Summary

In this paper, the author presents a system (both a physical hardware
layout as well as the requisite software) for building 3-D computer
animated movies.

Problem

Creating even a one-minute 3-D computer animated movie is incredibly
difficult and time consuming.

Methods/Solutions

Organizing data in a heirarchical fashion and allowing the animator to
specify key frames between which the software will interpolate the
motion.

Key Ideas/Contributions

1. Organization of data in a heirarchical structure such that
transformations applied to a node propagate down to children below
them.
2. A language for programming 3-D computer animation.
3. A system where key 'frames' of the animation are specified and the
software performs interpolation inbetween these key frames.
Questions/Flaws

Dealing with textual data for model representations and designing the
animation is cumbersome. For the time, though, this work was probably
ground-breaking.