv%2BPKVG1xrZvoAW894fOQvzkd0PWSlLO4%2Fplr5DNdX2B0YdkzEGHWwHiMe3z9Q4OS3Wv4dTgjFH0VCp2YwSdn2 https://s3.amazonaws.com/ieeecs.cdn.csdl.content/mags/cg/198...

by jreese 5y ago

dahart 5y ago

Yes that's correct. It wasn't scanned in the typical meaning of "scan" at the time, by digitizing the vertices of a triangle mesh. But it also wasn't an original design from scratch - which is what calling it a "design" seems to imply. The Bezier curves were plotted out to match the reference model, the Melitta teapot, so it was in a sense, a manual eyeballed scan. Calling it a "design" as something in opposition to a scan just seems a bit misleading. There is some overlap of those two terms with the Utah Teapot. The shape wasn't an original design, just the topology and representation were, and the digitizing process was manual and approximate, right?

boulos 5y ago
Right. Both the teapot and Ivan’s VW are “manual scans”. The teapot even got “accidentally” stretched by Jim Blinn and most copies use that one. In searching for that evidence (Wikipedia says citation needed!), I rediscovered Frank Crow’s great write up from 1987 (which includes a scan of the graph paper!): https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/cg/1987/01/mcg1987010008/13rRUygT7ct https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/cg/1987/01/mcg1987010... aka https://s3.amazonaws.com/ieeecs.cdn.csdl.content/mags/cg/1987/01/mcg1987010008.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=ASIA2Z6GPE73N5537GPZ&Expires=1622076613&Signature=WRPHAtVONvsOUoU%2B2nDvKKyJlrQ%3D&x-amz-security-token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEJH%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJIMEYCIQD%2Bo%2FKPvCCVim7oYNGo8Csguo5elWTuETiG%2FQs1Zn9VEgIhAMmm9WFL6AOkoZjisxeTD8oPrgi0j0Bh%2FD3m3FP%2BolhzKp0CCDoQABoMNzQyOTA4NzAwNjYyIgytKu77mp6UMUBBucsq%2BgEVmDnKo%2BOCxS8KySy3Fft1sLdHhEpeZ0y78tL1%2FUA0aHTuyOFVfPbFBUzHNj9cG%2F2VwnkKyvTpoMyhliwWEAOWeJbJcYXAC9X4PU56vIJrbqfKn0l6WSrr6yt9RKYwiIwcJ%2BI2H%2BODL08jB7RFq5FyLKPQdneb4596a7PQS%2Fq5Ro5vxOWVrO7YaYmuBKTX25MTgvyHk1fgtHjbHpoKaqP9yw%2B%2BppOa0p5a99T3pTWHOL%2BFNks3S5eiVZPdnpF40HJnx%2F%2BbIt4W6edBgpm5Mf6oiz%2BCQgKXKKh1vbrjU9uYdgBZjBAvTXvqwSih8eAwA7A0msUTtsBmp1UdMMHRu4UGOpkBhE2jvDVX1FD93AMLYnQDMAI0hdj83s1Dy6x%2B4O1i%2BzGNyGOGc1e2HqBs6%2BieATKmXX0iOExuY1IaAnuTyLdbyJRz4xMoigdK%2BwzWUxW%2FIHDkUdYZ1WFMfEnv%2BPKVG1xrZvoAW894fOQvzkd0PWSlLO4%2Fplr5DNdX2B0YdkzEGHWwHiMe3z9Q4OS3Wv4dTgjFH0VCp2YwSdn2 https://s3.amazonaws.com/ieeecs.cdn.csdl.content/mags/cg/198...