Utah teapot

The Utah teapot, or the Newell teapot, is one of the standard reference test models in 3D modeling and an in-joke within the computer graphics community. It is a mathematical model of an ordinary Melitta-brand teapot designed by Lieselotte Kantner that appears solid with a nearly rotationally symmetrical body. Using a teapot model is considered the 3D equivalent of a "Hello, World!" program, a way to create an easy 3D scene with a somewhat complex model acting as the basic geometry for a scene with a light setup. Some programming libraries, such as the OpenGL Utility Toolkit, even have functions dedicated to drawing teapots. The teapot model was created in 1975 by early computer graphics researcher Martin Newell, a member of the pioneering graphics program at the University of Utah. It was one of the first to be modeled using Bézier curves rather than precisely measured. For his work, Newell needed a simple mathematical model of a familiar object. His wife, Sandra Newell, suggested modeling their tea set since they were sitting down for tea at the time. He sketched the teapot free-hand using graph paper and a pencil. Following that, he went back to the computer laboratory and edited bézier control points on a Tektronix storage tube, again by hand.