Drawings by Computer: Human-Figure Studies 1555046 - Human Figure, Extreme Reaching Pose

While working as supervisor of advanced design graphics at aerospace company Boeing in 1960, William Fetter coined the term “computer graphics” with engineer Verne Hudson to describe their process of turning coded data into sequential drawings produced by a computer-controlled plotter. The phrase defined a new field, naming the practice of producing images through computers and opening new possibilities for both industrial design and artistic creation.

At Boeing’s newly formed Computer Graphics Group, designers and engineers collaborated to apply digital visualization to questions of aircraft design. Fetter developed his human figure studies—commonly referred to as Boeing Man or First Man—to study how pilots interacted with cockpit controls, using computer-generated models to test reach, visibility, and overall cockpit ergonomics. Created between 1964 and 1967 using IBM 7094 and CDC 6600 computers and drawn with a Gerber plotter, it was the first computer-generated representation of the human body developed for design research.

A year before Fetter’s figure study appeared in the landmark exhibition “Cybernetic Serendipity,” the model had already been circulated in the media. In May 1967, United Press International (UPI) distributed a set of gelatin-silver photographs showing three views of the Boeing pilot model: seated front, seated side, and an extended reaching pose. Issued under the title Drawings by Computer, the images were based on Fetter’s computer-generated line renderings from Boeing’s Computer Graphics Group. UPI assembled and released its own wire-photo package from this material, making it the image’s first mass-media appearance.

Fetter’s studies render the human body as a framework of intersecting lines. Each view captures a stage of motion by the same subject. Every line serves a structural purpose, tracing the logic of proportion, angle, and rotation. Together, the three perspectives show the beginnings of a visual language that would shape digital imaging.