William Fetter

William Fetter (1928–2002) was one of the founders of modern computer graphics. While working at Boeing, he coined the term “computer graphics” in 1960 to describe the emerging practice of using computers to calculate and produce visual images. In 1964, he created Human Figure, better known as Boeing Man or First Man: the first human figure drawn using a computer and the first three-dimensional computer model of the human body.

Fetter came to computing through graphic design rather than computer science. Born in Independence, Missouri, he studied graphic design at the University of Illinois, graduating in 1952. After working in publishing and magazine design, he joined Boeing in Wichita in 1959, where he began investigating how computers could replace laborious manual perspective drawings with mathematically calculated views of aircraft and their interiors. Boeing established a formal research program around the work in 1960, with Fetter managing the project; he moved with the program to Seattle in 1963.

His defining achievement followed in 1964. To study how pilots interacted with aircraft cockpits, Fetter developed a mathematically defined, articulated digital human based on anthropometric data. Instead of drawing a person from one fixed viewpoint, the system stored a three-dimensional model whose position and viewing angle could be recalculated by the computer. The resulting figure could be used to study reach, visibility, seating position, instrument placement, and cockpit ergonomics before a physical environment existed. The computations were performed on Boeing mainframes including the IBM 7094, with images drawn by a Gerber plotter.

Known as Human Figure, First Man, or Boeing Man, the model established the idea of the human body as a manipulable object within computational space. Its skeletal wireframe form became one of the defining images of early computer graphics and anticipated technologies fundamental to computer animation, computer-aided design, ergonomic simulation, video games, virtual reality, and contemporary digital humans.

Fetter's work soon crossed from aerospace engineering into art. His computer-generated human figures were shown in Cybernetic Serendipity: The Computer and the Arts at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1968, the landmark exhibition that brought artists, engineers, mathematicians, composers, and scientists together around computers and cybernetics. Motif Editions selected Human Figure for the seven-print portfolio published in connection with the exhibition, alongside works by Computer Technique Group, Charles Csuri and James Shaffer, Maughan S. Mason, Donald K. Robbins, and Kerry Strand.

Fetter was also active in the emerging art-and-technology movement. In 1968 he helped establish the Pacific Northwest chapter of Experiments in Art and Technology, connecting artists with Boeing engineers and computing resources. After leaving Boeing, he produced computer-generated imagery for a 1969 Norelco television commercial—described as the first use of computer-generated imagery in a nationally televised commercial—and joined the Design Department at Southern Illinois University in 1970, later serving as its chair.

Fetter's importance rests on two unusually fundamental firsts: he named the field of computer graphics, then created its first digital human.