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Ivan Sutherland
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Ivan Sutherland

Father of computer graphics, creator of Sketchpad and the first VR headset

16 May 1938 United States Verified by our editors
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Age
88 yrs
Birthday in 191 days
Works listed
2
Software, Paper
Honours
3
Most recent 2012
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Ivan Sutherland is an American computer scientist often called the father of computer graphics. His 1963 Sketchpad program let users draw directly on a screen with a light pen, and in 1968 he built one of the first virtual-reality headsets. He received the Turing Award in 1988.

Biography

Sketchpad

For his PhD at MIT in 1963, Sutherland wrote Sketchpad, a program that let a user draw and manipulate shapes on a screen with a light pen. It introduced ideas such as objects, constraints and zooming and was a forerunner of graphical user interfaces and computer-aided design.

Virtual reality

At Harvard in 1968, with his student Bob Sproull, he built a head-mounted display that showed simple 3D graphics that changed as the wearer moved. It was so heavy it hung from the ceiling and was nicknamed the “Sword of Damocles”.

Graphics industry

He headed ARPA’s computing office in the 1960s, then taught at the University of Utah, where his students included the founders of Pixar, Adobe and Silicon Graphics. With David Evans he founded Evans & Sutherland, which made flight-simulator graphics.

Later work

Sutherland later taught at Caltech, co-founded a consulting firm and worked at Sun Microsystems, and has researched asynchronous (clockless) circuits at Portland State University. He received the Kyoto Prize in 2012.

Timeline

  1. 1938

    Born in Hastings, Nebraska, United States

  2. 1963

    Sketchpad PhD at MIT

  3. 1964

    Heads ARPA’s Information Processing Techniques Office

  4. 1968

    Head-mounted display; co-founds Evans & Sutherland

  5. 1976

    Joins Caltech

  6. 1988

    Turing Award

  7. 2012

    Kyoto Prize

Notable works

  • 1963

    Sketchpad Software

  • 1968

    A head-mounted three-dimensional display Paper

Awards and honours

  • Turing Award

    1988

  • IEEE John von Neumann Medal

    1998

  • Kyoto Prize

    2012

Did you know?

  1. 1

    Sketchpad ran on the TX-2 computer at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory.

  2. 2

    The Utah graphics programme he helped lead trained Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull and Adobe co-founder John Warnock.

  3. 3

    His brother Bert Sutherland was also a computer scientist.

Connections

Related people

Frequently asked

Who is Ivan Sutherland?

Ivan Sutherland is an American computer scientist often called the father of computer graphics. His 1963 Sketchpad program let users draw directly on a screen with a light pen, and in 1968 he built one of the first virtual-reality headsets. He received the Turing Award in 1988.

How old is Ivan Sutherland?

Ivan Sutherland is 88 years old, born on 16 May 1938 in Hastings, Nebraska, United States.

Where is Ivan Sutherland from?

Ivan Sutherland was born in Hastings, Nebraska, United States.

What is Ivan Sutherland known for?

Ivan Sutherland is best known for Sketchpad (1963); head-mounted display; Evans & Sutherland; Turing Award 1988.

What awards has Ivan Sutherland received?

Notable honours include Turing Award (1988), IEEE John von Neumann Medal (1998), Kyoto Prize (2012).

References

  1. Ivan Sutherland — Wikipedia. Wikipedia. Retrieved 4 November 2026.
  2. Ivan Sutherland — Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 4 November 2026.
  3. Ivan Sutherland — IMDb. IMDb. Retrieved 4 November 2026.
  4. Ivan Sutherland (Q62866) — structured data. Wikidata. Retrieved 4 November 2026.

Includes material from the Wikipedia article “Ivan Sutherland”, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. That text is available under the same licence. Learn more

External links

Wikipedia
Filed under Computer graphicsTuring AwardVirtual reality Computer ScientistEngineerEntrepreneur

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“Ivan Sutherland.” TrackFame, last updated 5 November 2026. https://trackfame.com/person/ivan-sutherland

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