Computer animations are relatively common these days, but as we go back in time, enormous computing power was still needed to reproduce basic movements. In 1968, a team led by mathematician Nikolai Nikolaevich Konstantinov created the model of a moving cat. The algorithms were programmed on the fourth version of the BESM computer, and each frame ended up printed as an equivalent to ASCII art.
1968 was a fascinating year technologically. The Apollo 7 mission and its images left the whole world speechless, the roots of the tablet format were explored, the first virtual reality experiments began, and the experts of the time felt enthusiastic enough to predict the future.
However, important advances were also made in computer animation, with the difference that they did not happen in the West. Now, the original plan was not to test the robustness of the system or visual quality, but to develop a mathematical model of movement. In this specific case, a walking cat.
«Gatito» is the product of the work of Nikolai Nikolaevich Konstantinov and his team on the historic BESM-4 computer, a transistorized design with a reported capacity of twenty thousand operations per second. If my Russian is not as bad as it seems (?), the group of mathematicians used in this experiment a program designed to solve ordinary differential equations, so that the computer calculated and sent printing orders for each frame of the animation.
In the video we can observe additional drawings (like the cat's face 'jumping' to the screen), but what really interests us here is the movement. Once compiled and accelerated, the hundreds of printed frames reveal a precision and fluidity much more advanced than we would have imagined.
Many are those who believe that «Gatito» was the first computer-made animation, however, there are at least two projects that precede it: «Rendering of a planned highway» from 1961, and «Hummingbird», the first digital morphing, from 1967.
Source: Etudes.ru (Russian).
