The Teapot, what a silly thing to have in a program which you can construct buildings and model mechanical & structural systems. I’m sure you’ve seen it too, but have you ever really asked yourself… “Why a TEAPOT?????”  Well lets pour ourselves a cup of tea and discuss…. and this is exactly how the teapot came into being.

 

The original Teapot that inspired it all…

 

The Utah teapot, also called the Newell teapot, is a standard reference object in the computer graphics community.  The original was created back in 1975 by Martin Newell, a member of a pioneering graphics program at the University of Utah.  You see, Newell needed a simple mathematical model of a familiar object for his work… what would he use? He decided to discuss it with his wife, Sandra. Sandra suggested that he use the Teapot from their tea service as they were sitting down for tea at the time.  Newell thought that just might work so he sketched the teapot by eye with a pencil and paper. Next he digitally recreated the teapot in his lab and later provided the data he used to others in the graphics community to test/develop their own graphics engines.

So just think the next time you sit down at a table, your spouse may hand you the item of inspiration that effects your own professional community for the next 35 years and beyond! In this case, a simple teapot.