s . DISPLAYS ON DISPLAYFo _Editors:

andCha

Frank Crowrles Csuri

Pen-plotter artistshave works exhibited

An exhibition of art done on com-puter pen plotters is now hanging at theCalifornia Museum of Science and In-dustry in Los Angeles. The artistsrepresented there are winners of a con-test titled "The Electric Paintbrush."The contest was run by Calcomp, whichcelebrated its 25th anniversary this way.A spokesperson for the company saysthe international response was so over-whelming that there might be futurecontests in the offing. Calcomp paidover $15,000 in prize money, with$5000, $2000, and $1000 going to thefirst three winners in the professionalbranch, and $3000, $1500, and $750 go-ing to the first three winners in the stu-dent division. The winners of honorablemention in each category weregiven $250, and thestudent winners'schools wereeach given a

CalcompModel 84

desktopplotter. _The pictures

shown here are 1the first threeprize winners ineach category. Onthe succeeding pagesyou will see pictures bysome of the artists who re-ceived honorable mention andsome of those who were finalists jfrom among the more than 300 en-tries that came in from all over theworld.The judges of the contest were Eudice

Feder, chairperson, internationallyknown computer artist whose designshave been shown at the Museum ofModern Art, Paris; Randy Akers, direc-tor/designer, Gehring Associates, LosAngeles; Lukman Glasgow, director ofthe Downey Art Museum; Mary AnnGlantz, professor of fine arts, CaliforniaState University; and Aaron Marcus,designer and graphic communicationsconsultant, Aaron Marcus and Asso-ciates, San Franscisco.

The first-place prize in theprofessional category wentto "A Western," by PhilipB. Binns, a project coor-dinator with Design Logicin San Francisco. Usingpressurized ballpoint pens,liquid ink, and cotton swabsinserted into ballpoint hold-ers, Binns juxtaposed partstypical to plotter artworkagainst parts that do notappear to have been createdon a plotter. To accomplishthis, he used the seeminglyrandom nature of plottingto color the striped cowbrands. Then, he used cot-ton swabs dipped in liquidink to create the effect ofsoft, inconsistent,"painted" lines.

Axel Miessner of Grafelfing, Germany, won second place in theprofessional division with his "Der Munchner" or "TheMunich." Miessner is leader of interactive systems with thegovernment of Munich. This one-color plot originated as achance drawing generated by Mr. Miessner's own software. Theh final version is a refinement of the original outline. The work

was plotted with a black liquid-ink pen on a 1051 DrumPlotter.

Third place for professionals went to Hadzi-Tosev Nikola for"Faces." Nikola is professional assistant at the Institute forEarthquake Engineering and Seismology in Yugoslavia. Thework was created with a Fortran program for plotting three-dimensional and perspective views as a function of two in-dependent variables. Two separate images were created, thenmerged. The artist used pressurized ballpoint pens in black.

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v, The first place award in the student di-vision went to "Effie," the EiffelTower. Keith Waters, a recent graduateof Middlesex Polytechnic, in England,created perspective views of one imageusing Picasso software and blue and

black pressurized ballpoint pens. The0 i0-:: image, the Eiffel Tower, was duplicated

and scaled. The resulting images werethen connected to form the pattern ofsequential, 3-D views, using theCalcomp 960.

Second place in the student division

Rota,"

Melinda Adams, a student at California

used black and red ballpoint pens to

draw this programmed representation

of music notation. The basic images

were plotted with Calcomp 1057, and a

fill-pattern from Simplot software was

used to color the images.4EW~~3 C,.,

Gary Kind won the third-place prize for students with his "Sails."Kind is a student at CSUN. The Simplot-written arcs in "Sails" areportions of circles with very large radii that have been paired offwith other arcs. Using different scale factors, Kind created threeimages with slightly different center points and radii to produce themoire patterns. He used ballpoint pens in red, orange, turquoise,and blue to provide the color.

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January 1985 7

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DISPLAYS ONDISPLAYThe "Binary Tree" made its creator, Albert H. J.Christensen, a finalist in the professional category.Christensen is a senior software engineer for Chicago AerialSurvey. Two basic computer programs were used to createthis arrangement of elements, which corresponds exactly tothe binary tree, a fundamental configuration of graphtheory. The first program works on the principle of recur-sion, which means to split and merge. It takes a very basicshape, in this case a cube, and divides it into two equal piecesat right angles to the original shape. The new shape is halfthe size of the first and is linked to the original shape. Eachpiece is created on a different level, and the process con-tinues until the subdivision reaches a predetermined min-imum. The process begins againat the largest un-divided segment /

and ends when

no more rectan-gles can be di-

vided. The sec-

ond programcreates perspec-tives by addingparallel lines ofconstant densityto every rectan-gle. By usingthis type of soft-ware, any pointof view and anyline of sight canbe selected.

Dominique Dubuc, a CAD-system manager for Bobrow andFieldman Architecture of Montreal, Canada, won an honorablemention in the professional division for "Teletransportation 2."Dubuc capitalizes on a popular coloring technique used by youngchildren. A paper is first covered with various colors of crayons,then colored over in black crayon. At this stage Dubuc insertedempty TV pens into the plotter and used them to scratch a patterninto the paper. When the black crayon was scratched away, seem-ingly random hues were revealed.

