Consequently, a new field of experimentation began to open up.
From the late 1950s and early '60s, mainframe digital computers were becoming commonplace within large organisations and universities, and increasingly these would be equipped with graphic plotting and graphics screen devices. This breakthrough can be seen as the forerunner of all subsequent computer imaging, and recognising the importance of this first digital photograph, Life magazine in 2003 credited this image as one of the "100 Photographs That Changed the World". They used the computer to extract line drawings, count objects, recognize types of characters and display digital images on an oscilloscope screen. The image, picturing Kirsch's three-month-old son, consisted of just 176×176 pixels. In 1957, computer pioneer Russell Kirsch and his team unveiled a drum scanner for SEAC, to "trace variations of intensity over the surfaces of photographs", and so doing made the first digital image by scanning a photograph. One of the first programmable digital computers was SEAC (the Standards Eastern Automatic Computer), which entered service in 1950 at the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) in Maryland, USA.
In 1968, his pioneering motion control model photography was used on Stanley Kubrick's movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, and also for the slit-scan photography technique used in the film's "Star Gate" finale. In 1960, Whitney established his company Motion Graphics Inc, which largely focused on producing titles for film and television, while continuing further experimental works. One of Whitney's best known works from this early period was the animated title sequence from Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 film Vertigo, which he collaborated on with graphic designer Saul Bass.
In the 1940s and 1950s, he and his brother James created a series of experimental films made with a custom-built device based on old anti-aircraft analog computers ( Kerrison Predictors) connected by servos to control the motion of lights and lit objects – the first example of motion control photography. John Whitney, Sr (1917–1995) was an American animator, composer and inventor, widely considered to be one of the fathers of computer animation.
The earliest pioneers: 1940s to mid-1960s John Whitney 8.2 Motion capture, photorealism, and uncanny valley.8.1 2000 breakthrough capture of the reflectance field over the human face.6.1 Computer animation expands in film and TV.4.7 First turnkey broadcast animation system.4.4 3D Fictional Animated Films at the University of Montreal.2.9 First digital animation in a feature film.2.8 Atlas Computer Laboratory and Antics.2.3 First computer animated character, Nikolai Konstantinov.