http://www.osnews.com/story/19399/The_History_of_the_Teapot Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:34:11 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread?302718 http://osnews.com/thread?302718 the teapot is ideal for testing, and they included it also in glut. that is one of the main reasons it's so often used (see glutSolidTeapot). and 3ds also has it as a "primitive". Wed, 27 Feb 2008 21:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (renhoek) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?302722 http://osnews.com/thread?302722 Sadly, more than half of the links on that page are dead. I was interested in all of them, though. Long live computer archaeology Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Dryhte) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?302775 http://osnews.com/thread?302775 My first big graphics program in my graphics class was a dancing teapot (with color changing lights) in glut Thu, 28 Feb 2008 03:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (eggs) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?302795 http://osnews.com/thread?302795 I've always wondered about the history of this teapot. I heard it by the name "Utah Teapot", now I know why :-)

I am still learning a lot about 3D stuff and OpenGL, but found the teapot very useful...

Thanks for the history, very interesting... Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (thavith_osn) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?302837 http://osnews.com/thread?302837 When I was starting to get involved with 3D CGI in the early nineties using 3D Studio for DOS and TOPAS I saw the teapot for the first time. Initially I thought that it was as uninspiring as an object can get for reference for 3D modelers but later I learned that the teapot was so famous because it had lots of attributes that were hard to model during the early years of computer generated 3D imagery.

It was so popular that 3DSMax even had a teapot primitive on its toolbox and most beginners tutorials included the teapot to demonstrate lightning, texturing and a few other things (don't know if that's still true as I haven't used that app in years).

Even for someone who already has a head start on 3D modeling, it can be somewhat challenging to model it and I believe that I saw it as an exercise in certain 3D modeling classes out there.

Man, what a trip down Memory Lane... Thanks, Thom! Thu, 28 Feb 2008 13:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (DeadFishMan) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?302865 http://osnews.com/thread?302865 True CG geeks will remember the SIGGRAPH in 1989 when the five basic solid geometric forms proven by the ancient Greeks was extended from five to six. The historical solids, the cube, dodecahedron, icosahedron, octahedron, and tetrahedron were augmented by the most recent discovery, the Teapotahedron.

It was a discovery greeted with much enthusiasm by all, with the teapotahedron being famous ever since. Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (komrade) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?302920 http://osnews.com/thread?302920 Good ol'BeOS days... :-) Thu, 28 Feb 2008 21:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dmrio) Comments