Daniel P. Escudero, a systems analyst with Bechtel,was a finalist in the professional division with his"Cathedral of St. John the Divine." Escudero digitizedthis plot, then scaled it from a 14-by-17-inchphotograph of St. John the Divine Cathedral in NewYork. It was created at twice the scale of the photoblueprint elevation. To alleviate the problems causedby very fine and detailed artwork, Mr. Escuderocreated many figures, then used scaling and multipleinsert techniques. He created the stained glass windowsas separate images, then inserted the colored imagesinto the existing structure.

Chrystal Klabunde won honorable mention as a stu-dent for her "Sunset." Klabunde attends CaliforniaState University at Northridge, or CSUN. The in-clusive window, which represents the sun, is themost unusual aspect of this drawing. The "sun"was not plotted. It was merely defined by the linesplotted around it. The artist used Simplot softwareand ballpoint and felt-tip pens in red, turquoise,and black.

IEEE CG&A

Melony N. Myers, anotherCSUN student, won honor-able mention for "Sounds ofAutumn." Myers used a singlesymbol, scaled on one axisonly and duplicated, to pro-duce the variations in design.She used Moire patterns tocreate an illusion of texture.The intensity of color wascreated by allowing only smallintervals between lines, givingthe appearance of diffusedcolor. The artist usedpressurized and liquid ball-point pens, along withSimplot software, to producethis four-color piece on aCalcomp 1051.

Jurgen Lit Fischerof Dusseldorf,Germany, is afree-lance artist.His "Orpheus"was a finalist inthe professionalcategory. He cre-ated this plotusing liquid-inkpens on the Cal-comp 1051.

Thomas J. Brodeur, autographicsoperator with BDM Corp., wonhonorable mention as a profes-sional, with his "Nautical Chro-nology." The art-deco style waschosen to capitalize on theplotter's best features: pinpointaccuracy, smooth curves, andstraight lines. Brodeur createdpieces of the drawing separatelyon different levels of the program.First, the masted ship, then thebackground liner and border. Aspieces were developed (such as agunport or a mast), they werestored in the computer's library.Each piece then was inserted intothe keel to complete the hull.After erasing the hull below thewaterline, the entire ship was sav-ed in a library. The border andbackground liner were drawn in asimilar manner. The liner was cre-ated around a template of themasted ship, then these imageswere also saved in a library. Afterall the separate pieces werecreated, all the drawings weremerged together into one image.Using liquid ballpoint pens, theborder and background were plot-ted first, then the masted ship wasdrawn on top of the other images.

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Al Rausa was a finalist in the profes- 024 I%~sional division with "Terminal Man."Rausa is a computer graphics operator at 1Bums and Roe. He created "Terminal ~ H,ITMan" out of ideas taken from Marvel "TERMINflL MINand DC comic-book covers. Nylon-tipcolor pens drew patterns of modifiedcross-hatching to produce the color andshading on the body. A black ballpointpen also produced modified cross-hatching to provide the appearance ofgray in the monitor screen and the key-board shading. This piece nearlyduplicates the traditional comic bookcover format, including the ComicAuthority Logo.

January 1985

DISPLAYS ON DISPLAYAnn Laughlin is a CAD supervisor with Architectural Enterprises. Her

"Unicorn Parade" was a finalist. Laughlin used the original designfrom an ancient Babylonian carving. To re-create the drawing, she

developed one segment of data in the form of a triangle. Theimage was then rotated, using Summagraphics' software, andconnected to complete the perfect 360-degree circle.

John Heile, now a UCLA graduate, was a student finalist with"An Entryway." He used three different pen weights to achievea feeling of depth in this piece. The plot was generated using aninteractive program, written in Pascal, to vary the key horizon-tal and vertical dimensions. To avoid smearing of lines,random plotting was not per- Imitted. The programs werewritten to draw strictlyfrom left to right orright to left on a l 7 i/

Thomas B. King received honorable mention inthe professional division for "Basketball." Thepiece was created by overlaying various patternsof cross-hatching to achieve different textures. Itwas plotted with a liquid-ink pen, using Auto-Trol GS1000 software.

IEEE CG&A10

Thomas B. King created"Hawk," which was a fi-nalist in the professionaldivision. King is a drafts-man with Amoco Produc-tion Co. To create thisplot, King produced a pat-tern of lines on 15 differentoverlays and selectively ed-ited the lines to achieve thedesired density. He usedAuto-Trol GS 1000 soft-ware and liquid-ink pensfor the final artwork, doneon a Calcomp 960.

Steven Schenck's "Esch 1" was a finalist. Schenck is a CADspecialist with IGC Technology. To create this work, Schenckdigitized the hands from existing artwork. He then plottedthis piece with a black liquid-ink pen, using Auto-TrolGS 1000 software.

Diogenes A. Ruiz,a finalist with "FirstContact," is a systems oper-ator with CRSS/EPR. Because hisspacecraft is hovering in deep space, any way you choose toview this plot is correct. The portion representing deep spacewas drawn with black liquid ink and pressurized ballpointpens with the lines closely spaced on both the x and y axes.The final image was plotted on a single matted Stratmoresheet, using a solids-modeling software package.

January 1985 I11