Official Source: University of Utah Computer Graphics History
source confidence: Medium status: Useful updated 2026-06-18
Summary
The University of Utah School of Computing history page describes the formation of computing research at Utah, David Evans's recruitment, ARPA funding, the early computer graphics program, the ARPANET node, and later graphics and visualization work.
Useful Claims
- Computing research at Utah began in 1965 when David C. Evans returned to establish a computer science division inside electrical engineering.
- Evans received ARPA support for a center of excellence in computer graphics and recruited Ivan Sutherland and other faculty, students, and collaborators.
- The Utah graphics program is connected to John Warnock, Henri Gouraud, Bui Tuong Phong, Ed Catmull, Fred Parke, Henry Fuchs, Martin Newell, Frank Crow, Jim Blinn, Jim Kajiya, and others.
- The page identifies the Utah teapot as Martin Newell's model and frames it as a widely used benchmark object in computer graphics.
- The same history situates Utah as one of the original four ARPANET nodes and ties later visualization work to the Graphics and Visualization Center.
Verbatim
"Founded the computer science department and was its first chairman from 1965-1973" — History page, David Evans timeline entry
"The University of Utah was one of the first four independent network nodes of the internet. The first successful transmission was on October 29, 1969. (See ARPANET )" — History page, ARPANET note
"Gouraud smooth shading model for computer graphics." — History page, "Major contributions" list
Reliability Notes
This is an institutional history from the university, so it is strong evidence for Utah's self-documented program lineage, dates, names, and internal framing. It should be paired with ACM/SIGGRAPH oral histories, original dissertations, and independent histories before making stronger priority claims.
Claims about David Evans's 1965 return, ARPA center-of-excellence funding, the Utah teapot benchmark, and the Graphics and Visualization Center were not reconfirmed in this capture.